Why such an extensive set for Dale?

J

jtg70

The Shire
First, longtime reader, first time posting to the boards.

Why do you think they built Dale as a full set compared to other locations?

As far as I can tell Dale might figure into the films in three ways:

1) As a scene showing Smaug/Dale's history (i.e, a thriving city, Smaug's attack, then the city in ruins, refugees)

2) Dale in ruins when Thorin's party travel to the Lonely Mountain & their adventures there

3) Possibly the rebirth of the city after the BoFA, when Bard reclaims his position in Dale

My questions are:

Why build such a large, extensive set for a city that doesn't occupy that much time in the book compared to other locations?

What other scenes do you imagine that would justify building so much of the city?

By comparison, a lot of screen time was given to Gondor in LotR because many different scenes take place there. So it made sense to build streets, interiors, etc.,

PS Dale does look great. Thanks to PJ & crew for the production diaries & being so generous to us fans.
 
The only other thing I can suggest is that they will use the location more in the BO5A.

We had a discussion the other day about Thrain/Thror's map, where it seems they have changed the geographical location of the secret door and Dale.

Perhaps the woodleves and Laketown men use this as their base during the battle, rather than in camps? That way, the battle can be fought in the ruined city, or atleast, part of the battle. The BO5A is so complex that maybe they wanted different locations around Lonely Mountain for the armies to fight in - Dale, the surrounding slopes/hills/fields, and at the front gate?

And welcome to TORn [:)]
 
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Dale is only a reference (imho) with very little to give us the scale and horror of the destruction. This is such a great place to expand on the story and how Lake-town came to be because of Dale.

I hope they can expand on so much more via the appendices. I'm delighted that Peter, Philippa and Fran are so diligent and generous about filling out Tolkien's Middle-earth every chance they get!
 
This is such a great place to expand on the story and how Lake-town came to be because of Dale.

This has never been clear to me. Was Laketown built only after the destruction of Dale (byt it's survivors), or did they co-exists and the surviving Dalians just took refuge in Laketown? In that case, will there be two different ethnites in the city?
 
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