Your Thoughts On Lotr: Return Of The King

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  • kidakida Join Date: 2003-02-20 Member: 13778Members
    <!--QuoteBegin--taboofires+Dec 22 2003, 12:38 AM --></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (taboofires @ Dec 22 2003, 12:38 AM )</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Yeah, you're probably right. I think he sounded more like a king before the change, however. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    So did I. I think he sounded kind of like a southern accent american..But does that really matter?

    I also thought that Legolas pwned the elephant hardcore.
  • ZigZig ...I am Captain Planet&#33; Join Date: 2002-10-23 Member: 1576Members
    WHAT DID BABAR EVER DO TO ANYONE~?!?!

    the bad guys were steering him >_<
  • kidakida Join Date: 2003-02-20 Member: 13778Members
    ROOFLES HAHAHAHHAH ROFL

    Babar?? HAHA

    *sniff*

    That was so funny

    Babar?

    Babar was like a 6 ft elephant, those things were fricking sauropods with giant ears and nasty thorns for horns... !!@!@#
  • l3igDl3igD Join Date: 2003-11-20 Member: 23262Members
    I couldnt run up to one of those things like they did the movie...i would drop sword/shield and haul *** out of there FORGET ALL THAT HONOR BS!!
  • Smoke_NovaSmoke_Nova Join Date: 2002-11-15 Member: 8697Members
    IMHO, it took a bloody boring (well-written) book, and did a near perfect cinematic translation, for theatrical release.

    Extended Edition is just for us hardcore fans.


    My only issue: Eowyn's helm left a lot of her face for her father to see.
  • elchinesetouristelchinesetourist Join Date: 2003-06-29 Member: 17775Members
    edited December 2003
    Note: below refers only to the movie. Altho of course in official canon Gondor ails as well..

    I find it interesting that Gondor is such a weak country.

    They have a terrible ruler, lack national spirit, experience an overall tendency toward <i>negative</i> population growth (impression from book), such that they are constantly threatened with extinction. Their army is inexperienced, have inappropriate weapons, do not know how to fight their enemies, and have no concept of combined arms.

    Army inexperience is natural p'raps. There are always new recruits. They should have had some veterans tho, especially having such a belligerent neighbor.. or perhaps their country has lived under the shadow of fear and stress for too long that it affects every common soldier and captain.

    Inappropriate weapons, undeveloped tactics, negative population growth.. these are inexcusable. Perhaps the negative population growth is due to their massive casualties in war resulting from their seeming inability to adapt. And maybe this is the reason they seem to lack veterans.

    The rest of their faults (spirit, ruler, combined) are lamentable and dire but are otherwise plausible..

    I was very disappointed in Gondor but I came to understand that the people love their country and wish it well tho it be ailing atm.. rather than having to have Gondor be the great might and brilliance of Men.

    The people in general's worship of the ancients is extreme and far beyond anything seen in real history I think.. Perhaps this contributes to the problem. I blame teh 3lves0rz!!!1.

    The orcs also seem to have problems fighting cavalry. It may be that Gondor has flailed around ineffectively for far too many centuries so that the orcs have become complacent.

    Gondor's citizenry is ugly.
  • RyoOhkiRyoOhki Join Date: 2003-01-26 Member: 12789Members
    <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The orcs also seem to have problems fighting cavalry. It may be that Gondor has flailed around ineffectively for far too many centuries so that the orcs have become complacent.
    <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    Historically speaking, cavalry is extreamly powerful against footsoldiers, and it wasn't until developments like initially the longbow and subsequently firearms that gave footsoldiers a chance against foes on horseback. LoTRs is fairly compitant in that aspect, in that the Orcs do have a lot of trouble with cavalry forces. Of course, if the movies were following the books exactly one elderly diseased Gondarian knight could have shown up on a 15 year old horse and the Orcs would all be like "OMG THE HUMANS HAVE TEH CHEESE STRAT?! GG NO RE K BI", and the vast armies of Mordor would have fled the field.

