A couple of corrections: 1. The statues are meant to be Isildur and Anarion, but the films completely remove Anarion. Therefore the statue seems to be of Elendil and Isildur. 2. The flying figure in the distance actually could have been an eagle going to scout out the land by request of Galadriel and Gandalf. Thanks commenters! 🙏🏼
You should know that the battle on the river was supposed to be filmed But there was a major storm that washed away the whole set So it's not right to say that it was not intended to be filmed Petter Jackson said so in the appendix of the extended DVDs Just saying 🇳🇴
The reason Frodo was denying food offered to him and telling Sam that he can't help him anymore is not because lack of kindness but he's seriously thinking about leaving the Fellowship (which he does think about in the book) and therefore distancing himself to Sam, as he prepares to leave him.
I believe that most of the travelling was cut out due to time restraints, but the specific scene of Legolas killing the fellbeast might've been to keep the percieved threat level of the Nazgul high. If they get instantly beaten the first few times they appear (at Weathertop, at the Ford of Bruinen, and now the Anduin), it's easy for the audience to feel that they're not so dangerous after all. But by showing the "upgraded" version of the Nazguls later in the movies Peter Jackson could reintroduce the tension they brought to the story as well. It also gives more emphasis to Éowyn's prowess as a warrior, since in the movies she's the only person to down a fellbeast. (Also, I'm not sure if giving Legolas the Oliphaunt kill is a compensation for "taking away" his accomplishment with the Nazgul. Maybe Peter Jackson just thought it would look cool 😂)
They've (PJ and the writers) spoke about this in the behind the scenes on the film- They had the scene planned and had the set built but a storm flooded it and made it unusable. It was passed over not because PJ "didn't want to do it" and more because "they had to move on due to external factors".
In the Return of the King video game, if you play as Legolas on the Pelennor Fields level, and you have sufficiently leveled him up, its possible to One-shot the Nazgul at the start, skipping like half the level. That was always one of my favorite parts of that game, I played it so many times.
@@Mr.FleshRot The moment you completed the game and could play with Gandalf you realised how OP that guy is. Never checked but I think he has Gimli's melee stats and Legolas ranged stats other than the double arrow, but arguably piercing shot is even better
@@Mr.FleshRot You played the prologue at Helms Deep with Gandalf and you could play the walls of Minas Tirith with him. After completing the whole thing and the challenge levels in the top of the tree you could play him on other levels.
Minor correction, the eagle flying high is actually an eagle (probably Gwaihir scouting at the request of Galadriel and Gandalf, who is resurrected at this point), not a fellbeast. They talk about it with gandalf in the two towers.
I prefer the Usenet version: "It's a Nazgul," Legolas gasped. "I've picked it up on the long-range scanner." Immediately Aragorn stopped and asked Gimli for the ground-to-air missile launcher. The hideous scream of the Ringwraith's engines filled the sky. Legolas fed the coordinates and magnetic signature into the homing missile and let it fly. An ear-ringing explosion shudderd the air. "A hit! A hit!" Gimli cried. "Nay," replied Aragorn, checking his readouts, "You cannot kill a Nazgul this way. We have only destroyed the F-22 Interceptor upon which it rides."
You wouldn't have picked up an F-22 with a long range scanner. And MANPADS aren't a very reliable way to take out a supersonic 5th-gen fighter. The author shoulda said it was an attack helicopter.
I love how the shooting down the Nazgul was kind of like ”sod off Khamul, we’re about to make camp” rather than ”shoot it down Legolas! It’s about to grab Frodo!”
legolas was the perfect companion, he performed believable stunts in a fantasy way. the hobbit was when it started to get to that "yeah right" type of stunts (the running on falling stones scene) such a good character either way even tho he doesnt really have many lines of dialogue
The one things the Hobbit has is Legolas actually ran out of arrows. My head cannon is that in between he went in a quest to get a magical quiver that never ran out of arrows because of the Hobbit events, which led to his infinite arrow glitch in LotR.
A change that wasn't mentioned was that in the movie, the statues of the Argonath consisted of Isildur and Elendil in the movie but in the book it was Anarion that was the right statue, Isildur's younger brother. Since he wasn't shown in The Battle of Last Alliance, only Isildur and Elendil, the latter was chosen as we did we see him. However, in Return of the King movie Denethor says the line "I am the stewart of The House of Anarion, thus have I walked and thus now will I sleep." which acknowledge the existence of him, despite not shown in the movies.
And now RIngs of Power doesnt have Anarion either, probably because he wasnt in the movie and the people writing that garbage cant read. Dude is getting slept on big time.
I read an interview where Peter Jackson intended to film this scene, but bad weather intervened. I 'think' , but don't quote me, the filming location was experiencing floods at the time.
Actually, Aragorn was letting the Fellowship take its time because he wasn't sure whether to go to Minas Tirith first or just head out to Mordor by some undecided path. He worried about the ring in Minas Tirith both for the potential problem of not easily being able to get away from there to Mordor, but also because it was what Sauron was expecting and thus kind of played into Sauron's hand. Aragorn really didn't know what to do at this point in the Fellowship's journey.
The more epic Legolas moments in the films the better I say :). The cave troll and elephaunt moments were great, but him surfing down the stairs on the orc shield was always my favorite.
In the book, the Nazgul Legolas shoots at isn't seen but heard. When Legolas shoots at it it is high in the dark sky. We're told it lets out a soul freezing wail, but we/ they never see it fall.
Though there's not a 'crash' from the Fell Beast hitting the ground after being shot by Legolas, in a later chapter an Uruk-hai mocks one of the Moria orcs, asking if their nazgul had “had another mount shot under him”, meaning that the one Legolas shot had to be replaced. So he either killed it or injured it enough for it to be replaced.
Legolas shot and killed the fell beast that the Nazgul was riding on. The Nazgul was unharmed (for obvious reasons) but was now unmounted and would have to make it's way back either to Mordor or dul Guldur in order to report and get a new mount. The Nazgul was not be able to cross the water due to it's inherent weakness concerning water. Only the Witchking was not afraid of crossing water. Meaning they could fly over water but not cross on foot, hoof or by boat (bridges were fine). Thus the Nazgul sent Grishnak's company across the river by boat to waylay the Fellowship
I really liked this scene overall, though it left out so much detail. The one thing that really bothered me was the sword held by one of the Argonath, as it seems to imply one of the statues is a likeness of Elendil, rather than the two brothers who shared the kingship of Gondor. *** ‘Behold the Argonath, the Pillars of the Kings!’ cried Aragorn. ‘We shall pass them soon. Keep the boats in line, and as far apart as you can! Hold the middle of the stream!’ As Frodo was borne towards them the great pillars rose like towers to meet him. Giants they seemed to him, vast grey figures silent but threatening. Then he saw that they were indeed shaped and fashioned: the craft and power of old had wrought upon them, and still they preserved through the suns and rains of forgotten years the mighty likenesses in which they had been hewn. Upon great pedestals founded in the deep waters stood two great kings of stone: still with blurred eyes and crannied brows they frowned upon the North. The left hand of each was raised palm outwards in gesture of warning; in each right hand there was an axe; upon each head there was a crumbling helm and crown. Great power and majesty they still wore, the silent wardens of a long-vanished kingdom.... [Aragorn's] hood was cast back, and his dark hair was blowing in the wind, a light was in his eyes: a king returning from exile to his own land. ‘Fear not!’ he said. ‘Long have I desired to look upon the likenesses of Isildur and Anárion, my sires of old. Under their shadow Elessar, the Elfstone son of Arathorn of the House of Valandil Isildur’s son, heir of Elendil, has naught to dread!’ -The Great River
The animal is not really a thing called a "Fell Beast." Tolkien describes it twice as a "fell beast": that is, a beast that is fell. But he also uses the phrase "fell beast" to describe monsters in Mirkwood. It's a description for a thing that has no name or for a vague collection of monsters that are all similar in that they are fell. "Fell," of course, means "ferocious" or "deadly." I think the thing is supposed to be some kind of pterosaur.
@SuStel And I still feel so bad for whoever played all of the Nazgul because of the extremely poor script, the crap interactions with unrecognizable casting with the actors and actress, and that they had to wear that, in another Tolkien fan’s words: “overly burly, almost hulking in appearance”, clothing! Also, Tolkien’s nine Ring-wraths are supposed to be (to an extend) extremely intelligent, and very eerie looking, that fits “the thin, grotesquely emulated Nazgul in the books.” It’s almost just like, if someone caught a cloaked evil spirit, on camera, which countless people have! Another thing, I don’t know if you think that these films are horribly made or not, because I do!
One thing I recall from the book scene was as they approached the Argonath. Frodo bows his head almost in fear at the stern mien of the faces of the two kings. He is roused from his fear by the kingly manner of Aragorn as he tells the Ringbearer that the descendant of Isildur's son, and Heir of Elendil, has nothing to fear as he reenters the land his forefathers founded so long ago.
