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ecthelionsbeard
Lorien
Dec 20 2014, 9:31pm
Post #1 of 7
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Question about BOTFA...
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So, we have the plot thread involving Legolas and Tauriel investigating Gundabad, where they discover a second orc army on the march. Naturally, they head back to Dale and warn the others. However, earlier we see Gandalf alert Radagast to the first orc army led be Azog and that he will need his assistance with the help of the eagles. Fast forward… the eagles show up, as per Gandalf's warning, and wipe out the second army Legolas and Tauriel warned them about. As such, it seems to me that renders Legolas and Tauriel's plot thread moot.. or am I missing something?? Thoughts?
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Aragorn the Elfstone
Tol Eressea
Dec 20 2014, 9:41pm
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...about (and see) the army from Gundabad, which then creates tension as Bilbo then goes off to warn Thorin and Co. about oncoming force (and thus Azog's trap). Plus, nobody knows when Radagast will show up, or if he will even be in time.
"The danger with any movie that does as well as this one does is that the amount of money it's making and the number of awards that it's got becomes almost more important than the movie itself in people's minds. I look at that as, in a sense, being very much like the Ring, and its effect on people. You know, you can kind of forget what we were doing, if you get too wrapped up in that." - Viggo Mortensen
(This post was edited by Aragorn the Elfstone on Dec 20 2014, 9:43pm)
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Spriggan
Tol Eressea
Dec 20 2014, 9:44pm
Post #3 of 7
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Well it is to deliver that warning that
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Bilbo goes to Ravenhill, and so is present for the events there, but yes there is no opportunity to come up with a response to the second army with the troops already engaged with Azog's army by the time they get there.
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Cirashala
Valinor
Dec 20 2014, 10:15pm
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There's a phenomena called "eagle's eye" for a reason Radagast and the eagles and Beorn probably saw the Gundabad army when they showed up, and just swooped in to take care of it. Eagles have incredibly keen eyes, and likely saw them for several minutes before they arrived at the scene- plenty of time to scope out the threat. They didn't need to know of the Gundabad army in order to take them out. As far as Legolas and Tauriel's scouting mission- I think it was necessary for a couple reasons. First off, they had no knowledge of Gandalf's message to Radagast, therefore they wouldn't have known about the eagles showing up. Even if they had, they didn't know when they would and that it would coincide with the Gundabad army's arrival. Secondly, it took them away from the plot for a while to allow things to progress as they should. Had Tauriel been there during the Thranduil/Thorin/arrows showdown, don't you think she would have interfered then at a very crucial point in the political drama? Thirdly, if she had been there during the political standoff, Kili would have reacted far differently to Thorin's threats, I think, if he was directly threatening her (by virtue of her being down there). It's one thing to be pissed off about his family's heritage/legacy being stolen, but it's another thing altogether if the woman he loved was down there too. In a sense, would Kili have been so eager to fight if he'd been aware that he would have had to fight her? I think his opposition to Thorin would have been greater, and she would have unfortunately intruded on a crucial part of the book's events. And fourthly, the only reference we have to the Gundabad army at that point was Azog telling Bolg to get them. As the audience, we would have likely thought that the hordes of orcs that come out of the were-worm tunnels were a combined force of both armies, thus rendering it the battle of FOUR armies, not five. Having Legolas and Tauriel scout out Gundabad helps make it very clear to the audience that there is in fact two separate orc armies that arrive at different times in the battle, rather than the Gundabad army simply having moved around to cut them off. So from a story POV, their scouting mission provides crucial battle information to those still in Dale (who, except Gandalf, do not know about the eagles and even Gandalf may doubt their timing) about this threat. And from a cinematic perspective, it got Legolas and Tauriel away from crucial book events that would have ended far differently had they remained behind in Dale during said events.
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Ham_Sammy
Tol Eressea
Dec 21 2014, 12:17am
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We had to see the bats fly out so it made sense later on when Legolas grabs one. I agree we needed the visualization of that scene to fully get the whole picture.
Thank you for your questions, now go sod off and do something useful - Martin Freeman Twitter chat 3/1/13
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mae govannen
Tol Eressea
Dec 21 2014, 5:16am
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'Is everything sad going to come untrue?' (Sam, 'The Field of Cormallen', in 'The Return of the King'.)
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Bumblingidiot
Rohan
Dec 21 2014, 2:15pm
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I liked the messiness of the battle.
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That's what happens in battles - things don't go to plan. Perhaps the trip to Gundabad wasn't useful for the outcome of the battle - so what? Neat resolution in battles always looks fake. There is likely to be some of it in any film/story - Thorin managing to fight his nemesis, for example, where in a real battle they'd probably not have managed to get anywhere near each other. But a bit of poetic licence and a lot of flair (as in this film) can win me over on that. But it's important that the main battle elements do look chaotic and messy - otherwise I just won't believe it or be engaged in it.
"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear."
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