Warg Attack

[Lalaith]

I'm probably going to get a chorus of "we KNEW that" here, but I found, when re-reading the Unfinished Tales, that the TTT warg attack, which I thought was completely made up, actually has some roots in original Tolkien material. There is a long excerpt on how Erkenbrand and Elfhelm were ambushed by warg riders at the Fords of the Isen...

[HCIsland]

The Warg's are certainly there and are mentioned in LoTR. They certainly didn't attack Theoden and company and one can argue back and forth about whether the scene itself was appropriate or whether they should have looked like hyenas on steriods, but Warg Riders were definately reeking havoc in Rohan.<P>By the way, I love the account of the Battles of the Fords of Isen in Unfinished Tales. It's really cool and I would certainly recommmend reading it.<P>H.C.

[Lalaith]

HC - I would certainly agree that the wargs looked disappointing. <BR>I also wish the scene had been considerably shorter, and with no 'humorous Gimli moments' (shudder) and no Aragorn near-death horse-kissing. But that's another story.

[eleanor_niphredil]

They had wargs in the Hobbit to, at the Battle of Five Armies, and even in LOTR just before they enter Moria.<p>[ February 07, 2003: Message edited by: eleanor_niphredil ]

[Diamond18]

That scene was great up until Aragorn went over the side. It dragged it out too much. But the battle itself was a real good way to wake us back up after the slow scenes with Elrond/Arwen/Galadriel. I thought the Wargs looked sufficiently real, if not terribly accurate. I liked the way they sounded, and the part of the scene where Legolas sees them all come rushing over the hill. The Gimli bench pressing could have been dispensed with...though I got a twisted sort of enjoyment out of the part where he broke the Orc's neck.<P>I believe I heard that they put that in there to make up for leaving the Wargs out of FotR. You know how PJ likes his monsters! I read Unfinished Tales, but I don't remember the account of the Fords of Isen! Ah well, I didn't read the book in order, I hopped around a lot, so that must explain it. Bad, bad Diamond!<p>[ February 07, 2003: Message edited by: Diamond18 ]

[The Saucepan Man]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> hyenas on steriods, <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P> Make that suicidal hyenas on steroids. Oh, I just can't resist having a pop at PJ's "Wargs". They were the biggest disappointment of the film for me. When I saw them in the trailer, I was really excited, because they have always captured my imagination, ever since reading the Hobbit. They should have been huge, evil-looking ferocious wolves ... oh, what a missed opportunity.<P>And yes, there is a reference to the battle at the crossing of the Isen in <I>The Road to Isengard</I>. Although I don't think that it is made explicit that wolf-riders were involved in the battle, this is suggested by Gandalf:<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> yet I feared that wolf-riders and plunderers might ride nonetheless to Meduseld, while it was undefended. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[Dunlondion]

I can't believe they did such a stupid thing to aragorn

[Arvedui III]

Aragorn shouldn't of gone over the cliff, with the etxra time they should have gone to Isengard. But otherwise the wargs were really cool.

[Gorwingel]

I didn't mind them, but then the wargs didn't totally impress me. Some of the parts were very fakey, especially when Legolas is running down the hill, he looks totally out of place. The only cool part of that scene is when the wargs and the horses are running towards eachother, that part was kind of cool. Though Aragorn should never had gone over that cliff, that scene was totally out of place.

[doug*platypus]

Wargs are certainly an important part of Middle-Earth, referred to quite often as helping out (and later eating!) their friends the goblins. <P>Théoden and the refugees being attacked by Wargs on the way to Helm's Deep definitely does <B>not</B> have any basis in the books. I thought that eliminating Dunharrow was a bad call, and that no matter what was said in the movie, the women and children were being put in a far more dangerous position than Edoras by being taken to Helm's Deep. If the army of Rohan was at the Hornburg, Saruman's army could not have just marched past them onto Edoras. It would have been suicide for them, leaving themselves open to attack on the plains by the horsemen. The danger of the journey, and the appearance of the Warg Riders, makes the move seem even more foolish.<P>I thought it was good to see an addition to the books that I didn't 100% hate (like I did Osgiliath). But putting in more battles will only reduce the impact of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, and take preciouss screen time away from Frodo and Sam, not to mention the poor Ents.

[Isenna]

Was I the only one who saw a lot of Attack of the Clones pig things in the wargs? They look almost the same to me. Lame, they were lame. And I don't understand why they did that to Aragorn. Probably for the whole dream thing. Which was lame anyway.