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 Medium of Death wrote:
Interestingly the budget for the first two Hobbit films outstrips that of the entire Lord of the Rings films. The more I hear about these films the less interest I have in seeing them which is odd as I devoured all three Lord of the Rings films when they came out, watching all the behind the scenes stuff and watching the extended versions repeatedly. Subsequently reading through the books brought me to the Hobbit, which I loved. I know people are saying "it's not like the book but it's a decent adventure film" even that still doesn't grab me. There's something off about it that I can't place that doesn't make me want to part with my cash for this franchise. I don't know whether it has to do with the lighting or the over use of cgi. I know the LotR's films used CGI but that seemed to mesh better, despite being 12 years older.

I really wish they had made the Hobbit into two films and perhaps kept the "White Council" film as an individual affair. When GW expanded on Dol Guldur it was just a taste of what I thought PJ could achieve, sadly not.

One thing that I don't understand is why the Witch King is said to be "burried" at Dol Guldur in the film. He became a Wraith, he has no corpse and was not killed when the Ring corrupted him (and the other 8) so why is this stated in the film? I think PJ as really screwed the pooch on this one.

I know the Necromancer is Sauron, but one of the White Council state that the Witch King is buried in some kind of tomb (not Dol Guldur as I thought) which doesn't make sense as he never "died". They also refer to him as "Angmar" which is not his name and makes about as much sense as calling the Queen, "England" or "Britain".




Not sure why they needed to deviate that far from the background material, especially when it doesn't make sense in relation to the film series altered story.

Ah, I gotcha! Haha.

 Medium of Death wrote:
One thing that I don't understand is why the Witch King is said to be "burried" at Dol Guldur in the film. He became a Wraith, he has no corpse and was not killed when the Ring corrupted him (and the other 8) so why is this stated in the film? I think PJ as really screwed the pooch on this one.

I can't remember where I'm getting this from, but I seem to remember that they were trapped in a "tomb so dark no light could ever hope to reach"; though it might be one of the production videos PJ made in the making-of rather than in one of Tolkein's writings, I've no idea.

Sorry to be nit-picky Medium of Death but it is perfectly fine, and Common, to call a Noble by the name of his province or his birthplace. EDIT: I would wager Lee, Knowledgable dude that he is, improvised that line.

Henry IV was known as Bolingbrook for example. Perhaps the etiquette has changed over the years but i don't think the Queen would behead you for impudence if you called her Windsor.

EDIT: You could also call Lord Allan Sugar 'Hackney' if you wanted .

The Witch King has been running around terrorizing 'MAN' until the watchful peace was declared. Basically the Witch King of Angmar (which was a tribe of evil men from the north, Angmar being a kingdom, the name of the witch king is lost) basically would come down and attack Gondor and challenge the King of Gondor to a fight and then kill him.

The last time he was 'seen' was he challenged the King of Gondor who rode out and chased him, and from that point forward, neither one was ever seen again (for like 400 years). That was the last TRUE KING and that is when the 'stewards of Gondor' started and the watchful peace.

So did the last king of Gondor chase down the the Witch King and his crew? Beat them up and seal them in a Tomb? No one knows, it wasn't explicitly said in the books. But that is what seems to be implied by the telling of the movie, that somehow the Witch King and crew got beat, sealed up and 'watch peace' were declared.

nkelsch wrote:
The Witch King has been running around terrorizing 'MAN' until the watchful peace was declared. Basically the Witch King of Angmar (which was a tribe of evil men from the north, Angmar being a kingdom, the name of the witch king is lost) basically would come down and attack Gondor and challenge the King of Gondor to a fight and then kill him.

The last time he was 'seen' was he challenged the King of Gondor who rode out and chased him, and from that point forward, neither one was ever seen again (for like 400 years). That was the last TRUE KING and that is when the 'stewards of Gondor' started and the watchful peace.

So did the last king of Gondor chase down the the Witch King and his crew? Beat them up and seal them in a Tomb? No one knows, it wasn't explicitly said in the books. But that is what seems to be implied by the telling of the movie, that somehow the Witch King and crew got beat, sealed up and 'watch peace' were declared.

That sounds like it would make great movie, just sayin'.

 Perkustin wrote:
Sorry to be nit-picky Medium of Death but it is perfectly fine, and Common, to call a Noble by the name of his province or his birthplace. EDIT: I would wager Lee, cool dude that he is improvised that line.

