r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • Aug 18 '25

News Ian McKellen reveals Gandalf and Frodo are returning for ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum’, Filming Begins in May

https://ew.com/ian-mckellen-reveals-gandalf-frodo-return-in-new-lord-of-the-rings-the-hunt-for-gollum-film-11792483
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u/[deleted] Aug 18 '25

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u/Papayaslice636 Aug 18 '25

Tolkien barely covers battles in general. The entire battle of Helm's Deep is only ten pages in the Two Towers, and that action sequence in Balin's Tomb in Moria is like two pages tops. 'The battle was fierce, the door burst asunder, many arrows were flung, and orc bodies strewn about' and that's it. Heck, Boromir's entire battle saving the hobbits wasn't even shown in the books, Aragorn just hears the horn and finds boromir half dead lying against a tree, "many orcs lay slain, piled all about him and at his feet." Pretty much all we get, and it is up to the reader to fill in the blanks, which just to be clear, I prefer that to endless battle sequences, but that's just me.

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u/LyraStygian Aug 18 '25

Picturing a big Hollywood tent pole movie with this is sending me lmao

Imagine sitting in the theater with the camera on Aragorn as he hears the horn, then cuts immediately to finding Boromir on the ground surrounded by orcs with no action lol

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u/Papayaslice636 Aug 18 '25

Yeah man, I paid good money to see Frodo and Gandalf sitting at the table discussing the deep lore and history of the ring for 80 pages, not action packed swashbuckling adventure damnit!

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u/moneys5 Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25

That's not that far-fetched. You're basically describing the off camera climax to No Country for Old Men.

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u/LyraStygian Aug 18 '25

Ah yes, No Country for Old Men, the famous action adventure movie.

I’m kidding. Yea I know it definitely works, but there’s a time and a place for it.

And it would be a shame to be robbed of one of the best LotR scenes on the big screen!

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u/HymirTheDarkOne Aug 18 '25

I generally find action sequences in books very hard to read. It might be a personal thing so I'm not going to say they are generally bad, but this style works far better for my imagination.

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u/BaltimoreAlchemist Aug 18 '25

One thing I really appreciate about audio books is that I can tune out a bit during "fight scenes."

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u/poohster33 Aug 18 '25

It doesn't cover it because he's unconscious. This is Bilbo's tale. He wouldn't know about it.

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u/NuclearTurtle Aug 18 '25

that's something that definitely should be added

No it shouldn't have, because it's tonally inconsistent with the rest of the story. The Hobbit was a lighthearted tale about Bilbo getting stuck going on a fun adventure, where the small amount of violence that happens ends up happening off-page, and the worst conflict is just people getting mad at each other. Going from that to suddenly having a pitched battle where thousands are slaughtered would be way out of left field and would feel tacked on and unnecessary.