Ring driven or Meat Driven?

[Boromir88]

There are all these big time characters that go changed in the films, for better or worse is your own opinion, like Faramir, Aragorn (atleast in the MoS's beheading), Denethor, Gimli...etc But one that doesn't often get talked about, and one I think worth mentioning is Grishnakh.

Now in the books, Grishnakh is driven to Merry and Pippin thinking they have the Ring. He is an intellegent orc and he's after the two hobbits thinking they have the ring.

The movie I think lessens his intellegence and makes him more meat-driven towards Merry and Pippin. No mention of him thinking he had they had the ring, he was simply after them to eat them. Whether this is good or bad yet, I don't know. There's pro's and con's to both sides.

One, I miss a lot of Grishnakh's lines and slick sayings. As well as the trick that Pippin gets Grishnakh to fall into. He plays along with it, knowing Grishnakh thinksh he has the ring, and he gets him to untie them. So, I think we miss sides from both characters, the intellegent Grishnakh, and the clever Pippin.

Then on the movie point, there's really no reason to make Grishnakh driven by the ring. We know that Pippin doesn't have the Ring, so any hope of building up suspense for the audience isn't going to work. That's all I can think of for the movies, but perhaps there's more.

So, which do you prefer, Ring-driven book Grishnakh, or meat-driven movie Grishnakh?

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Yes, he was a pretty sneaky and clever chap. Movie-Orcs were less interesting. I also would have preferred the Tower of Cirith Ungol to be more subtle as regards the Orcs' dialogue, but it's a minor quibble.

[Kitanna]

I just finished re-reading that chapter in TTT and I was thinking the same thing. I thought Grishnak was a clever Orc and he wasn't really given the credit in the movie. That whole part in the books shows that not all Orcs are stupid, but how smart Merry and Pippin are. I suppose it would be one of those "important, but not so important we need to include it" scenes. Oh well, it would have been nice to have at least one Orc that wasn't completely mindless.

[Beanamir of Gondor]

I'm not sure which one was better. With the stupid Grishnakh you got the stupid Merry and Pippin, who sort of float along with whatever happens, and are mainly the comic relief during the moments when Gimli fails. But, then, with the smart Grishnakh, you get to see Pippin saying "gollum, gollum", and actually being useful instead of just another curly mullet with a cute accent beneath. All in all, though the Grishnakh-getting-squashed-by-Treebeard was pretty cool, I would have to go with the Ring-driven Grishnakh. Then he's evil all around--evil to the hobbits because he wants the Ring, and evil to the other orcs because he's betraying them to get it for his own glory.

[Glirdan]

I would really have like to see the clever book Grishnahk because it also portrays Pippin not being so mindless and I really would have liked to see that part. Mind you, in the movie, the made up for that by making him make Treebeard take them to Isengard. Brilliant in my opinion. Anyway, getting off topic. I would really have perfered to have the clever Grishnahk in the movie instead of the usual brain dead orc.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

I can't accept that Glirdan. They may have 'made up' for that by having Pippin outsmart Treebeard, but doesn't that beg an equally poignant question? Being, why was Treebeard so wishy-washy?

Well, that's three characters I'm moaning about now. Sorry!