Henry IV was known as Bolingbrook for example. Perhaps the etiquette has changed over the years but i don't think the Queen would behead you for impudence if you called her Windsor.

Fair point. You wouldn't simply call her "Windsor" though would you? There would be something preceding or following that surely?

Example would be "The Duke of Edinburgh", you wouldn't simply call him "Edinburgh". "The Witch King of Angmar" is his title.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nkelsch wrote:
But that is what seems to be implied by the telling of the movie, that somehow the Witch King and crew got beat, sealed up and 'watch peace' were declared.

Except that it isn't what's implied if you actually watch the clip.

"When Angmar fell, the men of the North took his body and all that he possessed and sealed it in the high fells of Rhudaur. Deep within the rock they buried him. In a tomb so dark it would never come to light."

I'll admit that example of an assumed title does seem a little strange, i don't know if it changes things though.

However for all we know the Witch-King was called Chuck Angmar before being crowned, he may have been from the Angmar family of Nobility.

If he was Chuck Rohan (EDIT: or more likely a lord of a province of Angmar but again we don't know if there were such things) before he became the King of Angmar then maybe you'd be right but we don't know enough.

He founds the realm of Angmar as an evil bastion in the North of Middle Earth after he becomes a Wraith.

Apparently "Angmar" means "Iron Home" in Elvish.

You could still safely say Angmar was his name, especially as there appears to be no alternative, unless they were his subjects.

Even that Info you've researched does not rule out that Angmar was his name, Saruman seemingly not being aware of this King and not being his subject, has defaulted to normal naming conventions.

The Ringwraiths previous names are never told. Khamul is the only one actually named.

Even if it was a normal naming convention in Middle Earth, I doubt that the Witch King would still have remained part of some kind of nobility.

The Wringwraiths are super old, close to 4000 years...

*Second Age 2251: The 9 Kings of men got the rings, they became ringwraiths.
*Second Age 3434: Sauron was defeated and his ring chopped off at the end of the Second age. (flashy battle of LotR)

This means Sauron and his Ring Wraiths wrecked up the joint for a solid 1183 years before Sauron was de-ringed. Ring was lost in Mirkwood after men became all crazy for it.

*Third Age 1300: Angmar was back, and began attacking the realm of man and picking on Gondor. Eventually he was defeated and sent packing.
*Third Age 2000: He got the other 8 Ringwraiths and began picking fights again.
*Third Age 2050: The Witch-king challenged Eärnur, the last king of Gondor to single combat. He went to fight him, and neither were heard from again. Stewards of Gondor now ruled Gondor, waiting the return of a king...

Somehow... 'the Hobbit' movie seems to imply that during this time, *SOMEONE* rounded all the Nazgul up into pokeballs and buried them in a tomb, hence the 'watchful peace'. This is undefined from the books.

*Third Age 2463: Gollum Finds ring, Moves into the Misty mountains, Sauron is 'looking' for a ring which is already been found so his search is in vain.
*Third Age 2942: 'The Hobbit Happens'
*Third Age 2951: Sauron was officially 'back'.

So basically, From the white council's Point of view, Sauron has been 'dead' for close to 3000 years and the only threat was random and disjointed attacks from the Wringwraiths who had not been seen for 400ish years and assumed defeated. Hence why Gandalf confirming they busted out of a tomb then going to confront the Necromancer and finding Sauron was so unexpected.

Who called him Angmar?

I believe Gandalf says in this movie that he has no name that anyone can remember and that he was simply called a servant of evil. Maybe I misheard.

Just by movie standards, I give it a 2/5 stars. It had pacing problems, obviously missing scenes, and repetitive action sequences.

But, as a long time fan of Tolkien's Middle Earth and a connoisseur of high fantasy, I thoroughly enjoyed about 90% of the movie and was disappointed when it was over -- not disappointed in the movie but disappointed that it was over.

So, if it's "When Angmar fell" couldn't that just imply that the *Realm* of Angmar fell, as opposed to the dude?

nkelsch wrote:
Somehow... 'the Hobbit' movie seems to imply that during this time, *SOMEONE* rounded all the Nazgul up into pokeballs and buried them in a tomb, hence the 'watchful peace'. This is undefined from the books.

Where are you getting that from this? Also who could possibly ensare the essence of the Nazgul and seal them in a tomb?




