The One Thing Peter Jackson Did Wrong in The Return of the King
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 10 сен 2024
- Sometimes you watch The Lord of the Rings with a more critical eye. Although the trilogy is arguably the best trilogy ever made, it doesn't come without it's weakness. Of all the things that Peter Jackson did right, he did one thing wrong in The Return of the King and the battle for Pelennor Fields
The Ghosts. The Ghosts. The Ghosts. How did you mess up the ghosts?
Hero's Theme by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. creativecommon...
Good point. Obviously I love the movies, but another thing that bugs me is when the witch king destroys Gandalf's staff. That never happened in the book. In fact the army of mordor never even entered Minas Tirith, besides the Witch King. The gate is knocked down and the witch king slowly walks through the gates of Minas Tirith. All the soldiers of gondor are driven away by madness and fear. Gandalf is the sole person standing in the courtyard, staring down the Witch King. Then the Rohirrim came blowing their horns, and the Witch King retreats.
Yes you are right, that bugs me too. Gandalf the Grey stood equal to all nine Nazgul in Fellowship. Gandalf the White would have wiped the floor against a single Nazgul.
The scene is pretty epic though, seeing hordes of orcs run rampant in the streets of Minas Tirith
I also love that Elladan and Elrohir, son's of Elrond Peredhel himself, fight in this battle. It just is a much better way of seeing elves (half-elves really) fighting among men than what Peter Jackson shook out of his sleeve at the battle of Helm's Deep.
I might actually agree with you after hearing your point, but my biggest issue has always been how he killed Sauromon in two towers. We should've watched him attack the shire and that could've been a great 4th film.
Tolkien wanted to make the battle of the Pelenor fields about the triumph of man at the end of the 3rd age. There were no dwarfs or Elves to aid men.
There were also no Elves present in the two towers at the battle of helms deep. Jackson just added them for visuals.
Strange that Peter Jackson chose to use the ghosts at Pelenor, he stated in the commentary that he didn’t like the ghosts to begin with. I totally agree with you on this video, it might have added 20 minutes or so to the runtime, but I would have watched it anyways of course. Add to that I think Halbarad dies in the book, if not here then at the Black Gate. Before anyone says that nobody cares about Halbarad, Peter Jackson did a similar thing with Haldir (who I honestly don’t care about either) yet it still shows the costs of war
In movie gimli says after battle " we should keep them they are very useful" or something like that
That part of the movie as with the lack of The Scouring of The Shire disappointed me.
Great video! I like to think of the king of the dead as the leader of a fief under the overlordship of Isildur and his heirs. His oath (in my mind) was to hold the enemies of Gondor as his enemies and to defend his fief from those enemies. Once the corsairs were defeated the king of the dead proved faithful to his oath and was released. Aragorn didn't have power to hold him once that had been completed.
Love that insight. Thanks!
Would have been cooler seeing Aragorn arrive with the grey company and unfurling the banner of Gondor, like in the book. I also enjoyed how you used an excerpt of Rob Inglis audiobook. Always loved his narration (minus his singing lol)
I think the biggest problem with this, is that its just not a great look for the king of Gondor to return at the head of a ghost army. Its just plain scary to normal people, nevermind the cursed oathbreakers part. Ofcourse he is the king but Tolkien does make a point about how legit he is through a bunch of symbols and prophecies. He bears the banner of the king with the crown and stars, comes on a ship from the sea (like the Numenoreans once did), carries the sword of Elendil, has a bunch of important Men with him (not just Legolas and Gimli) and ofcourse he commands an army of Men, not ghosts. He also camps outside the city after the battle and doesnt want to enter without permission of the steward. He only enters at Gandalfs request to heal Faramir, Eowyn and Merry using Athelas or Kingsfoil, which fullfulls an old saying about 'the hands of the king being the hands of a healer.' So there's a pretty big difference between all this fuss about how legit Aragorn is as king and him leading a spooky scary ghost army that we even see entering the city in the movies.
The book is of course so much better in so many ways, it is way better the King returns leading actual men (and three elves and a dwarf). (were there men in the movie though? Who's sailing those ships, the ghosts, or just the trio?!) And something about the ghosts were a little video gamey, compared with the book where they slowly advance and the enemy go mad with fear. Are they litteraly killing orcs in the movie?
However, I don't think it underminds Rohan's sacrifice as much as you, just due to the timing. Theoden couldn't have waited ten minutes (and surely it was longer then that) because the enemy was literally pouring into the city - invincible or not, Aragorn was going to arrive too late, I think. Maybe they'd be some survivors, but nowhere near the same numbers, and likely not Gandalf or Faramir.
Really, at this point in the movie, there's many annoying choices that pile up, and the ghosts are just one of them. I think Legolas feeling the need to take on an Mumikil all by himself, mainly to show off to Gimli despite them having a seemingly invisible army of the damned, is more tonally insulting to the rest of the battle then anything else. Yet, we learn to compartmentalize because the great moments to film nails make it worth it. "DEAAAAATH!!"
Solid point. The Rohirrim likely saved the city of Minas Tirith and the White Tree of Gondor.
Great video and everything said makes total sense! Thanks for sharing!!
The army of ghosts did work well since story wise you (were getting tired/weary of the battle that) needed a quick ending to move the plot further!
But I would have enjoyed more the arrival of other Gondorian forces under the banner of Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth and the Dunedain rangers!
Yes! I'd love to see prince Imrahil in the movies! Maybe make a LOTR TV series! (But maybe not, I'm not sure if I trust anyone to do it justice.)
That ghost army ruins the end battle for me in the movie. So dumb writing and change from the books.
Great video! Love LOTR!!! Best movie ever! But I am a little disappointed that there is no batman.
Agreed! We need more batman!
I hate how Peter Jackson made the Gondor Soldiers weak in the movies in the books they were more valiant fighters like the Rohirrim
Yeah they're pretty incompetent
Peter Jackson made a lot of mistakes with ROTK imo. Specifically relating to the battle of pellanor fields which was the best chapter in the entire series in my opinion. They changed the dialogue between eowyn and the witch king saving her big reveal until the end of the fight as a suprise. In the books eowyn takes her helmet off at the start of the battle, and it scares the witch king because "no living man can kill him" Shes not a man, so her revealing that before the fight adds a lot of the intrigue to the scenario. They also reduced eomers hugely significant role in the battle for gondor, which is a shame. Eomers dialogue in the book is incredible. Eomer is the one who said "now for wraith, now for ruin" in the battle of gondor but peter jackson had theoden use it in the two towers. RIP Theoden King.
Super interesting, never knew that about the ghosts. Especially cool about the Dunedain rangers.
Agreed. The Dunedain coming to Minas Tirith would have been super cool!!
It was a cinematic decision. Less characters and their introductions saves movie-time. It happened on more occassions.
Like it was not Eomar who appeared at Helm's Deep when the Uruk-hai besieged it, but Erkenbrand.
Arwen did not take Frodo to escape the Näzgul and did not call the waterspirits at the Bruinen River, but Glorfindel did...
But still the LOTR Peter Jackson made is epic and puts...to this day!...everything else in the shade.
This makes me want to read the books again! Great video!!
Agreed! The books are very inspiring.
In many ways, Return of the King is the weakest film in the trilogy in terms of plot & fidelity to the source material. A lot of that is due to decisions that were made in the earlier films having to be paid off in the third.
Third films are usually the weakest in a trilogy