Question about Lord of the Rings character(few spoilers!)

[jouzinka]

Círdan is old. He is actually older than old. At the beginning of LotR he is shown with Galadriel and Gil-Galad receiving a ring and at the end of LotR he is shown rather elder behind Galadriel and Celeborn, leaving Middle Earth. That's the sum of his screentime - 5 seconds or so. Plus, throughout the Hobbit movie trilogy, the Council is pictured as being consisting of Galadriel, Gandalf, Elrond and Saruman - they omitted Radagast from the meetings too - it would make even less sense to suddenly give an appearance to a bearded Teleri Elf and have the audience exclaim in unison "Who the f** is that and why haven't we seen him before?!" Plus, up until this point they didn't know that Sauron was to be feared and that he was gathering strength and that he was in Dol Guldur - all they know is that Gandalf told Radagast to keep an eye on the fortress. When the Nine appeared, she was duly scared and surprised. Yes, they went to free him from imprisonment, but I suspect that in this case Elrond and Saruman were the bodyguards/reinforcements. And the link mentions that it is assumed that other people were also members, but none other was confirmed by Tolkien. I would assume, then, that Thranduil would be one of them also, for example.

I do concede your point about the Orc. That was... weird. But, she could have just killed/debilitate him with that blast of light - just because we haven't seen the body afterwards doesn't mean there wasn't one.

While I agree they could have put up a better fight, I think Dale was too much of a structure for them and the people of the Laketown knew it too well. Savage fighting is all good, but not when you need to be organized and the Orcs know only one way - forward. Not so useful when you need to form groups and navigate narrow winding streets.

I liked what they did with Azog and Bolg. I thought that to just nail the weapon into Azog's forearm was brilliant, as well as tending wounds with nailed-into-skin steel and Bolg's armor was kickass. When you think how it had to hurt every time he moved, plus constant metal poisoning, no wonder they are so angry and vicious.

[Stella]

I agree with the comments about the CGI on the Orcs. It was far better when we had Sala Baker and Lawrence Makoare et al in prosthetics - it felt far more realistic than a heap of CGI, no matter how good the CGI was. It didn't feel real.

[Beorning]

Círdan is old. He is actually older than old. At the beginning of LotR he is shown with Galadriel and Gil-Galad receiving a ring and at the end of LotR he is shown rather elder behind Galadriel and Celeborn, leaving Middle Earth. That's the sum of his screentime - 5 seconds or so. Plus, throughout the Hobbit movie trilogy, the Council is pictured as being consisting of Galadriel, Gandalf, Elrond and Saruman - they omitted Radagast from the meetings too - it would make even less sense to suddenly give an appearance to a bearded Teleri Elf and have the audience exclaim in unison "Who the f** is that and why haven't we seen him before?!"

It's true that introducing Cirdan in the last Hobbit movie would be weird... but it only means they should've introduced him in the previous two movies  ;)

Plus, up until this point they didn't know that Sauron was to be feared and that he was gathering strength and that he was in Dol Guldur - all they know is that Gandalf told Radagast to keep an eye on the fortress.

Oh, they might've not known that Sauron was back, but they knew they were walking into trouble. I mean, whoever was in Dol Guldur, managed to imprison a wizard... So, it'd be prudent of them to take some reinforcements with them.

Also, didn't Gandalf actually say to Radagast in Desolation of Smaug that "in our blindness, our enemy has returned"? They might've not known for sure that Sauron was back, but they've had many reasons to suspect it was the case.

When the Nine appeared, she was duly scared and surprised. Yes, they went to free him from imprisonment, but I suspect that in this case Elrond and Saruman were the bodyguards/reinforcements. And the link mentions that it is assumed that other people were also members, but none other was confirmed by Tolkien. I would assume, then, that Thranduil would be one of them also, for example.

Oh, Thranduil was actually shown sitting in his kingdom and not giving a damn :) So, it made sense for him not to be at Dol Guldur...

I do concede your point about the Orc. That was... weird. But, she could have just killed/debilitate him with that blast of light - just because we haven't seen the body afterwards doesn't mean there wasn't one.

True, but that's my point: suddenly, Galadriel displayed powerful magical powers of the "shooting lethal blasts of light" variety. That blast might've been something she got out of her ring, but... do those rings really have these kinds of comic-booky magical qualities?

Also, I'd say that it's really weird that Galadriel alone was able to drive Sauron away. That makes her more powerful than Gandalf and... that's a concept I don't really like.

While I agree they could have put up a better fight, I think Dale was too much of a structure for them and the people of the Laketown knew it too well. Savage fighting is all good, but not when you need to be organized and the Orcs know only one way - forward. Not so useful when you need to form groups and navigate narrow winding streets.

Did the Laketown people know Dale that well, though? They spent only one night there... Also, I'd say that you're really selling the orcs short.  :-) They really aren't that stupid so they wouldn't be able to fight in narrow streets.

You know what's the biggest case of orc nerfing in the movie? The scene when Thorin and a second dwarf confront *one hundred* of orcs (pardon... "goblin mercenaries") and just *shrug*. Come on!

I liked what they did with Azog and Bolg. I thought that to just nail the weapon into Azog's forearm was brilliant, as well as tending wounds with nailed-into-skin steel and Bolg's armor was kickass. When you think how it had to hurt every time he moved, plus constant metal poisoning, no wonder they are so angry and vicious.

Bolg's armour might've looked kickass, but it surely wasn't realistic  :-) It's my gripe with Hobbit movies in general: everything in these movies looked soooo fantastic and kickass that it stopped being believeable to me. I much preferred the LOTR movies which managed to blend the fantastic and the realistic into a coherent whole.

[Drake Valentine]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/17/the-hobbit-changes_n_6331340.html - 8 Changes in the Movies that weren't in them. There are plenty of spoilers in those lists. I believe those only covered the first two movies.

Most of the changes I knew, except the first one.