Gandalf is an asshole.

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WanderingWind said:
No, it would have crammed an unnecessary "Hollywood" moment into an already epic movie. I mean, if we can't call a 9-10 hour long movie experience with an entire war, elves, dragons, undead spirits, magic rings, wizards and war-fighting oliphants "epic" than I'm afraid the word has lost all meaning...
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It can always get more epic.
And a scene with Aragon fighting the antagonist and threat behind everything would have been so awesome, and more congruent with the rest of the movie than f-15s and giant mechas. At least he has a physical shape in the books, so it's not that inconsistent with the source material.
 
Shanadeus said:
It can always get more epic.
And a scene with Aragon fighting the antagonist and threat behind everything would have been so awesome, and more congruent with the rest of the movie than f-15s and giant mechas. At least he has a physical shape in the books, so it's not that inconsistent with the source material.
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...no he doesn't. He doesn't have a physical shape at all.
 
Shanadeus said:
It can always get more epic.
And a scene with Aragon fighting the antagonist and threat behind everything would have been so awesome, and more congruent with the rest of the movie than f-15s and giant mechas. At least he has a physical shape in the books, so it's not that inconsistent with the source material.
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They already did have a fight, a battle of wills for the palantir. Terrible idea to simply have them fight just because sauron exists...that's your entire argument?

Theoden and saruman should have kickboxed. Sam and frodo should have ridden an oliphaunt into mount doom. Gimli should have made dwarf tossing jokes. Well, at least one of those shitty things happened.
 
Did anyone actually read the books? They were so boring. I couldn't get past the second chapter of the first one. In fact I used it to go to sleep if I had insomnia.

Adding more non-canon action sequences to the movies would have been a welcome addition.
 
elrechazao said:
They already did have a fight, a battle of wills for the palantir. Terrible idea to simply have them fight just because sauron exists...that's your entire argument?

Theoden and saruman should have kickboxed. Sam and frodo should have ridden an oliphaunt into mount doom. Gimli should have made dwarf tossing jokes. Well, at least one of those shitty things happened.
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Pretty much, a sword fight is much more epic than that lame staring contest with the magic globes.

Man you guys have such elitist attitudes. A sword fight with the threat of all middle-earth would have been much better than a fucking ogre/troll.
 
Shanadeus said:
Pretty much, a sword fight is much more epic than that lame staring contest with the magic globes.

Man you guys have such elitist attitudes. A sword fight with the threat of all middle-earth would have been much better than a fucking ogre/troll.
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No, it would just be tacky and done to death.
 
Korey said:
Did anyone actually read the books? They were so boring. I couldn't get past the second chapter of the first one. In fact I used it to go to sleep if I had insomnia.

Adding more non-canon action sequences to the movies would have been a welcome addition.
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Okay, you need to be subtle with your trolling. Like Shanadeus.
 
WanderingWind said:
...no he doesn't. He doesn't have a physical shape at all.
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There were references in the books to Sauron being physically capable of going to and from places (Aragon asks for Sauron to personally step through the gates of Mordor "so that justice can be done unto him", which would be impossible if he had no physical form) and Gollum refers to seeing him and his hand with the missing finger in person.

And to make it definite, one of Tolkien's letters (in which the events of the third book are being discussed) says that Sauron's form was of a inhumanly-sized (but not giant) man (like his appearance in the beginning sequence of Fellowship).




Anyway, Sauron doesn't fight directly. That's the whole idea behind his character. He tried to fight directly in the past, and he got his ass handed to him by both gods and mortals. He's a manipulator who acts through agents, deception, and corruption. He makes his presence felt without being physically present.
 
elrechazao said:
Hobbit > lotr > silmarillion

That's the order you should read them imo, not the order of how good they are. Silmarillion is my favorite, but it's not for everyone.
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That's the correct order. Silmarillion is an amazing book, but a heavy read.

WanderingWind said:
No, it would have crammed an unnecessary "Hollywood" moment into an already epic movie. I mean, if we can't call a 9-10 hour long movie experience with an entire war, elves, dragons, undead spirits, magic rings, wizards and war-fighting oliphants "epic" than I'm afraid the word has lost all meaning...
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Not enough explosions to be epic. I'm waiting for the Michael Bay remake.

WanderingWind said:
...no he doesn't. He doesn't have a physical shape at all.
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Sauron has a physical shape in LotR.

And yeah, I'm sure this is the first time the 'why didn't they use the eagles lololol' question has been asked, OP. Good job.
 
SatelliteOfLove said:
The Silmarillion is what you read when The Hobbit and LotR's has got you hot 'n bothered for more info on Middle Earth.
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I am going to finish the Silmarillion one day. I will succeed!