It's been a few years since I read the books, but I remember how creeped out I was when Frodo saw Gollum only a yard away! I wish Peter Jackson would have left that in the movie. Great set of videos - Subscription added.
Something that surprised me after reading the books is that despite Tolkien having a vast repository of elven lore, Legolas remains the least expressive member of the fellowship. All other 8 characters we get their inward thoughts and motivations and character struggles, but there’s really not as much exploration of Legolas inward thoughts and attitudes compared to the others
@@factorfantasyweeklyI think it kinda reinforces the mystique of the eldar, of all people in the fellowship, next to gandalf legolas was an ancient eleven prince, he wasn't nearly like the young fellows of his group, he was like a super leveled up character hanging around level 1 guys, his silence and always remembering things centuries before tells he has an immense history and life behind him and he's way older and wiser than many. Just my take though.
Tolkien deliberately leaves Legolas on the periphery of the fellowship. There's a passage in, I think, Unfurnished Tales in which Tolkien writes about the elves being a people in decline, and the younger races taking up the mantle of main opposition to Sauron. He states that of all the fellowship, Legolas achieves the least, which reflects the withdrawal of the Eldar from the affairs of the wider world.
I love that you’re doing this cuz another youtuber started doing it I think philosopher games but never finished and it was my fav thing he did. Thanks ❤
Aragon doesnt alert anyone to Gollum because he knows exactly how sly Gollum is and also knows that Gollum will be extra careful around Aragon. The others being alerted would make Gollum act more carefully and possibly enough to get past Aragon. If Gollum thinks he is being stealthy he wont try harder to concal himself... allowing Aragon to track his movements and possiblely catch him.
I love this series. I’ve been a fan of the books since my mom read them to me in elementary school and the movies were nearly perfect. It’s nice to see an analysis that appreciates the beauty of the movies but can still recognize there were flaws that many of us wish hadn’t happened.
Very nice job! Great summary of the Anduin chapter. I would have loved to see the attack scene too, but understand why it's omitted. First, to make the story easier to follow for people not knowing the books, they just focussed on Saruman as the Antagonist from Rivendell to the end of part 1. Second, the overall pacing is very good as it is. A big actio sequence in Moria, then a breather in Lorien, then the big finale with the orc attack.
I loved the sleeves on the Argonath because they are structural and hold up the arms. Stone or concrete is strong in compression and weak in extension. Arms sticking straight ou without support would fail but sleeves are in compression from the weight of the arms and have a parabolic shape.
This is one of the spots this movie loses me in re-watch. There is so much development of relationships, and we get the slow corruption of boromir. The tense waiting, for Sam, Frodo and Aragorn separately agonizing over choices they want to avoid. The Legolas moment. The build to final confrontation between Frodo and Boromir; it’s just great, and it’s completely missed in the film.
Interestingly, there were plans for a white-water rapids fight scene in the movie. They obviously didn’t come to fruition (though why, I don’t recall).
@TheMinecraftlover25 Yeah, there was a big storm that caused Queenstown to be flooded, which washed away thd Sarn Gebir set, so they had to abandon that scene. There's an early animatic of how the scene was supposed to be, which is included in the behind the scene stuff on the Extended Edition.
@martinfvarela Though that wasn't the reason it wasn't the reason it was abandoned. Besides, Kiran Shah didn't reveal this until when they were shooting it (he should have told Jackson BEFORE that, good thing they didn't flip over) in the middle of the take.
That’s why I keep saying that they should have, for example, filmed all of the Anduin River scenes at the Vistula River, in Poland, and filmed Nen Hithoel, (the place where Boromir chases Frodo) at Bear Lake, in Utah and Idaho!
I’ll argue however, that even though the cgi is subpar in his “Legolas moment” scenes from TT and ROTK, as a concept it’s totally believable that an elven warrior of his stature could pull off such feats. Tolkien doesn’t describe the actual fighting in much detail, but you can be sure he’d imagine Legolas being extremely deadly.
First of all this is a great TH-cam series that I found recently, thank you for doing this. 9:15 my thoughts have always been that he didn't want the fellowship to be aware of Golem for 2 reasons he wanted to catch Golem and with others alert he likely thought it will be more difficult because they will scare him to be more careful and second he didn't want the hobbits to worry about Golem. Just my thoughts speculating on Aragorn not saying anything.
One important detail was omitted from this video: namely, _why_ the fellowship almost dies at the Rocky Rapids. I remember from the book that Aragorn had miscalculated their position at the river, and that he was surprised by the Rocky Rapids because he didn't know that he and his companions had already paddled so much far into the south. Although I don't remember what the reason for Aragorn's miscalculation was...
I think the reason he changed it is the Nazgul are scary and seem unstoppable. The issue is in the book you can tell the readers that and have many chapters of them failing but in a movie you need to show not tell and seen as every single scene where one of the non hobbit heroes is in it with a Nazgul they are very easily swatted away, like they have come across a persistent bee. Even some cranky hobbit tells them to go away and they do. It makes them seem well beyond useless and not scary at all, without all the text before hand explaining why you should be terrified of them. That it is the power and bravery of the characters that overcomes it and that is why they are so great that they can overcome a Nazgul.
You are doing an excellent job good sir. Enjoying your videos a lot, and very knowledgeable. Please continue and I am glad to have found you in your early times. I feel you will gain a mass of followers.
@@adhdhamster In the books Gandalf the grey fought all 9 Nazgûl on his own for a whole night and survived. The Nazgûl at night like that were at their most terrible. As gandalf the white, in the siege of Minas T. the witch king casted his sorcery on the gates to weaken them so the orcs could breach it and Gandalf stood in front of the broken gates when the Witch king was passing through them. They didn't fight but the witch king did not go past Gandalf.
@@Workplaylister You should add that there's no way a Nazgul had the power to break an Istari Staff, as was depicted in the extended edition. The Witch King would have been defeated (as Gandalf is no man) should he have tried to fight Gandalf but the Horns of Rohan sounded and the WK left to find easier opponents.
Just wanted to say thank you for all the LotR videos. I discovered your channel some days ago because the algorithm placed one of your LotR videos in my timeline. Now i've watched all of them :D So yeah, just wanted to say thanks :) Never read the books, only the Hobbit and the Silmarillion. And it's so interesting how much is happening or what and why PJ and his team changed stuff and the way you explain it, it's so nice. Now i want to read the books and can't wait for the next video!
Thanks so much for watching through the series! You’re a legend 🙏🏼 Definitely check out the books, especially if you’ve already read the hobbit and the Silmarillion. In terms of writing style, it’s a good blend of both the Silmarillion and the Hobbit style. You’ll love it!
@@factorfantasyweekly You're more than welcome! Thanks for the recommendation, i am looking forward to read the books! Even tho it will be difficult bc english isn't my first language 😅But there's no way i'm going to read the translated version. Now i am going to watch your newest video ^^ Have a good day!
I appreciate your work and your detail is really great. 2 things about Legolas' downing of the Fell Beast and Nazgul: This is another example of Tolkein's subtle lessening of tension like Frodo's call to Ebereth: The Fellowship has the resources to defeat Sauron and Sauron, despite all his hubris knows it. The real challenge was to get someone to commit to destroying the ring because Sauron will just "Goo Man"-it (yes already) (he is protected by sacrificing all his power and Melkor's beachhead in middle earth) to keep the beachhead in place. But Ea/God put singular people like Legolas and put an artifact grade bow in his hand by a ring-bearing elf to bring courage to the party. You can see this balance in The War of the Ring board game of the late 70s, early 80s: if you play it smart and keep the party where it needs to be, you walk the ring to mount doom and it gets destroyed, so simple. The second one also comes from board games (and AD&D1 talk): you talk around Legolas' action oh so polite but what we would have said with so much more impact: Legolas one-shotted the Nazgul. great moments in literature. And you can't do that in a movie.
Legolas shot a Fell Beast, rendering the Nazgul ineffective at that point. We don't even know if the Fell Beast was killed, just injured enough to be driven away.
It is good to have a point-by-point comparison between the books and the movies, but you can't make too much out of the temporal discrepancies like the one you pointed out here. It is an almost universal difference between the arts of literature and performance. The submarine pursuit in "The Hunt for Red October" took weeks in the book, not days. Temporal compression goes back way further than Shakespeare's compression of time in "Julius Caesar" or "Anthony and Cleopatra", for example, and is pretty much a necessity on stage or in film. This part of LOTR and 'Hunt' handled it by showing many of the significant events in a shorter span. Sometimes it is merely described in dialogue. Films often just superimpose the words "several [periods] later". Katherine Hartwick was fairly inventive by having the camera in "Twilight" rotate through several circuits in Bella's room showing the change in seasons through the bay window during Edward's absence. Playwrights and screen writers have to choose between, compression, omissions, intermissions, or the risk of patrons soaking their seats. 😵💫
Frodo jokingly referred to Sam as "luggage with eyes" in reference to Sam's report of Gollum as "a log with eyes" followed by complaining that he felt like he was only a bit of luggage since he wasn't any use with a paddle!
