Faramir and other changes

Jackson of 10 years ago doesnt worry me, Jackson today does.

In that case who would you expect PJ to cast? (Brian Blessed and Tom Baker excluded as they more or less have Dominion over Bonkers slighty overweight British Actor) or pull it off?

I think the largest argument for not including it in a movie would be that the story can live without it and still make narrative sense.

Removing it does have some drawbacks as well, making Tolkiens world seem smaller for one thing.

As for casting, I don't know. Tom Baker when he was a bit younger then he is now might actually have worked pretty well. He apparently was up for a role in the Lord of the Rings movies, but turned it down flat when they told him he would have to move to New Zealand for a couple of years.   

Jim Broadbent 100%

I'm fine with the fact that Bombadil wasn't included, he would only have taken up precious screen time and isn't needed, really. In fact, I'm glad he isn't in the film - I love the character and the mysteries surrounding him, but it's so nice to still be able to read that part of the book and imagine what it looks like without it being messed up by images from the films. My own pictures of The Old Forrest and Bombadil are all I'll ever want from that section of the book I do wish they'd included 5-10 minutes of Old Forrest scenes, though. The jump-forward to Bree is a bit abrupt, and as Blue points out, makes Tolkien's world seem smaller than it is.

Ringdrotten wrote:makes Tolkien's world seem smaller than it is.

It's canon now. "Bree -- on the borders of the Shire".

Bluebottle wrote:
...As for casting, I don't know. Tom Baker when he was a bit younger then he is now might actually have worked pretty well. He apparently was up for a role in the Lord of the Rings movies, but turned it down flat when they told him he would have to move to New Zealand for a couple of years.   

He played a perfectly fine Marshwiggle.
I wouldn't mind him as Tom in the least!

Jim Broadbent is too old now, but he would have been great in his 50s. for some reason I imagine Tom as a nimble yet somewhat rolly-poly character, Broadbent would have needed an inflatable suit.

Maybe a younger Simon Callow might have got away with playing Tom Bom ? Hes got quirky when quirky is called for.

Forest Shepherd wrote:

Bluebottle wrote:
...As for casting, I don't know. Tom Baker when he was a bit younger then he is now might actually have worked pretty well. He apparently was up for a role in the Lord of the Rings movies, but turned it down flat when they told him he would have to move to New Zealand for a couple of years.   

He played a perfectly fine Marshwiggle.
I wouldn't mind him as Tom in the least!

That's it then.   Tom should play Tom.   

So apparently PJ and Co. first tried out having the mouth of the Mouth of Sauron placed vertically in his face. Once that was rejected, they instead made it twice as large as it should have been in post-production. What gives??
  

Why not just have the mouth the right size and use human acting to present the idea of his character. As in, show his bloody face, and let him bloody talk and bloody well have the moment with bloody Aragorn where the Mouth fails to look him in the eye and bloody well quails before his power and bloody well runs away like a whipped dog instead of flashing his 68 years of zero dental care for all to see just in time to be beheaded rudely.

But noOOoo.


Annoying Hobbit reactions. Check.
Teeth Grimaces throughout. Check.
Soulless commentary made by Gimli. Check.

And another thing, technically we should have seen some dwarves and men fighting on the side of Sauron in the battle scene at the beginning of FotR.
(It does work better cinematically having the Last Alliance face off against just orcs. I'm just saying.)

But really, doesn't that image of the Mouth cheapen his character a great deal? Instead of being an evil, corrupted descendent of the greatest race of men that ever lived he is become a laughable caricature of a person. Legolas hates him, Gandalf scorns him, and Aragorn makes a smirky/disgusted face at him before lopping off his head. I think this would have been a good opportunity to show an evil man in the trilogy. The only others that we see are less evil than misguided (as concerns the Easterlings). Although, I suppose the Haradrim on their mumakil are fairly evil.
Anyway, a prime example of where subtlety and integrity are compromised as a (probable) filmic necessity.

 

Mouth of Sauron portrayed a bit like this ??

Forest Shepherd wrote:
And another thing, technically we should have seen some dwarves and men fighting on the side of Sauron in the battle scene at the beginning of FotR.

Dwarves? I don't remember any explicit mention of this, though it would make some consistent sense.

Well, I was reading and the text in the Silmarillion says that some of every living thing was arrayed on both sides... except for the elves. I really don't see this is meaning that orcs and trolls were fighting with the Alliance, but it does say that of the dwarves, all of Durin's folk fought against Sauron. This would allow for some of the Ironfists or Stiffbeards from the far East, for example, to have fought on Sauron's side.

I've always enjoyed imagining the epic, internecine battles between voles, worms, and cockroaches during the War of the Last Alliance.  Tolkien said "all living things", and he of all people was one for precision of language.

Eldorion wrote:I've always enjoyed imagining the epic, internecine battles between voles, worms, and cockroaches during the War of the Last Alliance.

We've seen at least one moth that's clearly taken sides.  

 
Indeed.

The little bugger even has its own wiki page!
The Moth Signaling Service of Middle-Earth

Maybe the hedgehogs that radaghast was healing were the first victims of the great hedgehog wars. That could have been king Pickat, first of his name, Lord of the hedgehogs of milk wood who had just been battling with the forces of the dark hedgehog Lord whose name cannot be spoken (or written since my phone doesn't have a hedgehogish keyboard.