Listen to what Galadriel says.

After Angmar fell the Witch King went on to conquer Minas Ithil, remaining it Minas Morgul. The Wraiths would reside here. The Witch King was seen again after challenging the last king of Gondor, it was the king that was never seen again. Saurons presence had brewed in Dol Guldur before, left and the came back again when he was confronted by Gandalf during the time of the Hobbit. These events take place over more or less 1000 years.

Interestingly in the book Eowyn calls the Witch King "Dwimmerlaik", which was one of the names GW went on to use in it's unofficial naming of the Wraiths.

The word dwimmerlaik is said to mean "work of necromancy, spectre" in the language of Rohan.[3]

Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond have suggested that dwimmerlaik derives from Middle English dweomer, Old English (gwe)dwimor, -er ("illusion, phantom") + Middle English -layk, -laik ("play").[4] See also Dwimordene, Dwimorberg.

It is not clear if the word refers to a generic creature of the Rohanese folklore (like the holbytlan), specifically a phantom; therefore when Éowyn confronted the Witch-King she likely rather identified him with one, than coining the word on that moment.

David Day in A Tolkien Bestiary considered that a Dwimmerlaik is any creature of Rohanese superstitious folklore that includes Elves and Ents. However, other than the appearance of the root dwimor- to describe Lothlórien, there is no indication in Tolkien's writings that the word pre-existed or that it was used for other races.

 Medium of Death wrote:

nkelsch wrote:
Somehow... 'the Hobbit' movie seems to imply that during this time, *SOMEONE* rounded all the Nazgul up into pokeballs and buried them in a tomb, hence the 'watchful peace'. This is undefined from the books.

Where are you getting that from this? Also who could possibly ensare the essence of the Nazgul and seal them in a tomb?

Because in the Hobbit part 2, Gandalf goes north to a Tomb and finds 9 tombs basically broken from the inside out. Basically verifying that the weapon came from there, IE: the sword buried with the Witch king. (which they were never buried)

It is almost as if they are going for a simplified history where basically when Sauron Fell and the one ring was lost, basically, that is when they 'won the peace' and the 3000ish years between that event and the Hobbit didn't really happen.

That is my question... What the hell was that place Gandalf visited in the movie? None of that is in the books. What does it have to do with confirming either Sauron or the Ringwraiths existence? It isn't as if Sauron busted out of some prison as he has been a bodyless mass.

The only way the movie makes sense is if there is an impression that the 9 Kings were 'buried' and sealed in a tomb, and now they all busted out and are running amok. I mean, for Nazgul being very active and well-documented creatures for 4000 years, Why is Radigast so surprised by one? I would expect more of a 'Ah gak, one of those 9 Nazgul jerks again... I guess we have to deal with them again!' Basically, the less you think about it and less you know about the LotR universe, the more it works.

Having said that:

 Frazzled wrote:
Having said that:

Spoiler:

The battle between Sauron and Gandalf was epic and very magicky without being over the top D & D style. I loved the whole ball of light trying to fight back the clouds of darkness attacking it.

Completely agree with this.

It's a good thing PJ feels very comfortable with rewriting a very well established backstory when there was no need to.

That's not like an omission of some detail, that's full on reworking. Why bother doing it if it could be plucked from any generic fantasy story?

I'm sure I've read/seen something in that past that did have a clear suggestion that there was remains (if not necessarily bodies) entombed somewhere in the mountains of Angmar of the Ringwraiths.

So the idea of them visiting an ancient fortress in the north of the world didn't jump out of me when watching the film as something completely out of the blue.

 Medium of Death wrote:
Why bother doing it if it could be plucked from any generic fantasy story?

It couldn't be. The themes driving these movies were not thought of by Tolkien until he was writing LotR. He himself retconned the Hobbit to better fit with LotR. Jackson is doing the same, even more extensively: showing Bilbo affected by the Ring immediately like Smeagol and playing up the affect of the dwarf horde and especially the Arkenstone on Thorin.

 Frazzled wrote:
very magicky without being over the top D & D style

It was super D&D compared to Tolkien's use of magic. But in Jackson's films, everything like this becomes even more literal. That's not new to the Hobbit (nor bad, IMO).

nkelsch wrote:
The only way the movie makes sense is if there is an impression that the 9 Kings were 'buried' and sealed in a tomb, and now they all busted out and are running amok.