    In response to Gondor's lack of spirit, in the books much mention is made of Denathor IInd's viewing of the Palantir kept in the keep. Denathor starts looking into it quite a while before the War of the Ring and whilst Sauron can't directly control the Steward, what the Dark Lord does do is show Denathor endless images of the vast armies that Mordor is building. Thus for years and years Denathor only sees the strength of Mordor, and he loses faith in both his nation and it's ability to resist. By the time Gandalf shows up and the seige starts, Denathor is convinced that the forces of Good cannot win.

    The irony is that he actually is correct. What you see at the Battle of Pellanor Fields is only a fraction of Sauron's forces, and the truth is that it took just about all the strength Gondor and Rohan could muster to starve off total defeat. The next wave would have crushed them. Thus all their hopes were resting on Frodo destroying the ring, because if he didn't, victory was simply impossible.

    However, despite that, Denathor's views undoubtably had a strong influence over the kingdom itself. Recall as well that Gondor has been in decline for centuries, ever since the failed invasion of the West and the fading of Numenor's bloodlines. Gondor has been fighting the Corsairs in the south and trying to to hold back Sauron whilst at the same time fraught with internal conflicts and civil wars. It's small wonder that by the War of the Ring Gondor's people have lost just about all hope in any victory. They've simply seen too much death and war, and they know that they can't hold Sauron back.
  • elchinesetouristelchinesetourist Join Date: 2003-06-29 Member: 17775Members
    edited December 2003
    Their armies are too well dressed for being too inexperienced considering they have been supposedly at constant war.

    They seem to have terrible problems with expanding their population despite a seemingly relatively peaceful interior.

    I suppose perhaps that the nations of the south are in a more advantageous position and perhaps have a fearsome navy with which they raid the coastal regions and indeed assault far inland..

    btw as for cavalry deterrent that is not completely true I think.. there were already longbows in other cultures, indeed even on continental Europe. Crossbows are effective and other strong bows as well, for instance composite bows. Rohirrim cavalry is not very heavily armored, and Gondor does not seem to use its army very well nor know what weapons to give them so I think they can be discounted.

    Furthermore long weapon formations can stave off charges, and even if the horses reach them they will only be impaled or fall back since the men behind the frontlines will prop the foot soldiers up. Also add a group of archers with quality missile weapons behind the long weapon troops and the cavalry can be beaten away. They can simply shoot the horses if possible as well. There are other tactics such as tripping the horses, chopping their legs etc but these are more situational and small scale I think.

    Rohan and Gondor simply do not have combined arms at all, seemingly. And it does not matter if heavy cavalry is effective some of the time, of course it is, I think it's awesome, but the fact that the humans have it and the orcs do not means that the humans have been using it all the time YET the orcs still have no idea how to fight it. (orcs of course have a sort of cavalry but beside the point)

    Of course cavalry when used right can have good effect but in both movies the cavalry charges right into the long weapons and then smashes the entire army. Obviously the orcs do not know how to form themselves up correctly.

    Similarly there is no excuse for the cavalry charge on the elephants. And ESPECIALLY no excuse for having no bows to shoot the flying beasts, or for taking so long to produce them. It may well be inexperienced troops rather than inexperienced tradition, altho they are effectively the same since it is not so hard to figure out that you need to shoot the flying beasts. The horsemen could have simply spread out and shot down the beasts.. there is no excuse for them not to have developed this idea by now. This could have been very effective against enemy infantry as well and could have enabled the cavalry to exchange <i>some</i> sort of fire with the archers instead of sitting there and taking it. Of course sending the Gondor horsemen to simply charge towards a ruin to their deaths is foolish enough, so it is a failure of leadership and of training as much as it may be a lack of tradition and adaptability and the sacrifice of reality.

    Their army is in a miserable state despite their fine wear. They seem to be worthy recruits, but just that, recently trained recruits, with no leadership. There are a whole host of other faults that I may list later.

