Why wouldn't the Gondorians just dig a big ditch around Minas Tirith?

[Wat_Tyler]

Look at it - You dig a big ditch, maybe ill it with water and/or spikes, then put a drawbridge at the front door. That way, the Orcs can't use the siege towers or their battering rams - they couldn't get in. One big ditch could've saved all that trouble with Sauron.

Of course, they could've been starved out, but that's not very dramatic. 'Quick! We have to get to Minas Tirith within six to eight weeks or they'll start to get malnourished! QUICK!'.

And another thing. I know this isn't Tolkien's fault, the blame lies with Peter Jackson, but doesn't the whole 'Army of the Dead' make the whole Ride of the Rohirrim pointless? I mean, the Dead are going to kill all the Orcs etc anyway, so don't Theoden and all his lads die for nothing?

[VelmaD]

1. Well, the Rohirrim didn't know...

that the Army of the Dead was coming. As far as they knew it might well just be them as the last line of defense for Minis Tirith.

[Wat_Tyler]

2. I know - I was looking at it from the pov of the filmmakers.

Using the whole Army of the Dead at the Pelennor Fields makes the Ride of the Rohirrim totally pointless.

[VelmaD]

5. I just think you're wrong about it being Jackson's fault...

the story was exactly the same on this point in the books. The Rohirrim didn't know that Aragorn was coming back with the Dead.

[Wat_Tyler]

9. In the book, the Dead don't come to Minas Tirith

Aragorn disbands them at Osgiliath, then sails upriver with the men of South Gondor. In that scenario, the Ride of the Rohirrim is valuable. In the movie scenario, where an indestructible army of zombies effortlessly overwhelms Sauron's lot, the Ride is pointless.

[VelmaD]

13. Good point...

I think I've seen the movie too many times now since the last time I read the book. I had forgotten how much the battles got compressed.

[4_Legs_Good]

16. Absolutely true

but to give the Rohirrim a slight excuse - Jackson sent only Gimli the Jokester, Legolas the Indestructable and Strider the whiner into the paths of the dead, and so as far as they knew or expected, they'd get roasted by the Stay Pufft Marshamallow Man.

Of course, in the book Strider took the Sons of Elrond as well as, I believe, some of the Rohirrim through the paths specifically to stop the Corsairs. So far as Theoden (and/or Strider knew), the host might never reach Minas Tirith as they might fall or fail in the battle against the Corsairs. As it worked out a perfect storm happened which allowed Strider to destroy the threat coming from the South as well as take over the ships and ride by the speediest route to the aid of Minas Tirith.

david

[ashmanonar]

69. the gray company of the book:

consisted of aragorn, legolas, gimli, the sons of elrond elrohir and elladan, and 30 or so Rangers of the North. (led by halbarad dunadan)

[4_Legs_Good]

11. This is true!

Jackson didn't tell the Rohirrim that he was going to create a Ghostbusters army to go all the way to Minas Tirith to freak out the elephants!

Alls I can say is *THANK ILUVATAR* that Sauron didn't have Bill Murray there to put them all in those cool little cannisters.

david

[MrScorpio]

3. Dude, put down the remote and step away from the TV

Reality is calling your name

[Wat_Tyler]

6. BUT I HAVEN'T WATCHED IT WITH THE POST-PRODUCTION TEAM

COMMENTARY YET!!!!

[tigereye]

28. good God man why not!

your total subjugation is not yet complete!

[Wat_Tyler]

31. I WATCHED THE OTHER THREE COMMENTARIES!

[tigereye]

35. we have watched them obsessively

I esp. love the sword and prop building commentaries. They are like a film course all in themselves.

[Wat_Tyler]

36. Yup - it's a good insight into the art of filmmaking,

I find the most entertaining ones to be the Post-Production guys, actually.

[Fenris]

4. Apparently, the Gondorians could build massive city fortresses...

But moat/ditch building were beyond their technical know-how.