That is exactly what was going on, as Galadriel explicitly explained in the last film:

When Angmar fell, men of the North took his body and all that he possessed and sealed it within the High-Fells of Rhudaur. Deep within the rock they buried them, in a tomb so dark it would never come to light.

It didn't require such a heavy edit of the lore.

Wraiths having bodies that need to be raised doesn't fit in with the lore because they never died.

It also raises the point of how do they regain their form after their physical forms are undone at Rivendell, in The Fellowship of the Ring, if Sauron wasn't there to resurrect their remains? They are spirits given form, they are bound to Sauron/The Ring and return to Mordor to gain their strength.

The only thing that was missing was the reason Sauron had spent so long at Dol Guldur. Likely because it was a less expected/quieter place for him to slowly regain his power while The 9 gathered the power within Mordor. The title of Necromancer had to be explained as well, but it didn't need to be dumbed down to "Sauron needed to raise the 9". The idea of the Necromancer could have been Sauron attempting to circumvent his current limitations by creating some kind of undead form for himself, or gathering a large/powerful force to take on the elves and eventually Galadriel with her ring of power.

Manchu wrote:
That is exactly what was going on, as Galadriel explicitly explained in the last film:

When Angmar fell, men of the North took his body and all that he possessed and sealed it within the High-Fells of Rhudaur. Deep within the rock they buried them, in a tomb so dark it would never come to light.

But here is the rub, The Human now known as 'Witch King of Angmar' died 4000 years ago, and ran around as a free, sword-wielding ghoulie for thousands of years... And by the books, the 9 kings of men with rings slowly faded and never explicitly went from 'live to dead'. Or was the one sealed, the witch king in his ghostly form? Which would have happened more recently? Or was sealing the physical form somehow how they reduced the power of the Nazgul, basically keeping them stuck in the green spirit castle?

Also, The monster Radigast met was a ghostly form that Frodo only saw while wearing the ring. Maybe for 4000 years, they have been a weaker, ghostly form and breaking their physical remains out of 'prison' made them stronger and more physical?

It is fine, doesn't hurt the film as it makes sense as the film presented it, but the Witch king of Angmar has been 'around' a lot more to modern man than Sauron ever was.

 Medium of Death wrote:
that need to be raised

Not raised -- roused. Those were only figurative tombs. They were literal prisons. The point is that no one (not even the Wise) fully understood the power of the Ring but Sauron.

As for the title "Necromancer" -- it was either given by the fearful, and thus is only a product of superstition, or Sauron took it himself, in which case it is his usual self-agrandizement. In The Unexpected Journey, Saruman scoffs at the notion of necromancy:

That’s absurd. No such power exists in the world.

And of course we know from the Silmarillion that this is true. But it is typical of a satanic character to claim power over what lies in God's hands alone.

Tolkien wrote of Morgoth that he had no true power of creation. He could only twist things that were already created. Hence orcs. The same is obviously true of his servant Sauron. But both of them claimed much more. Sauron insisted he be worshiped, for example. Yes, in fact he has no true power of life and death. He cheats at it, creating wraiths. The word "wraith" itself is ancient English for "twisted" -- still survives in another context as "wreath" like the twisted branches we hang on our doors for holy days.

@nkelsch: Regarding the movie timeline, Elrond says that they have lived in peace for 400 years. This seems like a mistaken reference to the Watchful Peace, which lasted 400 years. But I'm not sure what movie Elrond is talking about; the Watchful Peace ended nearly 500 years before the plot of the Hobbit begins and those 500 years were marked by conflict as the Enemy gathered strength.

nkelsch wrote:
the Witch king of Angmar has been 'around' a lot more to modern man than Sauron ever was

Actually, Sauron started making trouble only 1000 years after his defeat at Dagorlad. At that point, the Wizards arrive to help. Three hundred years later, the Nazgul reappeared and the Witch-King began his long campaign against Men but was defeated in a further 600 years. Sauron was hanging out at Dul Guldur for a further hundred years until he fled when Gandalf broke in, trying to figure out if it was really Sauron. The 400 years before Sauron came back to Dol Guldur is called the Watchful Peace. The Hobbit takes place nearly 500 years after the end of the Watchful Peace.

It's more the body thing, they never died. They had no remains, they simply faded away with only Sauron being able to give them form in the physical world.

