Random thoughts on re-rewatching Return of the King

[bunn]

1) My goodness the Rohirrim are hard.  I mean, they are quite tough in the book, but here 6,000 Rohirrim go through the Armies of Sauron, including Oliphaunts, like a knife through butter.   I think Rohirric horses may be closely related to rhinos.    I don't care though. I love the charge of the Rohirrim at the battle of the Pelennor Fields in

Comments

[andrewducker]

Dwarves!
http://images.hollywood.com/site/hobbitsupersize.jpg

I assumed that The Mouth Of Sauron had really bad gums, and black blood (as all of the other evil beasts had black blood).

[philmophlegm]

Ahh, but the Mouth of Sauron is human.

[andrewducker]

He certainly _was_ human - but that mouth is not something that normal humans have.

[bunn]

This is a good point. He does have good strong teeth for someone whose gums are bleeding that much though.

[wellinghall]

I've only seen RotK once.

And the Rankin-Bass RotK once ...

[bunn]

I've seen it lots. Though nothing like as often as I've re-read the book. Perhaps I shall do that again next.

[inzilbeth_liz]

I haven't seen RotK since the Albert Hall a year last September so might be due my own random thoughts post. I loved the charge of the Rohirrim too but I can't help thinking I would have been terrified that my horse would stumble!

[bunn]

If you had a special Rohirric horse, it probably comes with a special anti-stumbling muscle. ;-)

[kargicq]

Far as I remember that charge, it was straight down a precipitous bank onto spears. Am no military historian but it looked like a demo from "how not to use cavalry" to me. Stumbling would have been the least of your worries.... :-D -N.

[bunn]

That's the Two Towers charge - the one with Eomer and the Unfeasibly Steep Slope. The Return of the King one is the one that is more or less on the flat, but involves an awful lot of horses moving at speed and tightly bunched!

Mind you, in both cases they hit the spear-armed enemy with an impressive splat.

[ladyofastolat]

Maybe once upon a time, all Bungles were peaceful, pleasant riverbank-dwelling creatures, but one day Yama and his friend went fishing...

I very much like the opening stages charge of the Rohirrim, which makes me cry every time. I don't like it as much once they start impacting with things, though, since it all gets a bit silly and implausible.

Must watch that film again. I watched all 3 back-to-back a couple of years ago, when Pellinor was away at Summerfest, and must do the same again soon. It made for a very long day, though!

[bunn]

There must be some explanation for the Evil of Bungles. They are, after all, the product of bizarre breeding practices, like orcs bred from elves...

I watched all 3 this week while I was fiddling with photos and boring bits of code, but they are a bit too interesting to allow your surface mind to float along on while doing other stuff. Too interesting. Distracting. I thought it would be OK as I've seen it several times, but ...

[ladyofastolat]

That yellow goo that oozes out of Yama's nose...? Are you sure it isn't ichor? ("It was considered to be golden in color," quoth the great sage Wikipedius.)

[bunn]

I'm *not* sure it isn't ichor. Frankly, nothing would surprise me when it comes to Yama Bungle.

[bunn]

I don't care much for the Faramir diversion in Osgiliath either. It all seems a bit pointless: Faramir comes over as unnecessarily violent and not thoughtful enough (and there are too many shots of Frodo's lips writhing like angry earthworms). Faramir is better in Return of the King though.

I suppose Faramir is a casualty of the desire to build up questions about whether Gollum is redeemable, which is interesting...

Oddly, Yama Bungle does *look* rather like Gollum, with his huge eyes, skinny body, snub nose, and facial expressions that are a bit cute but also undeniably rather evil. :-D