My theory on the Ride of the Rohirrim is that everyone found Theoden annoying and sent him on a (deadly) fool's errand to get rid of him.

[Wat_Tyler]

7. It's really stupid -

they build this huge wall that goes all the way around the city that they can't possibly hope to man - they further divide their forces by sending all those guys off to Osgiliath where there's no hope of stopping anyone - these people are hopeless!

[VelmaD]

10. It's probably just proving I'm a Tolkien geek...

but the current crop of Gondorians didn't build the city walls of Minis Tirith. They've been there for centuries. Since back in the days when they did have enough army to man them.

That said, Denethor was kinda dumb to split his forces. But then again, we know his elevator didn't go to the top floor.

[Wat_Tyler]

14. No, I mean the Rammas Echor, the wall that encloses the townlands

around Minas Tirith - I believe that's a later addition to the defences. Like I say, it's useless without an insane number of men to defend it.

[VelmaD]

17. Jeesus H Christ...

you knew the name of the wall. Marry me?

[Wat_Tyler]

23. The children would have no chance, would they? ;-)

[ashmanonar]

71. the rammas echor was about 75 years old, made in the days of

ecthelion II (about the same time that aragorn in disguise led armies for him, and basically kept gondor safe for a few years)

i think during the time of ecthelion they were only recently looking toward Mordor, before then they were more worried about easterlings or smaller orc incursions. the rammas were only meant as a temporary defense anyways, something to slow the orcs down. at that, it wasn't very effective. faramir and a few companies of men certainly had little chance against all the orcs of morgul and southrons/easterlings/trolls.

[ashmanonar]

70. millennia, actually.

they'd been there since, i believe, the Last Alliance. the tower of Ecthelion was a more recent addition.

and the book and the movie explain quite well why denethor was off his rocker. i think he honestly thought that his forces could do more split, but obviously he was wrong, and just a little insane. just waiting in the city wouldn't have helped much either though...they'd just surround it and attack. *shrug* i think the battle would have gone exactly the same way.

now as to the moats: i have severe doubt that moats would work: sauron would devise some way to cross them. (and if you remember: sauron's trolls and orcs dug their own trenches and filled them with fire at the siege, in an attempt to block the vision of the numenoreans)
the war of the ring wasn't "oh, shit, saruman's forces suck and gandalf is kicking their asses...i guess i should launch a war", it was a war long-planned. everything on the side of Men was all pure luck and (dare i say) divine intervention, in the form of Gandalf/bilbo/frodo/the fellowship.

*claims his tolkien geekhood, and crowns self Lord of the Tolkien Geeks*

[4_Legs_Good]

21. What makes you think they couldn't man it?

Tolkien goes to great lengths to describe the city and how defensible it is, with its various walls and crooked path to each level. I don't know that it wasn't defensible. On the other hand I doubt they were expecting Sauron to unleash his full power against the city.

And, of course Gondor was in a state of decline.

david

[Wat_Tyler]

24. They could man the City, just not the big wall beyond it.

To be fair, that wall isn't in the movie - it's a several miles long wall that encapsulates the entire Pelennor.

[4_Legs_Good]

32. Perhaps it wasn't a defensive wall, but a political one?

to be able to control the flow in and out of the city?

I have to admit that I don't remember...

david

[Wat_Tyler]

39. Or psychological - make the people in the townlands feel safe.

[Elidor]

73. Apparently you never noticed that the defense of Gondor

Was run by a man whose mind had been bent by Sauron in the Palantir. He believed that all was lost and ignored the most obvious safety precautions, leaving Gandalf to mount a hasty defense. Sorry you missed it-it was a rather central point in the story.

[ZenLefty]

8. Orcs could have brought big drawbridges of their own.

If they could engineer siege towers like that, they could bring their own bridges to span across a moat. But they probably knew the city had no moat anyway, and they didn't have time enough to dig one.

I think the orcs should have won that battle. I don't think there were enough Rohirrim to rout them.

