Trip to Nagareyama, and Yet More Thoughts On LOTR

Visited the rellies in Nagareyama again today. This time we just dropped by for the evening, seeing as how we have to work tomorrow. Dinner featured a great deal of gyoza, which might have been for my benefit as I am a known gyoza junky. I didn't eat too many, though--probably about a dozen, which is hardly up to standards set in earlier years. After dinner we produced some omiage from our trip to Nikko. Being the busy cats we are, we hadn't had time to drop them off until now. The timing turned out to be a bit ironic, since the uncle and aunt had returned just yesterday from an anniversary trip to--guess where--Nikko.

Oh well. The gifts were appreciated nonetheless, of course, and tentative plans were made for a roadtrip during the spring break.

Right. About LOTR. Some of the scenes were great. The charge of the Rohirrim was great (but see below), and the lighting of the signal fires was breathtaking.

A few gripes.

Theoden's rousing speech before the charge was superb--except that it's supposed to be made by Eomer in a much cooler context, namely, following his discovery of Theoden's dead body and Eowyn's apparently also dead body, and immediately preceding a foolhardy charge straight into enemy ranks just as reinforcements are working their way across the battlefield. This sequence (Theoden's death, Eowyn's stand, Eomer's grief and rage) is quite possibly my favourite in Tolkien's version of RotK, and I'm a little miffed at how Jackson messed with it. What happened to "begone foul dwimmerlaik", or "the houses of lamentation"? I wanted to hear those lines, dammit!

Another issue is how the "world of Men" suddenly shrunk down to just Gondor and Rohan. I think I understand the reason for this--by focusing on just those two Kingdoms we get to build up some sympathy for them or whatever. But I rather liked the many-sided alliance that gathered together at the end to march on the Black Gate.

And the oliphants. They themselves were cool, but the ridiculous stunts involving them were silly. I scarcely thought it possible, but for sheer absurdity Legolas' one-handed takedown of the oliphaunt beat both his horse-mounting stunt and shield-surfing stunt in TT, hands down. And the tactical wisdom involved in the Rohirrim deciding to meet the oliphaunts head-on is a little mysterious to me. Oliphaunts alone are not very well-suited for a siege on Minas Tirith--they aren't capable of breaching the walls, they probably wouldn't even fit on the main road that winds up the city, and even if they did the handful of soldiers manning each one could be picked off by Gondor's archers easily enough. So why take them on on the open field? The real threat to the city comes from the hordes of orcs, who of course retreated behind the oliphaunts, but I don't see why the Rohirrim couldn't have simply trotted around the buggers and cut down the orcs anyway.

And, finally, Elrond's expression during the final scene at Minas Tirith was awful. Come on, Elflord, aren't you supposed to have some dignity or something?