LOTR stuff
Jan. 9th, 2014 04:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanithryudoIt started with Hobbit II, and me trawling tumblr for pics. That led to reading linked articles about Tolkien in general, which somehow led me to go back and re-read the YvtW story arc for LOTR. And well, I ended up starting the re-write of that shebang that I'd always wanted to do but could never work up the motivation.
ossian, if you can read these, let me know what you think: Chapter 1 Chapter 2
Those were the easy parts. When we did the original thread, only FOTR had come out, so TTT and ROTK were entirely based on the book (entire sections were lifted almost verbatim) and not the movies. So the later parts will pretty much need to be completely re-written to incorporate more movie canon.
Anyway, some stuff that occured to me while (re-)plotting and trying to strike a balance between book and movie...
- As mentioned in my Hobbit review, the characterization of Legolas seems to be two different people. In Hobbit, he has a tendency to point out the obvious and smack-talk. In LOTR, he's mostly silent. Between his first appearance through Lothlorien, he had like one line that was anti-dwarf. He was overall more antagonistic to Boromir at the Council. Since Hobbit 3 hasn't come out yet, I'm going to lean more towards the silent LOTR version of his character.
- Saruman really didn't need the palantir for anything. He spied on the Fellowship via crows and via freaky long range telepathy montage with Gandalf or something. Also, his Words of Power can reach all the wall to the Misty Mountain high pass.
- The uruk hai got around a lot. From Lothlorien to Rauros...
- There's an additional WTF-factor on the PJ-manufactured scene in TTT where they fight wargs on the way to Helm's Deep, and Aragorn falls down a cliff, floats down a river, and spots the incoming uruk army from Isengard. Thing is... Helm's Deep is between Isengard (where the army came from) and Edoras (where the refugees came from). How do you spot an army marching past the point they were supposed to attack?
- For that matter, TTT implies that pretty much everyone in Imladris except for Elrond & Arwen left for Valinor during the War. Which is...wat. Do not want. So I'll probably go with book version for the Aragorn/Arwen relationship than the forced drama of the movies on that too.
- Also, also, going to toss out the Lothlorien elves showing up at Helm's Deep. For one thing nobody visited Lothlorien this time around. For another, I'm planning on making some references to the Battles of Dale/Lorien/Mirkwood that was going on at the same time in the war. We can replace them with an earlier arrival of the Grey Company though.
- As recent Hobbit research has reminded me, the Marshes of the Dead contains the dead bodies of 2/3 of the army of Greenwood (later Mirkwood) that fought at the Last Alliance. If Legolas had reached that point where his grandfather and 2/3's of his people had died on and was never properly buried...there really ought to be some reaction.
- Mass teleportation really screws with the timeline. Arriving at Rohan early means Theodred is alive and Eomer hasn't be cast out. Hm... though it would be interesting if we kill off someone else instead (Mwahaha...) Faramir shouldn't have gotten hit with Black Breath yet by the time they reach Gondor, and Osgiliath might not have been retaken yet either.
- Also, needs better excuse why the interdimensional starship in orbit is not an I Win button. Which is why I moved up Earendil.
- I'll probably need to rewrite the segue into the Afterlife Arc as well. Instead of having Aragorn deliver the news in Rivendell, I'm thinking about pulling some more characters out of the Silmarillion. Maglor maybe... or Tuor?
ossian, if you can read these, let me know what you think: Chapter 1 Chapter 2Those were the easy parts. When we did the original thread, only FOTR had come out, so TTT and ROTK were entirely based on the book (entire sections were lifted almost verbatim) and not the movies. So the later parts will pretty much need to be completely re-written to incorporate more movie canon.
Anyway, some stuff that occured to me while (re-)plotting and trying to strike a balance between book and movie...
- As mentioned in my Hobbit review, the characterization of Legolas seems to be two different people. In Hobbit, he has a tendency to point out the obvious and smack-talk. In LOTR, he's mostly silent. Between his first appearance through Lothlorien, he had like one line that was anti-dwarf. He was overall more antagonistic to Boromir at the Council. Since Hobbit 3 hasn't come out yet, I'm going to lean more towards the silent LOTR version of his character.
- Saruman really didn't need the palantir for anything. He spied on the Fellowship via crows and via freaky long range telepathy montage with Gandalf or something. Also, his Words of Power can reach all the wall to the Misty Mountain high pass.
- The uruk hai got around a lot. From Lothlorien to Rauros...
- There's an additional WTF-factor on the PJ-manufactured scene in TTT where they fight wargs on the way to Helm's Deep, and Aragorn falls down a cliff, floats down a river, and spots the incoming uruk army from Isengard. Thing is... Helm's Deep is between Isengard (where the army came from) and Edoras (where the refugees came from). How do you spot an army marching past the point they were supposed to attack?
- For that matter, TTT implies that pretty much everyone in Imladris except for Elrond & Arwen left for Valinor during the War. Which is...wat. Do not want. So I'll probably go with book version for the Aragorn/Arwen relationship than the forced drama of the movies on that too.
- Also, also, going to toss out the Lothlorien elves showing up at Helm's Deep. For one thing nobody visited Lothlorien this time around. For another, I'm planning on making some references to the Battles of Dale/Lorien/Mirkwood that was going on at the same time in the war. We can replace them with an earlier arrival of the Grey Company though.
- As recent Hobbit research has reminded me, the Marshes of the Dead contains the dead bodies of 2/3 of the army of Greenwood (later Mirkwood) that fought at the Last Alliance. If Legolas had reached that point where his grandfather and 2/3's of his people had died on and was never properly buried...there really ought to be some reaction.
- Mass teleportation really screws with the timeline. Arriving at Rohan early means Theodred is alive and Eomer hasn't be cast out. Hm... though it would be interesting if we kill off someone else instead (Mwahaha...) Faramir shouldn't have gotten hit with Black Breath yet by the time they reach Gondor, and Osgiliath might not have been retaken yet either.
- Also, needs better excuse why the interdimensional starship in orbit is not an I Win button. Which is why I moved up Earendil.
- I'll probably need to rewrite the segue into the Afterlife Arc as well. Instead of having Aragorn deliver the news in Rivendell, I'm thinking about pulling some more characters out of the Silmarillion. Maglor maybe... or Tuor?