[Wat_Tyler]

12. It would be very difficult.

The wall is meant to be sheer, so you couldn't dig your bridges into it - I suppose you could try and put your siege towers into the moat but a) you don't know how deep it is and b) any amount of archers on the walls (or people with vats of boiling oil etc) could easily put a stop to any operations so close to the edge.

[ZenLefty]

15. Oh, you dig the moat right up to the wall.

That would probably erode the foundation over time and weaken the wall, but it would be more difficult to cross. Still, the orcs had enough manpower (orcpower?) to fill it with dirt.

Actually, the orc catapults were pulverizing the city like it was made of Leggos. Why didn't they aim lower? Destroy the outer wall first?

[VelmaD]

18. Because orcs are dumb?

[ZenLefty]

20. They looked pretty competent when fighting Gondorians.

It's pretty amazing. They swarmed through the city and none of those silly Gondorians could hold them back. But whenever the orcs fought our Intrepid Heroes, they fell like bags of sand.

Why have Gondor defend the city at all? Just put Legolas up there, and he'd shoot all the orcs before teatime. Down below, the orcs would stand in line so Gimli could cut all their heads off.

[4_Legs_Good]

22. See, now you're thinking!!!

The entire ride of the Rohirrim in addition as well as Gondor and Strider were actually all a waste when you have Legolas to defend you!

And Gimli to make jokes about how pathetic he is.

david

[ZenLefty]

25. And Jackson made Gondorians look like Italians.

Then he made them incompetent in battle. I think Jackson is bigoted against Italians. Let me get my cousins Don and Louie on the phone, we'll sort this whole thing out. His next movie will be an "underwater adventure", if you know what I mean.

[Wat_Tyler]

27. This is true - the Anglo/Germanic Rohirrim are worth about 10 Gondorians.

Of course, if they were based on the Italians of WW2 it would've been...
"Why are we fighting, again?"
"Dunno. Mussolini wants us to take over this big stretch of crap desert for the glory of Italy."
"Fuck that. Want to bugger off home to all the great food, hot chicks and decent football?"
"Absolutely"

[4_Legs_Good]

44. It's a pretty safe bet that everyone in the Jackson movies who was ethnic

was either stupid or evil.

Heh heh heh on the Italians

david

[4_Legs_Good]

34. LMAO

That's the best news I've heard all day...

david

[4_Legs_Good]

19. That's a great question...

another idiotic failing of Jackson's miserable rendition.

That Minas Tirith fell apart like matchsticks is utterly rediculous.

david

[Wat_Tyler]

26. It is 3000+ years old, has seen sieges before, and is carved from the rock

(basically) - it would be tougher. IIRC, the Outer Wall is meant to be impenetrable - according to Tolkien.

[4_Legs_Good]

30. In rode the Lord of the Nazgul underneath the archway that no enemy

ever yet had passed and all fled before its face.

[tigereye]

33. we are rereading the books,

I hadn't read them for quite some time prior to seeing the films, and although I think Jackson did a very good job, there are so many wonderful elements, explanations and gentle approaches to things that are left out... for instance, the Hobbits themselves are much more clever than they appear. I guess the movie had to emphasize all the larger than life swashbuckling.

[Wat_Tyler]

37. Don't get me started on the whole Army Of The Dead thing.

Talk about a drama-killer.

[4_Legs_Good]

42. More clever???

What could be more clever than Pippin climbing up a vertical tower and lighting a beacon which the stupid Gondorians couldn't figure out how to put out!

Sorry, the more I think about those movies, the more I hate them, utterly. A few key sequences are good, even great, but overall, they just got progressively worse, and after watching the Two Towers, I didn't think that was possible. It was!!!

david

[tigereye]

50. I think if you haven't read the books for a while

( or never did), they are great for what they are. I really enjoyed them And no movie really gets the full feel of any book most of the time. But I think more gentleness would have been good, since thoughtfulness and gentleness seem to be one of the points Tolkein wanted to get across.