I know why they cut out Legolas' fight here, and it makes sense for a movie-but I wish it was left in! Nothing else to say here, except that this movie has really changed Sam's relationship with Frodo. Sam was his gardener and employee. Over the course of the trilogy he became Frodo's dearest friend, but the movie didn't have time for that relationship to mature, so had to start us off with it. Would've loved to have seen it.
I don't think the film mentions that one of the statues of Argonath is Anarion either, which is a curious omission (oddly enough, it's mentioned in the animated Bakshi version and they are both correctly holding axes)
After playing the shadow of Mordor and war games I like to imagine that the Nazgûl was Talion and his exceeding bad luck with elves (I know the games are not cannon but it’s a funny head cannon)
Jackson undoubtedly did a great job - I doubt anyone could have done better. And I enjoyed all 3 films. But I wish I had not seen them because the films are so impactful that the story in my head is distorted/corrupted. I no longer know the real Frodo, for example. My mind has been corrupted by the film version of Frodo…… Your analysis of all the changes just underlines this point - we think we know the story but we have to keep going back to Tolkien’s actual words to try to preserve the real story and the real characters.
@micklumsden3956 Hopefully, this will help, and forgive me for all of the details because, again, if you or anybody else is going to read this, I don’t know how else to get my point/s across: I picture English actor, (and Johnathan Pryce’s Bilbo look alike), Stephen Dillane as Frodo, or Joe Pesci look-alike, Chrissy, British actor Aneurin Barnard, a much better American actor than Elijah wood, Anton Yelchin, (he’s been dead since 2016), or English actor, Dudley Moore, as Frodo. For some reason, the internet will not say if Chrissy is English or an actor, so I’m just guessing. Also, Moore was not the most modest actor or person, but I think that him and Chrissy look a lot like Ian Holm’s Bilbo. But, unfortunately, Moore died the same year Fellowship came out. Having any of the film actors and actresses in my head is still a problem for me, too, because I still picture Andy Serkis’s Gollum voice and design, for example. But I now picture Oliver Reed or Leo Woodall as Sam, Richard Coyle as Gollum, Paul Micael Levesque or Alan Ritchson as Boromir, Kevin Durand, Oliver Price, or Terry Hollands as Aragorn, Elizabeth Debicki as Galadriel, one of Christopher Lee’s daughters, or Maria Sharapova as Eowyn, etc.
The video here seems to show them drifting peacefully between the Argonath, whereas in the book it is a narrow rushing rapid, in which Sam is totally overwhelmed with fear and vows never to get in a boat again.
A very good video. I just subscribed. I had read the books 3 times before the movies were made and I do not have everything memorized so I don't recall this. I will admit even though I was disappointed in a few things it is had to argue with Jackson's choices or the film's as a whole. We would have needed two more movies to get everything in and that would have made for a much slower paced experience.
@@gilnexdor05 You ignored my point or failed to understand (possibly because I didn't explain well enough). The issue isn't that he swung up on to the horse, but the way it was animated.He does not swing in the direction he would have been pulling based on how he grabbed on. THAT is what bothers me about it. It just looks wrong. p.s. being immortal has no relevance.
They had planned a scene depicting the battle scene along the Anduin River, but their entire set for the scene was washed away by a flash flood, so they lost everything for the scene.
I love Jackson's LOTR but omitting Legolas killing the fell beast was a crime. Along with giving half of Legolas' dialogue to other characters and the fact that he sleeps with his eyes open to Gandalf
It is never confirmed as a 'kill' but that he struck the Fell Beast badly enough to drive off the Nazgul and the beast needed replacing, as mentioned later by an Uruk Hai to a Moria Orc.
One thing about Argonath statues in the movies, the right one hold not jus "a sword" but Narsil itself as the hilt of it matches the real thing to the t. I dunno the full story of Narsil and Argonath, but something tells me that this person, who is on the statue, wasn't related to Elendil and didn't weilded Narsil.
The Argonauth are statues of Isildur and Anarion, so they are in fact the sons of Elendil :) now that is in the books, and both statues wield identical Axes In the movie, they changed Anarion to Elendil himself, Isildur is still there, and he is the one holding Narsil
@@EcthelionOTF Which is weird, because it's the statue with old face features and long beard is weilding Narsil, while the one one holds the axe. So I think it's Elendil that weilds it, not Isildur. If that's statues of them of cource.
@@factorfantasyweekly You're welcome. I was always on board for a detailed comparison. As a lifelong Tolkien nerd I appreciate what Jackson managed to do in introducing LOTR to a new audience, whilst keeping most of us nerds reasonably happy.
Well, Legolas arrow was a masterful shot, bringing down a fell-beast! But it cannot be on the same level as Gandalf fending them off at Weathertop by himself. In fact, so did Aragorn. That was up close and personal. Even Frodo struck the Witch-King in the foot when he was pierced by the morgul blade.
I remember being let down by this scene in the movie. I'm Canadian and when I think of 'mighty' rivers crossing a continent I think of the St. Lawrence and the MacKenzie or others like that. Not this little creek that wanders through a gorge and never is much wider that a street in New York City. There wasn't much grandeur or a sense of distance travelled and landscape changing. And not having Legolas shoot down his Nazgul was a shame. When I read the book at age 14 that scene made me think, "Yes, there IS hope!"
Also of note: the flying steeds of the Nazgul are not actually called "fell beasts" in the book, beyond as a brief description of its carcass after Eowyn kills it. Tolkien uses it the phrse "fell beast" in quite a few other places, but as a more generic term for various evil creatures (I think the phrase also appears in The SIlmarillion). But "fell beast" was never an official name of the flying creatures but is convenient to use, of course.
Being nameless is better IMO. Then it’s a nod back to Gandalf in Moria “there are many nameless things in the dark places of the world” and also the idea of new terrors emerging from Mordor (or Isengard) “what new devilry is this?” Jackson did well but Tolkien is the master!
Setting aside Arwen, Legolas is the one main character from LotR that is most elevated in the film. Book Legolas and Gimli are mostly comic sidekicks to Aragon. Neither ever appears without him or each other. Due to the charisma of Orlando Bloom and the demands of Hollywood, Legolas becomes the Superhero of the 9. It certainly becomes sadly ridiculous by RotK, but he is a fun character in the film.
The best arrow shot was when the fisherman killed Smaug. Aragorn didn't tell anyone because then they all would have missed other things looking for Gollum and Gollum would notice the scrutiny and be even more stealthy and less likely to get caught. And pronounce Mithril like they did in the movies, rather than wrong.
I noticed the difference and chalked it up to run time. If I was wealthy and had a grand house, I would love to have stone copies of the Argonath carved to bracket a large fireplace. It would be outrageously cool!😁
For anyone wanting to check out the audiobook, Andy Serkis has narrated the trilogy in recent years. IMO it’s a much better version than the Rob Inglis version that has been around for years. The Rob Inglis version is fine, but Andy Serkis is such a master of voices!
@@saeedshahbazian9889 That’s why I indicated that this is my opinion. It’s all so very subjective to personal tastes. I had listened to the Rob Inglis’ version for years. But by contrast he now sounds too stiff and formal to me. While Andy in my opinion brings the story to life. I might prefer Inglis when it comes to the Silmarillion, but I haven’t yet decided. We’re lucky to have such wonderful options to choose from!
Honestly I kind of like the change from axe to sword. If Isildur uses his father's sword to cut the ring from Sauron's finger and then a big deal is made of his heir still having the shards of the broken sword it seems weird to have them both wielding axes. As for. Legolas not shooting down a Nazgul I think it would just make them seem way less scary and oppressive in the later films if you could easily just shoot one down with an arrow. Works fine in the books. Not a movie.
I want to point out that while i understand that it can be helpful to refer to them this way, the term "fell beast" isn't actually the proper name for these creatures. We are never given a proper name for them but still the term "fell beast" isn't a name, it's a description. The word "fell" here meaning something dark, evil, dangerous, etc.
Better yet: whilst on the olyphant's back, a Nazgul flies over and Legolas downs it before killing the olyphant. Perhaps Gimli says, "that only counts as one and a half". Should I be a writer or what?
That scene was left out because the river they were filming on was at flood stage due to storms and it was too dangerous to film. It would have been an awesome scene though.
It would be too soon to reveal the flying Nazgul in the first film. It's more impactful to introduce them searching for Fordo in the Dead Marshes as a new unknown menace. And if it wasn't revealed that it was indeed Nazgul then it would not be a badass moment - he would have just shoot down some big bird or something.