I love it when NeoGAF goes all Tolkien. Now I'm in the mood to play LOTR:O with the complete LOTR soundtrack playing in the background :)

Edit: Thanks Combichristoffersen!
 
Korey said:
Did anyone actually read the books? They were so boring. I couldn't get past the second chapter of the first one. In fact I used it to go to sleep if I had insomnia.

Adding more non-canon action sequences to the movies would have been a welcome addition.
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Yeah, the first half of Fellowship is very very very boring. Once you get to Bree it picks up. The movie essentially did in 30 minutes what they dedicated half the first book to.
 
GDGF said:
I am going to finish the Silmarillion one day. I will succeed!
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Don't worry, it took me six months to finish the Silmarillion (I put it down for 3-4 months before I picked it up again and continued reading) :lol

Great avatar BTW :D

DrForester said:
Yeah, the first half of Fellowship is very very very boring. Once you get to Bree it picks up. The movie essentially did in 30 minutes what they dedicated half the first book to.
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Eh, I don't think the first half of Fellowship is anywhere near as boring as Two Towers.
 
Martin Shaw's unabridged reading of The Silmarillion is among the most epic things you will ever listen to. His voice is so fucking perfect for it.
 
OuterWorldVoice said:
The eagles are introduced in the Hobbit as are plainly both unpredictable and distrusting of people and Hobbits. They behave according to their own whims and can't be predicted or ordered around.

They're giant magical Eagles, not policemen.
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They're also no more immune to the corruption of the ring than Gandalf. You can give them the ring, sure, if you don't mind serving in the mouse breeding pits of your eagle overlords for the rest of your days.
 
Combichristoffersen said:
Eh, I don't think the first half of Fellowship is anywhere near as boring as Two Towers.
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Two Towers is awesome. Has Helm's Deep and a tense chase after the captured hobbits etc. What's wrong with you people?
 
Alright, serious, I hope the suggestions of Aragorn fighting Sauron are just jokes. That would defeat the whole intent of the narrative.

/nerd hat off
 
Freshmaker said:
Two Towers is awesome. Has Helm's Deep and a tense chase after the captured hobbits etc. What's wrong with you people?
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The Hobbit chase is boring as fuck and Helm's Deep is eh. I'll give you that the ents crashing Saruman's party to fuck shit up is awesome, though.

Edit: Helm's Deep in the movie was pretty good, but it was dull as shit in the book.
 
Combichristoffersen said:
The Hobbit chase is boring as fuck and Helm's Deep is eh. I'll give you that the ents crashing Saruman's party to fuck shit up is awesome, though.

Edit: Helm's Deep in the movie was pretty good, but it was dull as shit in the book.
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Yeah, random idiots swinging around for no reason = pretty good.

Sucks that so many people have no appreciation for quality writing.
 
Freshmaker said:
Yeah, random idiots swinging around for no reason = pretty good.

Sucks that so many people have no appreciation for quality writing.
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Two Towers certainly isn't quality writing. It's a boring piece of tosh squashed inbetween the far superior Fellowship and Return.
 
Combichristoffersen said:
Two Towers certainly isn't quality writing. It's a boring piece of tosh squashed inbetween the far superior Fellowship and Return.
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:lol Ah. I get it. You're trolling.
 
I picked up the Silmarilion once, and it was like the most random mythological history ever. I didn't give it much of a chance though. You guys are saying it's good?
 
Puddles said:
I picked up the Silmarilion once, and it was like the most random mythological history ever. I didn't give it much of a chance though. You guys are saying it's good?
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It's great, but a heavy read. Certainly not for everyone.
 
Puddles said:
I picked up the Silmarilion once, and it was like the most random mythological history ever. I didn't give it much of a chance though. You guys are saying it's good?
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Welcome to any decent mythology ever.
 
onedoesnottankmordor.jpg
 
Puddles said:
I picked up the Silmarilion once, and it was like the most random mythological history ever. I didn't give it much of a chance though. You guys are saying it's good?
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Maybe you should before saying it's the most anything ever?
 
I don't know. I read a bunch of stuff about some evil dude proving how evil he was by re-writing some holy angelic symphony, and then I skipped ahead and someone wanted to steal some magic lanterns, and Balrogs were nerfed as fuck, and the whole thing just didn't seem that cool compared to LOTR.
 
Puddles said:
I don't know. I read a bunch of stuff about some evil dude proving how evil he was by re-writing some holy angelic symphony, and then I skipped ahead and someone wanted to steal some magic lanterns, and Balrogs were nerfed as fuck, and the whole thing just didn't seem that cool compared to LOTR.
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...