[4_Legs_Good]

52. Yeah, maybe if you hadn't read the books...

or, as you say, not in a long time.

I thought the hobbits in the movie were all absurd. Every one of them. Idiotic, silly and clumsy as all get out. The only person I though was treated anywhere near well was probably Gandalf and maybe Theoden and Wormtongue (who was actually pretty good, and now that I think of it, probably the best in the entire series).

Anyway, I'm hyper critical, because, among other reasons, I was hoping that they'd be the best movies ever, especially since Jackson had 10 hours to play with.

They weren't.



david

[northzax]

29. outer walls, especially at the base, are much thicker

and therefore stronger. There were no flying butresses on the outer walls, so they had to be very thick at the base to support the entire structure.

And the Orcs are in fact, dumb. It's the Uruk Hai that had the guts and willpower.

And the rohirrim were being repelled, until the King of the Nazgul was slain by Eowyn, leading to panic among the Hordes of Sauron (think about it, you just watched your commanding officer, an immortal get killed. might freak you out a bit, no? (yes, he's not really immortal, but he was at least 1500 years old and mightly powerful)

oh, and one more thing. To quote the guy in the new Keebler ad, "what part of magic oven don't you understand?"

[ZenLefty]

40. Orcs retreated well before the witch-king was killed.

In the movie, that is. In fact, I don't think one horsey was killed by an orc in the whole movie. I know armored cavalry can really overwhelm infantry, but the numbers were so heavily in the orc's favor, I think the cavalry charge would have lost momentum somewhere along the line.

It would have made more sense if the orcs started retreating after the witch-king's defeat, not before.

[4_Legs_Good]

48. I'm pretty sure a couple at least got smooshed

by the elephants, though, of course they were being driven by the non-white people, not by the orcs.

They mosty dispensed with the "cloud" from Mordor in the movie, which makes explaining the early "retreat" of the orcs difficult.

Plus a cavalry charge isn't quite as useful when your horses are getting smooshed by elephants, unless, of course, you have an indestructable elf on your side.

In the book, I don't know that the orcs even really noticed the demise of the Witch King. The battle was more hinged on the loss of Theoden, I believe, and his fall caused more demoralization that the Witch Kings. You might recall that when the Corsairs appeared, everyone pretty much gave up hope until, of course, the standard of the King was seen.

david

[ashmanonar]

72. 6000 horses is an army we haven't seen since before the middle ages:

that many horses, not only armored heavy cavalry but also lighter scout cavalry, could easily mow down ranks of orcs.

and if you remember, they WERE in trouble, until aragorn and co. came up the river and helped out. something like a quarter of the rohirrim present were killed at that battle.

there's something to be said for aragorn's leadership at that time and place. it wouldn't have happened without him. the orcs think they've got the horsemen on the run, and the gates of the city destroyed, then suddenly their allies' ships come up the river and spout with thousands of men from the south.

that'd be a fucking shock, lemme tell ya. plus, all the men in minas tirith came out of the city when aragorn arrived. more than 10000 men all told, especially with the witchking killed and the nazgul running. that was the other big factor: the fear that the nazgul had afflicted the men with left when aragorn arrived, and when the witchking was killed.

god, i'm a nerd.

[DS1]

38. Or better yet, why didn't they attack the Orcs while they were still

building their Uruk-Hai of mass destruction?

[Wat_Tyler]

41. Now, now - intelligence reports prove the Witch King had all those Scuds.

I saw it in the Palantir myself!

[DS1]

43. Ahh, so ~that's~ why the Saudis keep their women in place

See what happened to Saddam?



obligatroy tag for our women DUers - just in case

[chickenscratching]

45. could it have saved a lot of trouble?

even with a ditch....couldn't the army of sauron fill it with water and wait for winter?

and i don't have an opinion on the last part of your statement, except it just dragged a bunch of anger out of me towards peter jackson and some of the choices he made in that film...
sigh...guess, i'll just....