I just rewatched the theatrical versions and remembered my biggest gripe about RotK - it feels like traversing Mordor, all the way from exiting Cirith Ungol to the inside of Mount Doom, takes about an afternoon. Yes, Movie!Frodo deteriorates quickly while in the Dark Land, but in no way is that clearly from the passage of time, it could just as well be due to the proximity of Sauron, which is a phenomenon mentioned several times.
Yeah I think that is a pretty valid criticism of the movies, you basically need to do 'research' to get a grasp of how much time is actually passing between scenes/events. But for how dense Tolkien's LOTR is I can sympathize with how difficult it is to capture in a film.
@@253Monty And doing research assumes that Jackson hasn't actually changed anything. The seventeen-year gap of time between Bilbo's leaving Hobbiton and Frodo leaving is clearly NOT the case in the Jackson film, for instance. In any case, my comment wasn't really a criticism of the movies. I was just pointing out that saying the Jackson does an incredible job showcasing the passage of time simply isn't true. As an example, in one scene Gandalf is in Hobbiton, and in the next he's overlooking Minas Tirith, and there's no sense at all about how long it took him to get there, except that he seems to have ridden in haste on a horse. But when the Company (excuse me, in the films it's called the "Fellowship") travels on foot, it's clearly much father to Minas Tirith than a blink-and-you-miss-it horse ride, even supposing that Gandalf took a quicker route than they did, which is likely. I've heard people who have never read the book exclaim how vague the time of Gandalf's trip from Hobbiton to Minas Tirith and back to Hobbiton is.
Well, yes but also no. Bard knew where to aim for and was an excellent bowman, under extreme pressure. Legolas was shooting, in the dark at an unknown target, that was causing Nazgul Fear to the party (hence Gimli's first thoughts that it was the Balrog) but had a high quality bow to assist his highly skilled archery shot. Both shots were great and very difficult.
Which can't be said about Philosopher's Games who still hasn't come to Council of Elrond yet and he has been stalling for almost two years, which is unacceptable.
Jackson really made a big thing between Sam and Gollum. While Sam did not like or trust Gollum he never got so worked up about him as Jackson makes it. As a matter of fact Sam and Frodo never have disagreements much less the nasty fights that Jackson creates. Jackson felt that he could not tell a story without controversy. Jackson and his crew were rewriting the script daily as people came up with what they thought were better ideas than what Tolkien wrote. The guy who played Frodo wanted a chance to “really act” so Jackson created a huge conflict between Frodo and Sam that never existed in Tolkien’s world. Sam fretted over how much Frodo suffered with the ring but they didn’t fight. What Jackson created is an offense to the entire story since Frodo had the ring in the first place because his nature was very laid back and he was not easily prey to the ring. Must be Legolas never made a fuss about wanting to “really act” because he never got any chance to show what a warrior elf is really like. The elephant cgi wasn’t very good. Just a lot of green screen for the elf.
The "nastiest" Frodo got toward same was after being rescued from the Orc tower at Cirith Ungol when Frodo snatched the Ring from Sam and called him a thief. It is another example of how the bearer of the Ring, no matter who, never surrendered the Ring voluntarily (in the book). I've often what Frodo would have done if Galadriel had accepted his offer of the Ring.
I HATED the unnecessary drama between Frodo and Sam with a passion, and my feelings haven't mellowed over the years. Also, Jackson's Sam is incredibly aggressive towards Gollum, that didn't sit well with me, either.
@@irena4545 I agree. I cannot watch those movies. It seemed like watching a trailer of the actual story in the book. They went quickly through much of the real story and then spent way too much time on battle scenes and Orks. They are so far from the actual story that Tolkien wrote. I know that when a book is made into a movie that the producers usually change a lot but what Jackson did changed the entire basis of the story. Most Americans never read the book so they loved a great fantasy/adventure story. Too bad that most of them will never know the actual story that Tolkien spent so much of his life writing.
@@ellietobe I don't watch them, either. They are beautiful, the sceneries, the costumes, the music, the aesthetics - but they are shallow and empty, everything focusing on the first plan visual spectacle without substance. The FotR was perhaps the best, with the changes only starting, but the direction TTT and RotK took only made the flaws in FotR stand out more. The Hobbit only showcased these flaw in full nakedness.
@@iasimov5960 Yes, Frodo hallucinated. At first he saw an Ork face on Sam. That is when he yelled at Sam. When he came to himself he apologized to him. The dedication that Sam had for Frodo was inspirational. Frodo would never have made it without Sam. Sam kept up hope even after the ring was destroyed and got them out to where they were rescued. Frodo never really believed that they would make it home because the ring had so twisted his mind….but he didn’t turn evil either.
Gotta disagree with you on one point. Rivers were the Fellowship's, particularly Frodo's, best friends. Saving him from Nazgul on at least three occasions.
I think Aragorn - and everyone else - didn't tell the hobbits because they didn't want them to be worried over nothing. I'd imagine he told everyone else in the party, or they also knew without having to be told.
I don't think the fact is that Gandalf struggles against a nazgul. It is simply that the Valar had instructed all the members of the Ishtari to offer council and guidance, and to not make themselves God's through their actions. All five wizards are exceptionally powerful as they are Maiars. The drawback is simply that they are bound to the skills and powers that are found in Middle Earth.
A couple of corrections:
1. The statues are meant to be Isildur and Anarion, but the films completely remove Anarion. Therefore the statue seems to be of Elendil and Isildur.
2. The flying figure in the distance actually could have been an eagle going to scout out the land by request of Galadriel and Gandalf.
Thanks commenters! 🙏🏼
You should know that the battle on the river was supposed to be filmed
But there was a major storm that washed away the whole set
So it's not right to say that it was not intended to be filmed
Petter Jackson said so in the appendix of the extended DVDs
Just saying 🇳🇴
Still only counts as one
Nice 😅
OH OH HE SAID THAT IN THE MOVIE
Hahaha
Brilliant 😂
Yes, one.
The reason Frodo was denying food offered to him and telling Sam that he can't help him anymore is not because lack of kindness but he's seriously thinking about leaving the Fellowship (which he does think about in the book) and therefore distancing himself to Sam, as he prepares to leave him.
I believe that most of the travelling was cut out due to time restraints, but the specific scene of Legolas killing the fellbeast might've been to keep the percieved threat level of the Nazgul high. If they get instantly beaten the first few times they appear (at Weathertop, at the Ford of Bruinen, and now the Anduin), it's easy for the audience to feel that they're not so dangerous after all. But by showing the "upgraded" version of the Nazguls later in the movies Peter Jackson could reintroduce the tension they brought to the story as well. It also gives more emphasis to Éowyn's prowess as a warrior, since in the movies she's the only person to down a fellbeast.
(Also, I'm not sure if giving Legolas the Oliphaunt kill is a compensation for "taking away" his accomplishment with the Nazgul. Maybe Peter Jackson just thought it would look cool 😂)
Agree about the perceived threat and saving the kill for Eowyn
They've (PJ and the writers) spoke about this in the behind the scenes on the film- They had the scene planned and had the set built but a storm flooded it and made it unusable. It was passed over not because PJ "didn't want to do it" and more because "they had to move on due to external factors".
@@Dessarius damn.
In the Return of the King video game, if you play as Legolas on the Pelennor Fields level, and you have sufficiently leveled him up, its possible to One-shot the Nazgul at the start, skipping like half the level. That was always one of my favorite parts of that game, I played it so many times.
Those games on PS2 were a large part of my childhood. Epic. Loved playing as Legolas or Gimli.
man that game was so damn good. I need to get my hands on it again and replay it.
@@Mr.FleshRot The moment you completed the game and could play with Gandalf you realised how OP that guy is. Never checked but I think he has Gimli's melee stats and Legolas ranged stats other than the double arrow, but arguably piercing shot is even better
I don't remember playing as Gandalf I think I would've. Hmmm that's weird because a friend and myself beat ROTC on hard mode just the two of us.
@@Mr.FleshRot You played the prologue at Helms Deep with Gandalf and you could play the walls of Minas Tirith with him. After completing the whole thing and the challenge levels in the top of the tree you could play him on other levels.
Minor correction, the eagle flying high is actually an eagle (probably Gwaihir scouting at the request of Galadriel and Gandalf, who is resurrected at this point), not a fellbeast. They talk about it with gandalf in the two towers.
Then Aragorn sees it again from Amon Hen.
I was looking for this comment because that's also what I remembered but I wasn't sure, thanks!
I prefer the Usenet version:
"It's a Nazgul," Legolas gasped. "I've picked it up on the long-range scanner." Immediately Aragorn stopped and asked Gimli for the ground-to-air missile launcher. The hideous scream of the Ringwraith's engines filled the sky. Legolas fed the coordinates and magnetic signature into the homing missile and let it fly. An ear-ringing explosion shudderd the air.