You know, just skip Silmarillion. Stick to LotR and The Hobbit.
 
scitek said:
The main problem I've always had with stories like this is that the entire area of land all these different races live on and such never seems to be bigger than the state of Texas. Kinda like how the land of Hyrule in Zelda games is always about the size of two Wal-Mart Supercenter parking lots.
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Well in the book it takes about 7 months or something to reach Minas Tirith, the journey is much longer than it seems in the movie.The whole timeline spans around 20 years in the books (from the moment Frodo receives the ring untill he departs in the Grey Havens)
 
Aaron said:
They're also no more immune to the corruption of the ring than Gandalf. You can give them the ring, sure, if you don't mind serving in the mouse breeding pits of your eagle overlords for the rest of your days.
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Came here to post this because it's one part of the eagle solution that doesn't get much play. The hobbits were found to be resistant to the rings evil due to the peaceful lives they have lived. If a human took the ring to Mordor it would get there. If an eagle took the ring to Mordor it wouldn't get there. If an eagle carrying a hobbit took the ring to Mordor the ring wouldn't get there and the eagle would have had a snack of hobbit besides.

No one is safe from the power of the ring. Not the mightiest of elves, not the wizards, and in the end, not even Frodo. (Aragorn resisted its power nobly but he not bear the burden for all of that long journey.)

A hobbit hoofing it to Mordor was the safest way they had.
 
The Eagle solution is not a solution; Sauron had air superiority. Pretty sure this was established on the first page. I don't know why people keep bringing it up.
 
Dyno said:
No one is safe from the power of the ring. Not the mightiest of elves, not the wizards, and in the end, not even Frodo. (Aragorn resisted its power nobly but he not bear the burden for all of that long journey.)
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except, of course, tom bombadil.
 
John Dunbar said:
except, of course, tom bombadil.
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Tom bombadil is arguably outside the Middle Earth continuity, Tolkien just stuck him in there because it was a cool idea.
 
John Dunbar said:
except, of course, tom bombadil.
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Tom Bombadil is such a pointless character. I don't think Tolkien himself even understood why he put him in the story. After writing he said he left them in there to confuse people. Kind of stupid IMO.
 
really? on wikipedia i found this quote about him by tolkien:

I would not, however, have left him in, if he did not have some kind of function
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plus other stuff, about him being an intentional enigma and such.
 
Halycon said:
Tom bombadil is arguably outside the Middle Earth continuity, Tolkien just stuck him in there because it was a cool idea.
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Actually he's not, but he is definitely an anomaly for Middle Earth. Tolkien did have a hard time explaining him though, that's for sure. In the end, he simply came up with the fact that Tom always existed in Middle Earth, and always would.
 
Nerevar said:
Tom Bombadil is such a pointless character. I don't think Tolkien himself even understood why he put him in the story. After writing he said he left them in there to confuse people. Kind of stupid IMO.
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I don't think it's stupid, I like that there is stuff in Middle-Earth that can't be explained. It makes the mythology more "real" to me. Would it be cool to know what Tom Bombadil is, or what happened to the other two wizards, or what really lies to the east of Mordor? Sure, but not knowing is equally interesting to me.
 
Tom Bombadil is A GOD.

I think it is a cool concept, do we really need to have everything explained? There is always some mysticism about things that aren't entirely laid out for the reader.
 
John Dunbar said:
except, of course, tom bombadil.
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I always thought of Tom as a manifestation rather than a person. He can't be affected by the ring the same way he can't be affected by time. He simply is.
 
Puddles said:
The Eagle solution is not a solution; Sauron had air superiority. Pretty sure this was established on the first page. I don't know why people keep bringing it up.
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because people are bored, I guess.

yea, Nazgûl on those dragon things >>> Eagles.
 
I love the books, but I thought Fellowship of the Ring, the movie, was better than the novel. Not true for the other two movies, but the first LotR movie was so damn good.

And The Hobbit--LOTR--Silmarillion is indeed the correct reading order.

By the way, how does GAF feel about that children of hurin book his son brought out a few years back? I've yet to read it.
 
Dreams-Visions said:
because people are bored, I guess.

yea, Nazgûl on those dragon things >>> Eagles.
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I think these things are referred to as Fellbeasts, at least in the movies..
Forgot how the book named them..
 
On FanEdit, someone (Kerr, I believe?) reorganized all of Jackson's movies into 6 parts, which turned out rather well I suppose.

His cut tries to follow the book and removes a lot of the filler found in the original and extended editions; ie: no more elves at Helm's Deep, the Treebeard stuff with Pip and Merry, etc.
 
Metroid said:
I think these things are referred to as Fellbeasts, at least in the movies..
Forgot how the book named them..
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They're Fell Beasts in the book too. Either that or I really am a soothsayer since I was calling them that years before the movies came out :lol
 
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