[ZenLefty]

46. Look, if we built this large wooden badger...

[4_Legs_Good]

47. LMAO

[XNASA]

49. I've often wondered why the Ringwraithes just didn't carry some orcs...

...up by the Tower of Ecthelion or even up to the Hallows and have them work their way down.

And as for the mote idea....The River Anduin was practically a big mote. If the troops in Osgiliath had held, the river would have sufficed.

The mote would be moot.

[4_Legs_Good]

51. A true wraith, I don't think the orcs woulda survived the ride

The Wraiths were all about terror, and they probably woulda scared any orc as shitless as anyone else had they tried such a stunt.

Plus I think Denethor's finest would have stood guard nearby. Granted they were idiots in the film, so I'm sure it would have worked.

david

[THUNDER HANDS]

53. *cough*its a movie*cough*

As for the Ride of the Rohirrim, it wasn't pointless. If they didn't come when they did, Gondor would have fallen. They came at just the right moment to hold off the final assault on the last level of the city.

The army of the dead just came in to finish them off, like a closer in baseball.

The Mets could have used a Army of the Dead yesterday.

[NewJeffCT]

54. the moat still wouldn't have stopped the flying Nazgul

9 nazgul mounted on dragons (or wyverns or what have you...)could have demolished all the Gondorian trebuchets, leaving the orcs were free to concentrate on fighting against the Riders of Rohan, instead of getting hit in the flank by them while trying to break down the walls of Minas Tirith.

Then, when the riders are done for, turn your full attention on bridging the moat and going over the walls.

[Bridget Burke]

63. The Nazgul weren't actually very good warriors....

Gandalf drove them off with a spotlight & Strider used a torch & his sword. Fear & Terror were their main weapons. And the King's rep as being unkillable--until he met a hobbit & a woman warrior.

Also, the minions of Sauron & Saruman appeared to suffer from intra-service rivalry. Uruk Hai versus Morgul Rat, etc.

[NewJeffCT]

64. maybe not very good, but

The woman warrior was on a horse, and couldn't fly!

[RandomKoolzip]

55. I can't be friends with you anymore.

[Wat_Tyler]

58. WHY ARE YOU SCARED OF THE TRUTH?????

WHO GOT TO YOU, KOOLZIP?

[RandomKoolzip]

62. I'm not scared of the truth, I'm scared of sci-fi/fantasy dorks.

Usually because they smell like feet and have problems confining saliva to their mouths.

[jpgray]

74. And music geeks have the hygienic perfection of a freshly-scrubbed Seraph

[GOPBasher]

56. Wait, I thought that happens in the book as well!

I thought the army of the dead comes to Minas Tirith and destroys Sauron's forces, too. Am I wrong?

[Wat_Tyler]

57. Yup.

[GOPBasher]

59. What happens in the book?

[Wat_Tyler]

60. Aragorn leads to Army of the Dead to Pelargir, Gondor's biggest city.

Along the way, the local South Gondorians rally to him, and at Pelargir he finds the locals fighting the Corsairs. Army of the Dead defeat Corsairs, Aragorn and 3,000 or so Southerners hop on the boats and head north to Minas Tirith, just in time to turn the tide and win the battle.

[GOPBasher]

61. Oh I see.

That sounds cool. I still think Aragorn should've kept the army of the dead to attack Mordor itself, when they created the diversion for Frodo.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

65. The answer is to have sex with a woman - bt it's VERY tricky to pull off

[Wat_Tyler]

66. ...and it's so much easier to palm off.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

67. Don't get all Entish on me!

[jpgray]

68. Three reasons off the top of my head

First they scarcely had time to finish repairing the outer defenses, second Denethor was sort of crazed and unstable after he received Boromir's horn, and third there were so many in the attacking army that filling up a trench made by the 10,000+ or so in Minas Tirith wouldn't be too big a task or cause too long a delay.