"A hit! A hit!" Gimli cried.
"Nay," replied Aragorn, checking his readouts, "You cannot kill a Nazgul this way. We have only destroyed the F-22 Interceptor upon which it rides."
😆
You wouldn't have picked up an F-22 with a long range scanner. And MANPADS aren't a very reliable way to take out a supersonic 5th-gen fighter. The author shoulda said it was an attack helicopter.
@@colbunkmust wtf?
@@jus4000kicks what is so confusing to you about my comment?
@@colbunkmust Everything in it (though it was a comedic response).
I love how the shooting down the Nazgul was kind of like ”sod off Khamul, we’re about to make camp” rather than ”shoot it down Legolas! It’s about to grab Frodo!”
Do we know if it really was the Easterling? I haven't made it that far in the book yet
legolas was the perfect companion, he performed believable stunts in a fantasy way. the hobbit was when it started to get to that "yeah right" type of stunts (the running on falling stones scene) such a good character either way even tho he doesnt really have many lines of dialogue
I hated that they made him so much more CGI in the Hobbit 😕
still enjoyed the hobbit
Legolas is considered lighter than a leaf. Jumping on falling stones is not very far from his specialities.
The one things the Hobbit has is Legolas actually ran out of arrows. My head cannon is that in between he went in a quest to get a magical quiver that never ran out of arrows because of the Hobbit events, which led to his infinite arrow glitch in LotR.
A change that wasn't mentioned was that in the movie, the statues of the Argonath consisted of Isildur and Elendil in the movie but in the book it was Anarion that was the right statue, Isildur's younger brother. Since he wasn't shown in The Battle of Last Alliance, only Isildur and Elendil, the latter was chosen as we did we see him.
However, in Return of the King movie Denethor says the line "I am the stewart of The House of Anarion, thus have I walked and thus now will I sleep." which acknowledge the existence of him, despite not shown in the movies.
And now RIngs of Power doesnt have Anarion either, probably because he wasnt in the movie and the people writing that garbage cant read. Dude is getting slept on big time.
I came here to mention all of this, glad someone else spotted it!
@@TheSuperappelflap He will be cast and will show up later in the series.
Glad you said all this… I had planned to..
Seems like at some point they would have to reference Anarion since he is the king of the south, while Isildur is king of the north
I read an interview where Peter Jackson intended to film this scene, but bad weather intervened. I 'think' , but don't quote me, the filming location was experiencing floods at the time.
I believe he talks about that in the DVD extras also. I remember them saying they even went so far as to build a set But it was destroyed in the flood
The Vistula River, in Poland, would have been a fantastic location
The DVD extras, yes. This is correct.
Please don't think. Know.
Actually, Aragorn was letting the Fellowship take its time because he wasn't sure whether to go to Minas Tirith first or just head out to Mordor by some undecided path. He worried about the ring in Minas Tirith both for the potential problem of not easily being able to get away from there to Mordor, but also because it was what Sauron was expecting and thus kind of played into Sauron's hand.
Aragorn really didn't know what to do at this point in the Fellowship's journey.
The more epic Legolas moments in the films the better I say :). The cave troll and elephaunt moments were great, but him surfing down the stairs on the orc shield was always my favorite.
FYI carrying boats over land from one body of water to another is called "portage".
They actually use that term in the book.
I thought portage was a kind of soup that peasants ate in the middle-ages.
@@Ryansghost That's *potage* , mainly made of root vegetables. I'm sure Sam would approve!
@@keithtorgersen9664 But not in the video.
@@TheWanderingFire No, potage is when you carry 'taters overland.
In the book, the Nazgul Legolas shoots at isn't seen but heard. When Legolas shoots at it it is high in the dark sky. We're told it lets out a soul freezing wail, but we/ they never see it fall.
Though there's not a 'crash' from the Fell Beast hitting the ground after being shot by Legolas, in a later chapter an Uruk-hai mocks one of the Moria orcs, asking if their nazgul had “had another mount shot under him”, meaning that the one Legolas shot had to be replaced. So he either killed it or injured it enough for it to be replaced.
This channel is a perfect for book nerds and movie buffs. Thank you for the effort you put into your videos!
Legolas shot and killed the fell beast that the Nazgul was riding on. The Nazgul was unharmed (for obvious reasons) but was now unmounted and would have to make it's way back either to Mordor or dul Guldur in order to report and get a new mount. The Nazgul was not be able to cross the water due to it's inherent weakness concerning water. Only the Witchking was not afraid of crossing water. Meaning they could fly over water but not cross on foot, hoof or by boat (bridges were fine). Thus the Nazgul sent Grishnak's company across the river by boat to waylay the Fellowship
How vampiric of them.
I really liked this scene overall, though it left out so much detail. The one thing that really bothered me was the sword held by one of the Argonath, as it seems to imply one of the statues is a likeness of Elendil, rather than the two brothers who shared the kingship of Gondor.
***
‘Behold the Argonath, the Pillars of the Kings!’ cried Aragorn. ‘We shall pass them soon. Keep the boats in line, and as far apart as you can! Hold the middle of the stream!’ As Frodo was borne towards them the great pillars rose like towers to meet him. Giants they seemed to him, vast grey figures silent but threatening. Then he saw that they were indeed shaped and fashioned: the craft and power of old had wrought upon them, and still they preserved through the suns and rains of forgotten years the mighty likenesses in which they had been hewn. Upon great pedestals founded in the deep waters stood two great kings of stone: still with blurred eyes and crannied brows they frowned upon the North. The left hand of each was raised palm outwards in gesture of warning; in each right hand there was an axe; upon each head there was a crumbling helm and crown. Great power and majesty they still wore, the silent wardens of a long-vanished kingdom....
[Aragorn's] hood was cast back, and his dark hair was blowing in the wind, a light was in his eyes: a king returning from exile to his own land.
‘Fear not!’ he said. ‘Long have I desired to look upon the likenesses of Isildur and Anárion, my sires of old. Under their shadow Elessar, the Elfstone son of Arathorn of the House of Valandil Isildur’s son, heir of Elendil, has naught to dread!’
-The Great River
The animal is not really a thing called a "Fell Beast." Tolkien describes it twice as a "fell beast": that is, a beast that is fell. But he also uses the phrase "fell beast" to describe monsters in Mirkwood. It's a description for a thing that has no name or for a vague collection of monsters that are all similar in that they are fell.
"Fell," of course, means "ferocious" or "deadly."
I think the thing is supposed to be some kind of pterosaur.
@SuStel It’s either a pterosaur, a pterodactyl, or (what I picture the steed to be) a Shoebill Stork!
@SuStel And I still feel so bad for whoever played all of the Nazgul because of the extremely poor script, the crap interactions with unrecognizable casting with the actors and actress, and that they had to wear that, in another Tolkien fan’s words: “overly burly, almost hulking in appearance”, clothing!
Also, Tolkien’s nine Ring-wraths are supposed to be (to an extend) extremely intelligent, and very eerie looking, that fits “the thin, grotesquely emulated Nazgul in the books.” It’s almost just like, if someone caught a cloaked evil spirit, on camera, which countless people have!
Another thing, I don’t know if you think that these films are horribly made or not, because I do!
One thing I recall from the book scene was as they approached the Argonath. Frodo bows his head almost in fear at the stern mien of the faces of the two kings. He is roused from his fear by the kingly manner of Aragorn as he tells the Ringbearer that the descendant of Isildur's son, and Heir of Elendil, has nothing to fear as he reenters the land his forefathers founded so long ago.
I did like Legolas vs the Olifant because Gimli’s reaction was priceless.
It's been a few years since I read the books, but I remember how creeped out I was when Frodo saw Gollum only a yard away! I wish Peter Jackson would have left that in the movie.
Great set of videos - Subscription added.
Something that surprised me after reading the books is that despite Tolkien having a vast repository of elven lore, Legolas remains the least expressive member of the fellowship. All other 8 characters we get their inward thoughts and motivations and character struggles, but there’s really not as much exploration of Legolas inward thoughts and attitudes compared to the others
Him saying that Legolas was thinking about “Running under the stars” is about as much as we get. 😂
@@factorfantasyweeklyI think it kinda reinforces the mystique of the eldar, of all people in the fellowship, next to gandalf legolas was an ancient eleven prince, he wasn't nearly like the young fellows of his group, he was like a super leveled up character hanging around level 1 guys, his silence and always remembering things centuries before tells he has an immense history and life behind him and he's way older and wiser than many. Just my take though.
It’s hard for short-lived men to understand what it’s like to be almost ageless.
How would one even begin to imagine what it’s like to be an elf???
Tolkien deliberately leaves Legolas on the periphery of the fellowship.
