SCOD 1/31 - The Siege of Gondor

[Eldy]

(Click here for full image.)

1. This battle takes place largely in daylight, in contrast to Helm's Deep in The Two Towers. What happened to that massive stormfront that was coming out of Mordor, though? In the book it was blown away by the same wind that brought Aragorn to Minas Tirith, but in the films it's gone at least a day in advance, since there are several scenes of night battle in between.

2. The siege towers are about to reach the walls of Minas Tirith, and the first melee combat of the battle will soon be joined. It always seemed to me that the Men of Gondor didn't put up much of a fight since they keep being massacred once the orcs reach the wall. Do you feel that they fight with the strength of a country that has kept Mordor at bay for centuries?

3. "It was no brigand or orc-chieftain who ordered the assault upon the Lord of Mordor's greatest foe." What might the Lord of the Nazgul have been up to at this point? Is he just flying around overhead, snatching up hapless soldiers, or is he taking a more active role in the leading the forces attacking the city? And of course, he's already said he'll find Gandalf....

4. This image is from just a minute or two before Pippin comes to the walls to find battle already engaged. He manages to kill an orc that had snuck up behind Gandalf, being a "Guard of the Citadel indeed", but Gandalf sends him back to safer ground anyway. Is Gandalf legitimately impressed by Pippin's actions, or is he just saying whatever he can to get Pippin out of harm's way?

5. Any other thoughts on this image or the rest of the battle?

 

[weaver]

It reads "General Mayhem". Yep, that's about right.

Looking at this single image like this, it looks more like a painting than a real battle scene. It's a beautiful shot, in a lot of ways, even thought it's about a bad thing!

Wow, you asked a lot of good questions here! I'll do my best to respond in general to them...

On the darkness, I suspect they did this one in daylight so that it would feel/look different from Helm's Deep. You get a bit of the sense of the cloud cover with the sky, but nothing like the book's sense of how oppressive that darkness out of Mordor was. I guess they felt they could not film that in a way where we could see what was going on!

We've talked a lot about why the Gondorians don't seem to put up as good of a fight as the people of Rohan. My own theory on it was that the "real" army was out in the field, fighting with Faramir on the front lines, and that the guys in this battle were reserve troops, who were not as battle hardened. But not everyone buys that, I know! Faramir's guys were pretty capable fighters, only losing when they were outnumbered and we saw that Boromir led his men to victory at Osgiliath earlier. So obviously the Gondorian army has some good troops, they just don't seem to be these guys!

I liked the dive bombing Nazgul, but it does make you wonder what happens to them when they aren't flying around. I guess the Witch King, as the commander, just didn't get hits hands (or claws) dirty too much, and maybe the other Nazgul were just picking up guys to amuse themselves while they flew around taking notes on the battle for their reports back to him!

I always thought Gandalf's comment to Pippin was the kind of thing a teacher would say, good positive reinforcement to a kid who had proven himself in some way. Earlier, Gandalf used those same words -- "guard of the Citadel" -- in a way that said "see what you've gotten yourself into?" and now, they come out as praise. I liked the way they repeated this bit of dialogue, and used it to show how Gandalf's attitude toward Pippin shifted as a result of Pippin's actions here.