Beowulf03809 wrote:
One of my biggest gripes of the films is the extra level of comic relief pushed down on Gimli, and his failure at the Warg attack scene is a significant example of this. Bad enough that as soon as they get close to the fight he just falls to the ground (ok..."fast dismount"...), but he's a total flop during the fight.
I wasn't thrilled with them making the Wargs look like over-sized hyenas, but since I've always been disappointed that real wolves get a bad wrap in so many stories already I let it go. The actual clash of the two mounted armies was impressive to see. Get rid of Aragorn's "death" and let Gimli do some decent fighting and I would have been pretty happy with it.
To bring back the message of the approaching Uruk force we could have had Hama "not dead yet", and drag his way back to Helms Deep, seeing the approaching army on the way and delivering the message. Now you have him back at the battle and he can be hewn even as he lay dead before the gates, as is proper. Doing so you also would no longer need to have Haldir die there nor would you need to introduce any new characters (such as Erkenbrand).
Oh well...PJ really should have consulted some of us. Too late now.
I kinda like the comic relief that they gave Gimli. I think that it fit him, being a dwarf, that he laughed in the face of certain death. I will say that him getting taken out of the action without doing anything like that was inexcusable, though it makes complete sense that he would "dismount" the horse to better get to grips with his enemy.
I liked the un-wolfishness of the wargs. I don't think it would have looked good if they had orcs riding realistic looking wolves.
I wouldn't have liked to see Hama die that way. First, he gets mauled by a warg, then drags himself 10 miles infront of 10,000 uruks, then gets butchered right at the last second. I would have gotten too attached to him that way, and would've hated his death almost as much as Boromir's.
PJ should at least have gone by the book more than he did.
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