When Angmar fell, men of the North took his body and all that he possessed and sealed it within the High-Fells of Rhudaur. Deep within the rock they buried them, in a tomb so dark it would never come to light.

Perhaps if this was maybe referring to the Rings that they wore. If they sealed the rings away in a tomb, the wraiths wouldn't be as powerful (or something, maybe?). It's never really explained what happens with them, I assume that Sauron has them in the events of the Lord of the Rings, or that they are in Barad Dur or perhaps Minas Morgul.

Surely Necromancy in some form is possible? The Barrow-Wights were spirits that animated the remains in the burial mounds. Surely Saruman could be accused of arrogance? He was powerful, but he certainly didn't know of everything. Even though he is in a better position to comment on magical abilities, that particular dark art might have been beyond his grasp.

What barrow-wights are, like what ring wraiths are, is never exactly spelled out. What is true is no one but God has power over the eternal destiny of Men. This was a mystery both to the Elves and even the Maiar and Vanar. Saruman was correct that necromancy is not real.

As to the "body" of the Witch-King being entombed/imprisoned ... that's invented for the movie. But it retains the meaning of Tolkien's version even if it is more literal.

Well...it was better than the first. I'll say that much. First half of the movie was ok, brisk pace, didn't get stuck on silliness too much. Whole Tauriel-Kili thing had me literally gritting my teeth but I endured. They got to the Laketown, which was really well done. That was one, perhaps the only, aspect of the movies where they actually improved from the book, bringing Esgaroth alive. Though Bard himself was pretty meh.

Then Smaug, and he was really scary & well done...at first. More on that later. And then the movie grinded into trainwreck. And it ended totally abrubtly, like Matrix Reloaded-suddenly, leaving everyone with "Huh?" expression.

-Jackson is a terrible diretor. I mean, really really bad. Why do EVERYTHING, every damn scene has to be underlined by hugely dramatic music, slow-motions and closeups? It is worse than JJ Abrams and lens flares. The guy has no clue on drama. When absolutely everything is shown underlined in fake dramacy and 'epicness', then truly epic & dramatic moments end up feeling like nothing.

-HFR did not really bother me. In some places it exposed bad CGI. OTOH, in the Laketown, I actually liked it. Made the set look more gritty and realistic.

-Tauriel would have been OK, had she not been so forcefully shoved down our throats. And Kili thing was just embarrassing. It was SO obvious that whole thing was planned by some committee with Powerpoint slides and pie charts about connecting with 13-16y. demographics.

-Bard & Black arrow thing was just set up in extremely obvious way. Now everyone knows what is going to happen. Yawn.

-Thranduil is apparently evil half-brother of Lucius Malfoy. I dig that.

-Radagast is still embarrassingly stupid, but at least they showed him little.

-Bonus points from fake authenticity: Orcs spoke mostly Black Speech, Elves spoke mostly Sindarin. Very nice.

-Of course, there were two completely implausible, overlong CGI action scenes where no Dwarf suffers a scratch though by all logic, decency & common sense, they should have died 278 times over. Won't spoil them, but they are obvious.

-Then Smaug: as I said, at first he came across as very scary. Visually he looked real good. And then they showed more of him and let him talk & chase heroes...and some more of that...and some more...and by the end of the movie, he was harmless like a kitten. If the scariest Dragon in Middle Earth can't kill anyone over 30 minutes chase, why are we supposed to be scared of him?

When you have big scary villain, absolutely worst thing you can do is to show him/her too much. Overexposing kills the magic. When you show villain chasing and boasting for extended time, but not actually able to make good of his threats, he stops being scary. And that's what they did with Smaug. He was totally meh by the end of the movie.

Overall I give it about 2.5 out of 5. Maybe a tad more. It would have been easy 3.5 if they had toned down Hollywood silliness and cut like 20 minutes off the movie. Looking for the "Sensible Editor Cut Special Edition"...

It had a good strong story line that gave you giggles and kept you on your toes. There was a few changes I didn't like but apart from that it was a good movie.

Brilliant. Hobbit 2: Hobbit Harder is a massive improvement on Unexpected Journey. Not quite up to the standards of the LotR movies in their eventual, full length DVD versions but definitely up to the level of The Two Towers and Return of the King at their cinematic release.
Hobbit 3: The Hobbiting should be astounding, but still seems unlikely to live up to Fellowship of the Ring.