    The main thing I want to say specifically here in this post tho is that it is not the case that cavalry cannot be prepared against.. and Rohirrim cavalry is hardly that fearsome or unique, compared to real world cultures. If it were (I guess they may well be in Middle Earth), they'd be a great enemy to the orcs. If they are such a great enemy, the orcs should all know how to fight them, or they would have been destroyed long ago. If it is because Rohan is simply a small country, and Gondor's might and protection has contracted, at least the orcs should have specialized troops and SOMEONE who knows what to do, so that even if parts of the army are destroyed, other soldiers will try to do the right thing.

    Or maybe the orcs are all untrained and are cowards.
  • elchinesetouristelchinesetourist Join Date: 2003-06-29 Member: 17775Members
    edited December 2003
    someone should have killed that troll in the city

    while it is a dire situation to be in, while the forces at hand were quite unfavorable and not appropriate, while it may be hard to coordinate your troops, to rally soldiers scattered across the city, to maintain composure, if Gondor truly had a worthy army SOMEONE would have undertaken the mission to kill the troll. No matter if men must be sacrificed, it seems that many more must die for no reason since they offer barely any resistance to the troll while running away.

    Running away is not so bad, objectively, considering the situation, and even this failure to attack the troll is not so bad.. but it shows Gondor's military sorely needs experience, and leadership. Reminded me kind of of some situations with newbs in NS.

    There are yet more faults but they are more minor in that, not that the consequences aren't dire, but rather that it is a question of preparedness rather than unrealistic armies. I will mention them later if needs.
  • elchinesetouristelchinesetourist Join Date: 2003-06-29 Member: 17775Members
    <!--QuoteBegin--Ryo-Ohki+Dec 22 2003, 07:21 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Ryo-Ohki @ Dec 22 2003, 07:21 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> In response to Gondor's lack of spirit, in the books ... <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
    thanks for refreshing the details of the books.

    btw what invasion of the west? I know the island people tried to invade the Elves but I thot that was long before this and that Gondor did not do such a thing.
  • RyoOhkiRyoOhki Join Date: 2003-01-26 Member: 12789Members
    In 3319 Al-Pharazon assails Valinor, which leads to the downfall of Numenor. The nations of man then split apart after this event, and soon after the war depicted at the beginning of FoTR takes place. You're right in that Gondor really only came into existance after the splitting of the human lands. However, the entire race of men has been in decline ever since this event, and that's kind of what Tolkien tries to get at.

    In response to the military side of things, a few points.

    Firstly, Tolkien was first and foremost a poet. He was not a miliitary strategist. Thus most of the battles, when examined from a military standing, really don't work.

    Secondly, the Orcs are poor troops. Their training seems to consist of "Here's a sword. The enemy is over there, and they told me you guys look like dorks!". The overwhelming majority are conscripts and know little to nothing of military training.

    Thirdly, whilst true that some tactics in the medieval period did work against cavalry, ranged ones are out because apparently the orcs are too stupid to use much in the way of missile weapons, and they're not disciplined enough to use many of the others. If you look at the battles between the Spanish conquorers of Mexico and the Aztecs, you can see just have devestating calavry forces can be against footsoldiers. Now whilst in the first few battles the Aztecs were scared of horses, in the later battles they tried very hard to defeat them but generally could not. The speed, height, power and manouverability of the horse on the battlefield was not surpased until WWI, although it had been in the decline previously.

    Even with those things taken into account though, you still have to stretch your mind to believe that calavry is really that strong in LoTRs. But then again, that's why it's fantasy <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
  • elchinesetouristelchinesetourist Join Date: 2003-06-29 Member: 17775Members
    edited December 2003
    I was disappointed in the ending.

    While visually it might have been fine, the choice of music at key events soured the experience for me horribly.

    Most significantly at Arwen's return. Does the audience understand the import of the events happening before their eyes? Does the guy who chose the music? Does the <i>director</i>? the music is too conventional. It's just like a chick flick in that easy wrap up feel good kind of way. It substitutes gross fake emotion for real emotion. Something very important is going on here besides yay I'm fake happy for you in a fake TV world cuz you graduated from high school you bum! or some ****.