There's a passage in, I think, Unfurnished Tales in which Tolkien writes about the elves being a people in decline, and the younger races taking up the mantle of main opposition to Sauron.
He states that of all the fellowship, Legolas achieves the least, which reflects the withdrawal of the Eldar from the affairs of the wider world.
@Murdo2112, that’s great insight, thank you.
I love that you’re doing this cuz another youtuber started doing it I think philosopher games but never finished and it was my fav thing he did. Thanks ❤
Welcome to the community!
Twin Towers) His stair slide an elbow punch t Gondor protection was kicking,absolutely lov3d them
Aragon doesnt alert anyone to Gollum because he knows exactly how sly Gollum is and also knows that Gollum will be extra careful around Aragon. The others being alerted would make Gollum act more carefully and possibly enough to get past Aragon. If Gollum thinks he is being stealthy he wont try harder to concal himself... allowing Aragon to track his movements and possiblely catch him.
I love this series. I’ve been a fan of the books since my mom read them to me in elementary school and the movies were nearly perfect. It’s nice to see an analysis that appreciates the beauty of the movies but can still recognize there were flaws that many of us wish hadn’t happened.
Very nice job! Great summary of the Anduin chapter. I would have loved to see the attack scene too, but understand why it's omitted. First, to make the story easier to follow for people not knowing the books, they just focussed on Saruman as the Antagonist from Rivendell to the end of part 1. Second, the overall pacing is very good as it is. A big actio sequence in Moria, then a breather in Lorien, then the big finale with the orc attack.
I loved the sleeves on the Argonath because they are structural and hold up the arms. Stone or concrete is strong in compression and weak in extension. Arms sticking straight ou without support would fail but sleeves are in compression from the weight of the arms and have a parabolic shape.
This is one of the spots this movie loses me in re-watch. There is so much development of relationships, and we get the slow corruption of boromir. The tense waiting, for Sam, Frodo and Aragorn separately agonizing over choices they want to avoid. The Legolas moment. The build to final confrontation between Frodo and Boromir; it’s just great, and it’s completely missed in the film.
Interestingly, there were plans for a white-water rapids fight scene in the movie. They obviously didn’t come to fruition (though why, I don’t recall).
Think the set washed after a storm
@TheMinecraftlover25 Yeah, there was a big storm that caused Queenstown to be flooded, which washed away thd Sarn Gebir set, so they had to abandon that scene. There's an early animatic of how the scene was supposed to be, which is included in the behind the scene stuff on the Extended Edition.
I think it was also quite difficult and dangerous to film the water scenes with the scale doubles. For one, Frodo's double was unable to swim!
@martinfvarela Though that wasn't the reason it wasn't the reason it was abandoned. Besides, Kiran Shah didn't reveal this until when they were shooting it (he should have told Jackson BEFORE that, good thing they didn't flip over) in the middle of the take.
That’s why I keep saying that they should have, for example, filmed all of the Anduin River scenes at the Vistula River, in Poland, and filmed Nen Hithoel, (the place where Boromir chases Frodo) at Bear Lake, in Utah and Idaho!
I’ll argue however, that even though the cgi is subpar in his “Legolas moment” scenes from TT and ROTK, as a concept it’s totally believable that an elven warrior of his stature could pull off such feats. Tolkien doesn’t describe the actual fighting in much detail, but you can be sure he’d imagine Legolas being extremely deadly.
The CGI is not subpar in the Two Towers in my opinion
@@kittengem8518 I just meant for those specific moments. The only times it doesn’t look groundbreaking.
@@corey57255 yes i understand! :D
First of all this is a great TH-cam series that I found recently, thank you for doing this.
9:15 my thoughts have always been that he didn't want the fellowship to be aware of Golem for 2 reasons he wanted to catch Golem and with others alert he likely thought it will be more difficult because they will scare him to be more careful and second he didn't want the hobbits to worry about Golem. Just my thoughts speculating on Aragorn not saying anything.
One important detail was omitted from this video: namely, _why_ the fellowship almost dies at the Rocky Rapids. I remember from the book that Aragorn had miscalculated their position at the river, and that he was surprised by the Rocky Rapids because he didn't know that he and his companions had already paddled so much far into the south. Although I don't remember what the reason for Aragorn's miscalculation was...
It reminds me that I need to go back and read the books. There's a lot that I've forgotten.
Just learned that if you have Spotify premium the audiobooks are on there as well great vid as always keep up the good work!
I think the reason he changed it is the Nazgul are scary and seem unstoppable. The issue is in the book you can tell the readers that and have many chapters of them failing but in a movie you need to show not tell and seen as every single scene where one of the non hobbit heroes is in it with a Nazgul they are very easily swatted away, like they have come across a persistent bee. Even some cranky hobbit tells them to go away and they do. It makes them seem well beyond useless and not scary at all, without all the text before hand explaining why you should be terrified of them. That it is the power and bravery of the characters that overcomes it and that is why they are so great that they can overcome a Nazgul.
Love it man! Thank you for the video 🙏 if you added a map to follow especially during the massive traveling chapters, it’d be perfection
You are doing an excellent job good sir. Enjoying your videos a lot, and very knowledgeable. Please continue and I am glad to have found you in your early times. I feel you will gain a mass of followers.
If there was a Parkour Tournament, this elf would win it easily
Was a really good and underrated chapter of the Fellowship that i wish had been in the extended edition
The one thing I absolutely hate about the movies is the Gandalf vs Witch king interaction
Why's that?
@@adhdhamster It makes 0 sense and is much less badass than in the books
@@Workplaylister I should clarify... I haven't read the books lol so what happens in the books?
I'm asking all of these questions genuinely btw.
@@adhdhamster In the books Gandalf the grey fought all 9 Nazgûl on his own for a whole night and survived. The Nazgûl at night like that were at their most terrible.
As gandalf the white, in the siege of Minas T. the witch king casted his sorcery on the gates to weaken them so the orcs could breach it and Gandalf stood in front of the broken gates when the Witch king was passing through them. They didn't fight but the witch king did not go past Gandalf.
@@Workplaylister You should add that there's no way a Nazgul had the power to break an Istari Staff, as was depicted in the extended edition. The Witch King would have been defeated (as Gandalf is no man) should he have tried to fight Gandalf but the Horns of Rohan sounded and the WK left to find easier opponents.
Just wanted to say thank you for all the LotR videos. I discovered your channel some days ago because the algorithm placed one of your LotR videos in my timeline. Now i've watched all of them :D So yeah, just wanted to say thanks :) Never read the books, only the Hobbit and the Silmarillion. And it's so interesting how much is happening or what and why PJ and his team changed stuff and the way you explain it, it's so nice. Now i want to read the books and can't wait for the next video!
Thanks so much for watching through the series! You’re a legend 🙏🏼 Definitely check out the books, especially if you’ve already read the hobbit and the Silmarillion. In terms of writing style, it’s a good blend of both the Silmarillion and the Hobbit style. You’ll love it!
@@factorfantasyweekly You're more than welcome! Thanks for the recommendation, i am looking forward to read the books! Even tho it will be difficult bc english isn't my first language 😅But there's no way i'm going to read the translated version. Now i am going to watch your newest video ^^ Have a good day!
I appreciate your work and your detail is really great. 2 things about Legolas' downing of the Fell Beast and Nazgul: This is another example of Tolkein's subtle lessening of tension like Frodo's call to Ebereth: The Fellowship has the resources to defeat Sauron and Sauron, despite all his hubris knows it. The real challenge was to get someone to commit to destroying the ring because Sauron will just "Goo Man"-it (yes already) (he is protected by sacrificing all his power and Melkor's beachhead in middle earth) to keep the beachhead in place. But Ea/God put singular people like Legolas and put an artifact grade bow in his hand by a ring-bearing elf to bring courage to the party. You can see this balance in The War of the Ring board game of the late 70s, early 80s: if you play it smart and keep the party where it needs to be, you walk the ring to mount doom and it gets destroyed, so simple.
The second one also comes from board games (and AD&D1 talk): you talk around Legolas' action oh so polite but what we would have said with so much more impact:
Legolas one-shotted the Nazgul.
great moments in literature. And you can't do that in a movie.
Legolas shot a Fell Beast, rendering the Nazgul ineffective at that point. We don't even know if the Fell Beast was killed, just injured enough to be driven away.
