July 8, 2002

Bestest Bud
Brett C.

Elumakil, I loves ya!! I did go to the website you suggested and in the various text I found this little gem.

"Then suddenly Morgoth sent forth great rivers of flame that ran down swifter than Balrogs from Thangorodrim, and poured over all the plain...In the front of that fire came Glaurung the golden, father of dragons, in his full might; and in his train were Balrogs, and behind them came the black armies of the Orcs in multitudes such as the Noldor had never seen or imagined."

The fact that the lava is described as running swifter than the demons, instead of say running faster than a blarog can fly, is significant, as is the fact that the Balrogs are in Glaurungs train, meaning behind, and behind them [not beneath]come the orcs. This seems a clear picture of ground based forces to me.

[Very big credit here to the author of that website, who in my haste I failed to get the name of.]

Now Smaug. If you do visit the website suggested by Elumakil you will see first up a painting of Gandalf facing a wingless Balrog. I do not offer this as any sort of proof, except for the fact that loonies such as myself are not the only ones who picture the demon that way. That being the case I see it as perfectly valid for Red Horn to reopen the discussion and for others to respond. And anyway, the discussion of the Balrog's intelligence has been raised as a completely seperate point.

Red Horn, I have the terrible problem of having seen the Bakshi movie before I ever picked up the book. I still love the animated movie, but have trouble getting it's charicatures out of my head, even post Fellowship. So I still see Treebeard as sort of hulking, which doesn't quite match Tolkien's description. I guess I would like to see him somewhat bigger up top than dwon around the waist, and definitley lots of mossy beard, almost obscuring his face as it were, excetp for those great eyes. Above all, I want him to look ancient.

And yes, I also was impresesed with the powers of PJ's demon, so much so I didn't notice the protection sphere Gandalf creates with the light of his staff until the third viewing. I thought that was an excellent touch as well.

Incidentally, what would those here say was their favourite piece of music from the movie. I would be hard pressed to chose, though I do think the opening in the Shire was perfect.