    That coronation scene could have been quite chilling, moving, haunting.. and for the most part, it did decently. I was ready to have my breath taken away; indeed, it was being stolen at that very moment, right before Arwen was unveiled.. she came out.. and then that stupid tune came on.

    Related to this altho I would realize it a bit later was the goodbye scene of the hobbits. I thot it exceedingly homosexual and zoned out, but now I realize that most of the reason for that was in the music. Considering what they've accomplished and what's happened in the world and what they've been through, how they behave is sensible. But the music, it wants to make us <i>feel</i> something stupid and fake, some emotion that I have never felt in response to events in real life or imagined. Something that is very different from what *I* would feel were I truly sincerely part of the action, both there and at Arwen's reunion. Something much faker and cheaper and weak and stupid. I am no stupid little kid or chick who needs that fix.

    Excuse me for rudeness, but hey, we're dealing with emotion. Plus I'm very tired <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
  • elchinesetouristelchinesetourist Join Date: 2003-06-29 Member: 17775Members
    edited December 2003
    As for natives of the Americas, there were no such things as horses. Therefore they are at a tremendous disadvantage, especially since the feature of cavalry is its facilitation of rapid conquest. (Not to mention the natives' incredible lag in technology)

    Since orcs and humans have seemingly been unable to dislodge each other for quite some time now, the orcs should have learned how to defend themselves properly, since it is quite possible (and vice versa)

    That is the logic, is all.

    Otherwise the explanation is sufficient, in that orcs are supposed to be untrained and strangely enough, so are the humans for whatever reason..
  • WindelkronWindelkron Join Date: 2002-04-11 Member: 419Members
    edited December 2003
    If the orcs are so untrained, how come there were so many shots of 1 orc taking out about 5 men before going down? Or some guy in armor and everything just standing at a wall and getting TOTALLY creamed by an orc? Where's the skill difference here?!

    oh, I heard that some of the orcs were really corrupted elves... ? So they have natural good reflexes?
  • l3igDl3igD Join Date: 2003-11-20 Member: 23262Members
    Well the race of orcs did come from elves...except the ones that the wizard bred
  • CplDavisCplDavis I hunt the arctic Snonos Join Date: 2003-01-09 Member: 12097Members
    edited December 2003
    I just got back its 2:30 in the morning. My **** sure is numb. <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
    But
    AWSOME MOVIE X10000 my numb **** was worth it!



    question:


    In the first 2 films they talk of and show all these huge amounts of evl human armies going to sauron.

    And in the last huge battle everyone keeps saying, oh we cant win we are soooo the victims of team stax! We are way outnumbered!

    But then
    Besides the guys on the oliphants where were the rest of the evil human armies?
    And that horse charge seemed to be pretty effective againts those overwhelming numbers of orcs Even without that ghost army.

    Im not the LOTRs expert but that battle seemed to go a lot well and better for the good guys then they were expecting.

    I think It would have been cool if the dead army was all the guys who died in that huge battle in the 1stmovie like brought back to life from the swamp and the fields of whatever its called. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> but oh well i didnt write the sotry lol and its fine the way it is. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->


    Lol ghost army, can fly though walls and jsut pwn everyone, =god mode

    Oliphants make Mr. <!--emo&::onos::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tiny.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tiny.gif'><!--endemo--> scared!

    Very awsome movie I cant want for the this to come out on DVD.
  • Smoke_NovaSmoke_Nova Join Date: 2002-11-15 Member: 8697Members
    <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Besides the guys on the oliphants where were the rest of the evil human armies?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    Behind the Black Gate, basically waiting for Gondor & Rohan to fall.
  • RenegadeRenegade Old school Join Date: 2002-03-29 Member: 361Members
    Loved the part at the end <span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'><span style='color:red'><b>SPOILER</b></span></span>

    Aragorn: (To Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pipin) No my friends, you bow to no one. *Aragorn and entire presesion bows*
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