[thechat] LoTR questions

[Martin Burns]

On Sun, 30 Mar 2003, Madhu Menon wrote:

> It's getting too stuffy on thechat, so I am going to introduce a surefire
> tension diffuser. :)
>
> So LoTR: The Two Towers finally rolled into town on Friday (4 bloody months
> late) and I went to see it yesterday. Now, I have the book, but I haven't
> read it yet because the size of it intimidates me.
>
> So here are some questions I have after 179 minutes of viewing:

Someone, somewhere is bound to consider this spoiler-ful, so, follow the
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> 1) Am I the only one who finds Gollum as irritating as Jar Jar Binks? I
> know he's important to the plot and all that, but that hissing really got
> to me after a while. It also looked like the CGI dudes intentionally gave
> him every expression they could think of just to say, "Look what I can do
> with SFX. Ain't it cool?"

Actually, he's more like Dobby's evil twin

> 2) How did Gandalf come back from the dead? I turned to the chapter in the
> book that talks about it, and it only says something about his work not
> being complete.

Who said he died? He fell a long way, sure, but you're using assumptions
that he's your average human. Which he isn't.

Basically, he was called back.

> 3) Is Gandalf the White more powerful than Gandalf the Grey?

Probably, or just not hiding his power so much. Remember he's also a
ringbearer - he has one of the 3 elven rings of power.

As we're not getting the Scouring of the Shire in RoTK, I expect we also
won't be getting the Ringbearers going over the sea at the end.

> 4) How did Theoden's nephew get so many troops at the end? When we saw him
> earlier, he only had some 40-50 men riding with him.

Gathered from across Rohan.

> 5) Ain't Legolas cool? For some reason, I really dig him.

hmmmm - Gay icon if ever I saw one.

> 6) How are new Uruk Hai created? What's that sac-like thing they come
> out from?

Tolkein doesn't specify (afaik). There *are* Uruks from Mordor, so you
can't go giving Saruman all the credit. Orks were bred initially by
Melchor (much bigger evil dude from an earlier age, Sauron was his
servant)

Cheers
Martin
-- 
"Names, once they are in common use, quickly
 become mere sounds, their etymology being
 buried, like so many of the earth's marvels,
 beneath the dust of habit." - Salman Rushdie