LotR2-TTT-Seq13

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And if I built this fortress around your heart
Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire
Then let me build a bridge
For I cannot fill the chasm
And let me set the battlements on fire. -Fortress Around Your Heart by Sting


We continue the march to Helm’s Deep, and the time for absent reflections is past.

Legolas scans ahead, and he seems to know something is wrong - his face isn’t relaxed, and that’s a bad sign in the Firstborn. Mounted scouts probe ahead and one horse sniffs foul air. Above them is a Warg rider, which swoops down upon them. Here Háma falls not before the Hornburg, but in the field. The other horseman attacks, and I liked that orc/warg fought man/horse. Wargs are the steeds of the enemy, and here they are presented as such. Legolas shoots the Warg and uses his knives to dispatch its rider.

Aragorn, seeing what a happened, runs back to start a panic. Men mount up for the attack, and Théoden calls out orders. He tells Éowyn to stay with the people and to guide them to Helm’s Deep. She wants to fight, but the king presses the issue. Not sure what I was to see there.

The people make for lower ground ( ) while the riders go off to meet the wargs. Gimli starts up his comedy routine, and Aragorn stays for one last look at Éowyn.

Is he or PJ leading the shield maiden on? Lord Aragorn, if thy intentions are pure, then openly declare the desire of thy heart. Or quit messing with Éowyn; she’s had enough love’em and lose’em for one lifetime.

Legolas ‘one shot one kill’ Greenleaf kills wargs at a distance until his ride appears, at which time he does some whoopedty-do spin acrobatics to mount the running equine. I wasn’t as impressed as PJ wanted me to be.

The thud! impact of the riders is visceral. Spear and arrow, tooth and fang, axe and scimitar all spill blood on the brown tufts of grass. Gimli dismounts in the usual way, and here’s some Tylenol for John Rhys-Davies’ stunt double.

“In this scene you fall to the ground.”

“Uh, wasn’t that what I did in the last 20 scenes?”

Gimli makes to take down his first warg, but is beaten to the kill by Legolas. Thanks, Master Elf, instead of saving one of those poor men who will lay dead upon the field you take down a warg that would be dead momentarily anyway. Good thinking. Gimli is attacked again, and his attacker becomes his bane. At least we see why dwarves are different, as, seemingly, Gimli is stronger than most Middle Earthers.

Did you see Aragorn take another head? What’s with that guy? The battle scene was intense but cool as it was an open battle with no ‘sides’ and everyone was running about trying to put down as many of the enemy as possible.

Gimli is piled on yet again. And again. There’s something PJ is trying to say in a Freudian way about his treatment of this dwarf?

Aragorn, knocked from his mount, fights while being dragged along by a seemingly blind warg. Both go sailing cliffward. First Gandalf, then Boromir over the falls, and now poor Aragorn over the cliff. Tears filled my eyes at the loss . Six to go.

The wargs are routed, leaving only the task of helping the surviving good guys and sending the bad guys on their way. Legolas, Gimli and Théoden look for Aragorn, who as we know has gone cliff diving. Do you think that Théoden’s thinking, “Just my luck. The first battle and we already lose 'Mr. Fighter of the Century' and Isildur’s only remaining heir. Eorlingas, westward ho! To the Havens as fast as we can go!”

The two bean counters question an orc who has the worst dental hygiene to date. He states that Aragorn is dead, and proves it with the Evenstar. Did you notice how clean Legolas’s hands were? Seeing no sign of Aragorn they make haste to leave, and Théoden even allows the dead to become carrion. That’s a bit of a difference from the books. “Let them eat horse!” Legolas stares down at the Evenstar in his hand, and you know he’s wondering if Arwen were now available. Hmmm.

Meanwhile, Éowyn’s troop makes it to the fastness of Helm’s Deep, and I think it odd that they have so much faith in the place. Plus, from the distance that they first view it, they can’t tell if Uruks are lying in wait within. Éowyn walks through the gate and sees not the shining army that I think that she hoped to see.

Sick and hurt peasants, and despairing soldiers.

Oh my gosh! Was that a Hammer in Helm’s hand on that Statue? Duh! Maybe he should also be wearing a twice-large helmet, therefore his name?!? Or was that an ancestor of Gimli? “We honored the dwarves with a statue at Helm’s Deep as they are just so funny!”

Those two peasant children, pawns of both wizards, reunite with their mother, and that’s comforting. Éowyn takes stock of the provisions, and it seems that taters will be on the menu for some time. The return of the King is announced, and Éowyn’s heart beats faster, but it’s not just the King that she hopes to see. The riders suffered much loss at the hands (paws?) of the wargs, and one wonders why Théoden wouldn’t want to hole up a bit instead of meeting the enemy on the plains. Gimli delivers the bad news, and I’m surprised that he didn’t do it with a joke. Éowyn’s heart breaks. Her uncle and King can provide no help, and she falls to her knees, shocked and shaken.

Winter has returned to her heart.

King Théoden orders the few soldiers that he has, and also hides the women and children. His defenses are thin, and you got to wonder just how many people actually live in this country. On the other hand, as he *is* placing his troops and plans to meet the enemy, one can only wonder what would have happened if he were to have arrived at Mundburg before the siege.

At least he’s making an effort.

Still, he knows nothing of the forces Saruman arrayed against him, and nothing of outdoor plumbing. That culvert that we see will figure much in the coming storm.

Back at Orthanc, Saruman whips up some old-fashioned gunpowder while the Worm questions his work. Nice Erlenmeyer flask there. Worm almost puts himself and the wizard on the walls, so to speak, but Saruman pulls the flame back. I like that PJ went with gunpowder, as that’s how I interpreted the text, unlike Bakshi. With the wall breached, Saruman concludes that the Helmlingas will fall. Worm is none too sure, and so Saruman shows him the other part of his attack plan. Like the running joke, first Worm has to deny that something is possible and then we see that he is mistaken. The two, wizard and pupil, look from their balcony perch over an army of tens of thousands.

That’s some mud!

There’s chanting from the Uruks, and I think that they are saying, “speech!” Saruman obliges. He starts with the usual ‘fire up the troops” speech. I guess that it’s morning, as he says by nightfall the Isen will run red or something and that the Helm’s Deepers won’t need alarm clocks.

Some issues: The Uruks, though orcs 2.0, still are a little too disciplined for, well, orcs. The orderly groups, surely appealing to the retentive Sharky, seem a bit too artificial. And I don’t think that I commented on Orthanc previously, but the books state that the tower appears not to be man made and is more rough-cut. Isengard here, though interesting, is too man-made for me. Another issue is the number of Uruks. To think that since Frodo left the Shire (6 months at the most?) we’ve gone from zero to 10,000 plus Uruks is a bit crazy. At that rate, guesstimated at 55/day, Saruman could have hatched an effective force to counter the Ents, if he knew that any were coming, that is.

Anyway…

Is that a tear in Worm’s eye, the last he can shed for all of his brothers who are doomed to die? Or is he overjoyed, thinking that surely he picked the right horse in this race?

The Uruks march on to Helm’s Deep.