It is good to have a point-by-point comparison between the books and the movies, but you can't make too much out of the temporal discrepancies like the one you pointed out here. It is an almost universal difference between the arts of literature and performance. The submarine pursuit in "The Hunt for Red October" took weeks in the book, not days. Temporal compression goes back way further than Shakespeare's compression of time in "Julius Caesar" or "Anthony and Cleopatra", for example, and is pretty much a necessity on stage or in film. This part of LOTR and 'Hunt' handled it by showing many of the significant events in a shorter span. Sometimes it is merely described in dialogue. Films often just superimpose the words "several [periods] later". Katherine Hartwick was fairly inventive by having the camera in "Twilight" rotate through several circuits in Bella's room showing the change in seasons through the bay window during Edward's absence. Playwrights and screen writers have to choose between, compression, omissions, intermissions, or the risk of patrons soaking their seats. 😵💫
Sam didnt get a paddle but he was literally the designated watchman... not just falling asleep in the boat 😅
Frodo jokingly referred to Sam as "luggage with eyes" in reference to Sam's report of Gollum as "a log with eyes" followed by complaining that he felt like he was only a bit of luggage since he wasn't any use with a paddle!
I know why they cut out Legolas' fight here, and it makes sense for a movie-but I wish it was left in! Nothing else to say here, except that this movie has really changed Sam's relationship with Frodo. Sam was his gardener and employee. Over the course of the trilogy he became Frodo's dearest friend, but the movie didn't have time for that relationship to mature, so had to start us off with it. Would've loved to have seen it.
The whole river scene is so well written I remember the first time hearing rob inglis narrate that shit and being like damn 🫣 what’s gonna happen next
I don't think the film mentions that one of the statues of Argonath is Anarion either, which is a curious omission (oddly enough, it's mentioned in the animated Bakshi version and they are both correctly holding axes)
Yep, the movie seems to omit Anarion completely. Should’ve mentioned it in the video, but it slipped my mind!
After playing the shadow of Mordor and war games I like to imagine that the Nazgûl was Talion and his exceeding bad luck with elves (I know the games are not cannon but it’s a funny head cannon)
Jackson undoubtedly did a great job - I doubt anyone could have done better. And I enjoyed all 3 films.
But I wish I had not seen them because the films are so impactful that the story in my head is distorted/corrupted.
I no longer know the real Frodo, for example. My mind has been corrupted by the film version of Frodo……
Your analysis of all the changes just underlines this point - we think we know the story but we have to keep going back to Tolkien’s actual words to try to preserve the real story and the real characters.
@micklumsden3956 Hopefully, this will help, and forgive me for all of the details because, again, if you or anybody else is going to read this, I don’t know how else to get my point/s across: I picture English actor, (and Johnathan Pryce’s Bilbo look alike), Stephen Dillane as Frodo, or Joe Pesci look-alike, Chrissy, British actor Aneurin Barnard, a much better American actor than Elijah wood, Anton Yelchin, (he’s been dead since 2016), or English actor, Dudley Moore, as Frodo. For some reason, the internet will not say if Chrissy is English or an actor, so I’m just guessing.
Also, Moore was not the most modest actor or person, but I think that him and Chrissy look a lot like Ian Holm’s Bilbo. But, unfortunately, Moore died the same year Fellowship came out.
Having any of the film actors and actresses in my head is still a problem for me, too, because I still picture Andy Serkis’s Gollum voice and design, for example. But I now picture Oliver Reed or Leo Woodall as Sam, Richard Coyle as Gollum, Paul Micael Levesque or Alan Ritchson as Boromir, Kevin Durand, Oliver Price, or Terry Hollands as Aragorn, Elizabeth Debicki as Galadriel, one of Christopher Lee’s daughters, or Maria Sharapova as Eowyn, etc.
The video here seems to show them drifting peacefully between the Argonath, whereas in the book it is a narrow rushing rapid, in which Sam is totally overwhelmed with fear and vows never to get in a boat again.
You had me at “Gibby”. 🤘
Good summary. Thanks!
A very good video. I just subscribed. I had read the books 3 times before the movies were made and I do not have everything memorized so I don't recall this. I will admit even though I was disappointed in a few things it is had to argue with Jackson's choices or the film's as a whole. We would have needed two more movies to get everything in and that would have made for a much slower paced experience.
0:10 the way they did this has always bothered me.
Bothered in a bad way or good way?
@@gilnexdor05 Bothered doesn't have a good way.
the way he grabs the reins and swings up looks unnatural, one of them is backwards.
@@Welverin its a fantasy word and the man who did it is an immortal elf who can walk on snow and do much more incredible things....
@@gilnexdor05 You ignored my point or failed to understand (possibly because I didn't explain well enough).
The issue isn't that he swung up on to the horse, but the way it was animated.He does not swing in the direction he would have been pulling based on how he grabbed on.
THAT is what bothers me about it. It just looks wrong.
p.s. being immortal has no relevance.
@@Welverin fantasy
I remember this scene, in the book it *slightly* suggests that Legolass actually has dark hair. Though that passage could be interpreted many ways.
They had planned a scene depicting the battle scene along the Anduin River, but their entire set for the scene was washed away by a flash flood, so they lost everything for the scene.
I love Jackson's LOTR but omitting Legolas killing the fell beast was a crime. Along with giving half of Legolas' dialogue to other characters and the fact that he sleeps with his eyes open to Gandalf
It is never confirmed as a 'kill' but that he struck the Fell Beast badly enough to drive off the Nazgul and the beast needed replacing, as mentioned later by an Uruk Hai to a Moria Orc.
One thing about Argonath statues in the movies, the right one hold not jus "a sword" but Narsil itself as the hilt of it matches the real thing to the t. I dunno the full story of Narsil and Argonath, but something tells me that this person, who is on the statue, wasn't related to Elendil and didn't weilded Narsil.
The Argonauth are statues of Isildur and Anarion, so they are in fact the sons of Elendil :) now that is in the books, and both statues wield identical Axes
In the movie, they changed Anarion to Elendil himself, Isildur is still there, and he is the one holding Narsil
@@EcthelionOTF Which is weird, because it's the statue with old face features and long beard is weilding Narsil, while the one one holds the axe. So I think it's Elendil that weilds it, not Isildur. If that's statues of them of cource.
But shooting a Nazgul down would draw the gaze of Sauron directly to the fellowship? Sauron might even think Glorfindel was in the party.
Thanks!
Right, that's me caught up. Keep them coming.
Thanks for watching!
@@factorfantasyweekly You're welcome. I was always on board for a detailed comparison. As a lifelong Tolkien nerd I appreciate what Jackson managed to do in introducing LOTR to a new audience, whilst keeping most of us nerds reasonably happy.
Well, Legolas arrow was a masterful shot, bringing down a fell-beast! But it cannot be on the same level as Gandalf fending them off at Weathertop by himself. In fact, so did Aragorn. That was up close and personal. Even Frodo struck the Witch-King in the foot when he was pierced by the morgul blade.
I like when Legolas pulled up and was like:
"It's Nazzin time" then shotted hims bow
I remember being let down by this scene in the movie. I'm Canadian and when I think of 'mighty' rivers crossing a continent I think of the St. Lawrence and the MacKenzie or others like that. Not this little creek that wanders through a gorge and never is much wider that a street in New York City. There wasn't much grandeur or a sense of distance travelled and landscape changing. And not having Legolas shoot down his Nazgul was a shame. When I read the book at age 14 that scene made me think, "Yes, there IS hope!"
Also of note: the flying steeds of the Nazgul are not actually called "fell beasts" in the book, beyond as a brief description of its carcass after Eowyn kills it. Tolkien uses it the phrse "fell beast" in quite a few other places, but as a more generic term for various evil creatures (I think the phrase also appears in The SIlmarillion). But "fell beast" was never an official name of the flying creatures but is convenient to use, of course.
As far as I could find, there is no name for the flying creatures. Therefore, fell beast it is. 😂
Being nameless is better IMO. Then it’s a nod back to Gandalf in Moria “there are many nameless things in the dark places of the world” and also the idea of new terrors emerging from Mordor (or Isengard) “what new devilry is this?”
Jackson did well but Tolkien is the master!
Setting aside Arwen, Legolas is the one main character from LotR that is most elevated in the film. Book Legolas and Gimli are mostly comic sidekicks to Aragon. Neither ever appears without him or each other. Due to the charisma of Orlando Bloom and the demands of Hollywood, Legolas becomes the Superhero of the 9. It certainly becomes sadly ridiculous by RotK, but he is a fun character in the film.
I need to re-read them. It's been over 10 years
Idk maybe it would diminish how scary the fellbeasts are supposed to be. But also aragorn scared 5 of the nazgul off
The best arrow shot was when the fisherman killed Smaug. Aragorn didn't tell anyone because then they all would have missed other things looking for Gollum and Gollum would notice the scrutiny and be even more stealthy and less likely to get caught. And pronounce Mithril like they did in the movies, rather than wrong.
I noticed the difference and chalked it up to run time. If I was wealthy and had a grand house, I would love to have stone copies of the Argonath carved to bracket a large fireplace. It would be outrageously cool!😁
That would be EPIC
That shot was Legolas just going, "Seriously? You thought that would work?"
Anduin river, not Aduin.
For anyone wanting to check out the audiobook, Andy Serkis has narrated the trilogy in recent years. IMO it’s a much better version than the Rob Inglis version that has been around for years. The Rob Inglis version is fine, but Andy Serkis is such a master of voices!
For me, the Rob Inglis' version is the definitive one. As much as like Andy I really don't like his narration of the story.
@@saeedshahbazian9889 That’s why I indicated that this is my opinion. It’s all so very subjective to personal tastes. I had listened to the Rob Inglis’ version for years. But by contrast he now sounds too stiff and formal to me. While Andy in my opinion brings the story to life. I might prefer Inglis when it comes to the Silmarillion, but I haven’t yet decided. We’re lucky to have such wonderful options to choose from!
Why do directors remove things from the books and claim movies Are a new way of story telling
Honestly I kind of like the change from axe to sword. If Isildur uses his father's sword to cut the ring from Sauron's finger and then a big deal is made of his heir still having the shards of the broken sword it seems weird to have them both wielding axes.
As for. Legolas not shooting down a Nazgul I think it would just make them seem way less scary and oppressive in the later films if you could easily just shoot one down with an arrow. Works fine in the books. Not a movie.
I want to point out that while i understand that it can be helpful to refer to them this way, the term "fell beast" isn't actually the proper name for these creatures. We are never given a proper name for them but still the term "fell beast" isn't a name, it's a description. The word "fell" here meaning something dark, evil, dangerous, etc.
Better yet: whilst on the olyphant's back, a Nazgul flies over and Legolas downs it before killing the olyphant. Perhaps Gimli says, "that only counts as one and a half". Should I be a writer or what?
Wow, why didn’t they get you on Rings of Power? 👀
@@factorfantasyweekly Because RoP has no imagination and wouldn't want competition from someone who has some.
These videos are great 👏👏👍👍👍
Hopefully they will show it in “The Hunt Or Gollum”
They were awesome scenes and if they hadnt extended the film into the first chapter of TTT maybe there would have been time to include them?
That scene was left out because the river they were filming on was at flood stage due to storms and it was too dangerous to film. It would have been an awesome scene though.
I found the statues unnecessarily large. The fact that they were bigger than the surrounding cliffs was kind of hokey.
It would be too soon to reveal the flying Nazgul in the first film. It's more impactful to introduce them searching for Fordo in the Dead Marshes as a new unknown menace. And if it wasn't revealed that it was indeed Nazgul then it would not be a badass moment - he would have just shoot down some big bird or something.
Half the Fellowship would have been killed if Orcs would stop hesitating to say something pointless before stabbing.
2:15 I think in the book they were actually getting shot with arrows in their boats by orc scouts
Jackson does NOT do an incredible job showcasing the passage of time. In a Jackson film it is nearly impossible to get a sense of the passage of time.
I just rewatched the theatrical versions and remembered my biggest gripe about RotK - it feels like traversing Mordor, all the way from exiting Cirith Ungol to the inside of Mount Doom, takes about an afternoon. Yes, Movie!Frodo deteriorates quickly while in the Dark Land, but in no way is that clearly from the passage of time, it could just as well be due to the proximity of Sauron, which is a phenomenon mentioned several times.
Yeah I think that is a pretty valid criticism of the movies, you basically need to do 'research' to get a grasp of how much time is actually passing between scenes/events. But for how dense Tolkien's LOTR is I can sympathize with how difficult it is to capture in a film.
@@253Monty And doing research assumes that Jackson hasn't actually changed anything. The seventeen-year gap of time between Bilbo's leaving Hobbiton and Frodo leaving is clearly NOT the case in the Jackson film, for instance.
In any case, my comment wasn't really a criticism of the movies. I was just pointing out that saying the Jackson does an incredible job showcasing the passage of time simply isn't true. As an example, in one scene Gandalf is in Hobbiton, and in the next he's overlooking Minas Tirith, and there's no sense at all about how long it took him to get there, except that he seems to have ridden in haste on a horse. But when the Company (excuse me, in the films it's called the "Fellowship") travels on foot, it's clearly much father to Minas Tirith than a blink-and-you-miss-it horse ride, even supposing that Gandalf took a quicker route than they did, which is likely. I've heard people who have never read the book exclaim how vague the time of Gandalf's trip from Hobbiton to Minas Tirith and back to Hobbiton is.
3:30 Bard's black arrow was a far better shot than that of Legolas
Damn
Well, yes but also no.
Bard knew where to aim for and was an excellent bowman, under extreme pressure. Legolas was shooting, in the dark at an unknown target, that was causing Nazgul Fear to the party (hence Gimli's first thoughts that it was the Balrog) but had a high quality bow to assist his highly skilled archery shot.
Both shots were great and very difficult.
Instead we got Legolas riding a shield down the stairs 😐
💀😂
A moment I wish I could unsee.
They are not rowing down the river, they are paddling. Argh! I have done both and apart from being in a boat on water they are entirely different.
I believe Legolas' sighting of an eagle was actually Gwaihir, I don't think he would have mistaken a nazgul for an eagle.
It is mentioned later in the books, while speaking to Gandalf the White, that he's sent Eagles looking for them.
are boromir and faromir longer lived like aragorn? or are they not direct decendents of numenorians like aragorn?
It's crazy your almost done with Fellowship already.
I know 😭💀
Which can't be said about Philosopher's Games who still hasn't come to Council of Elrond yet and he has been stalling for almost two years, which is unacceptable.
I’m on that weekly grind 🔥 and I even had COVID this week.
Jackson really made a big thing between Sam and Gollum. While Sam did not like or trust Gollum he never got so worked up about him as Jackson makes it. As a matter of fact Sam and Frodo never have disagreements much less the nasty fights that Jackson creates. Jackson felt that he could not tell a story without controversy. Jackson and his crew were rewriting the script daily as people came up with what they thought were better ideas than what Tolkien wrote. The guy who played Frodo wanted a chance to “really act” so Jackson created a huge conflict between Frodo and Sam that never existed in Tolkien’s world. Sam fretted over how much Frodo suffered with the ring but they didn’t fight. What Jackson created is an offense to the entire story since Frodo had the ring in the first place because his nature was very laid back and he was not easily prey to the ring.
Must be Legolas never made a fuss about wanting to “really act” because he never got any chance to show what a warrior elf is really like. The elephant cgi wasn’t very good. Just a lot of green screen for the elf.
The "nastiest" Frodo got toward same was after being rescued from the Orc tower at Cirith Ungol when Frodo snatched the Ring from Sam and called him a thief. It is another example of how the bearer of the Ring, no matter who, never surrendered the Ring voluntarily (in the book). I've often what Frodo would have done if Galadriel had accepted his offer of the Ring.
I HATED the unnecessary drama between Frodo and Sam with a passion, and my feelings haven't mellowed over the years. Also, Jackson's Sam is incredibly aggressive towards Gollum, that didn't sit well with me, either.
@@irena4545 I agree. I cannot watch those movies. It seemed like watching a trailer of the actual story in the book. They went quickly through much of the real story and then spent way too much time on battle scenes and Orks. They are so far from the actual story that Tolkien wrote. I know that when a book is made into a movie that the producers usually change a lot but what Jackson did changed the entire basis of the story.
Most Americans never read the book so they loved a great fantasy/adventure story. Too bad that most of them will never know the actual story that Tolkien spent so much of his life writing.
@@ellietobe I don't watch them, either. They are beautiful, the sceneries, the costumes, the music, the aesthetics - but they are shallow and empty, everything focusing on the first plan visual spectacle without substance.
The FotR was perhaps the best, with the changes only starting, but the direction TTT and RotK took only made the flaws in FotR stand out more. The Hobbit only showcased these flaw in full nakedness.
@@iasimov5960 Yes, Frodo hallucinated. At first he saw an Ork face on Sam. That is when he yelled at Sam. When he came to himself he apologized to him. The dedication that Sam had for Frodo was inspirational. Frodo would never have made it without Sam. Sam kept up hope even after the ring was destroyed and got them out to where they were rescued. Frodo never really believed that they would make it home because the ring had so twisted his mind….but he didn’t turn evil either.
Gotta disagree with you on one point. Rivers were the Fellowship's, particularly Frodo's, best friends. Saving him from Nazgul on at least three occasions.
I think Aragorn - and everyone else - didn't tell the hobbits because they didn't want them to be worried over nothing. I'd imagine he told everyone else in the party, or they also knew without having to be told.
I don't think the fact is that Gandalf struggles against a nazgul. It is simply that the Valar had instructed all the members of the Ishtari to offer council and guidance, and to not make themselves God's through their actions. All five wizards are exceptionally powerful as they are Maiars. The drawback is simply that they are bound to the skills and powers that are found in Middle Earth.
Glofindal I think I'm spelling his name right was the best fellowship member in my mind who was yours ?
I don't like the Ninja-Legolator, but I love Legolas as a great Archer.