I think it's worth saying that having realistic weapons in a fantasy setting is a valuable thing. Any fantasy setting may have traits that are ridiculous in comparison to our world, but those traits must operate on their own special sort of logic. Having a fantasy world in which literally anything is possible is just boring. If there's magic, it should have a system and, yes, limitations. Talking animals are all well and good, but wouldn't a scene of the character having a conversation with a dog be even better if he/she was fastidiously trying to take a notch out of his/her sword?

Like Ryan said: swords that don't rust are kind of boring in most circumstances. The fantasy world has got to be real in it's own way, you know.

And now I think my geekiness is showing. :lol: Wasn't trying to pick a fight with you Patrick, by the way! Just got my brain going, and I often have a difficult time stopping its inertia. Heheh.

Get ye some Steven Erikson! The "Malazan Book of the Fallen" series is incredible. He is a master story teller to the utmost degree.

I also personally prefer realism in fantasy, as, to quote the Disney/Pixar "Incredibles" movie, "When everyone's super... no one is." Limitations make said super-weapons all the more impressive. If massive baddies just drop out of the sky left and right, it eventually gets to the point where you're thinking "Another 200 foot dragon? Well, here we go again, I guess."
Personally, I like to look at things on what I call a clockwork principle. If you were to set up this world and then let it go completely on its own, how long would it last before everything completely fell apart? I think a world where everybody and their grandmothers can shoot fireballs would be complete chaos.
Which is precisely why I can have a discussion about swords that don't rust while there are talking mice about. I am totally fine if that world runs under a completely different set of rules than ours does, as long as there is indeed a set of rules. I only have trouble suspending disbelief when I start to feel that the writer/director is just tossing in new exciting magical things because they feel like adding some more pizazz to their story, and not because it actually makes sense in the context of that world.

Well I saw the film and liked the film on it's own merits and since I never read the books I'm not suffering from the " They added WHAT ! And they didn't mention some other WHAT that is actually essential to the story ".

Maybe I'll go and read the books and start fresh trying to not even consider the films and enjoy the books for the kind of subtleties that don't translate well in movie form and even more when the Director decide that they have better ideas than what is in the Classic they are supposedly reproducing in film !

OK, enough beating around the bush, I'm just going to say what everyone is really thinking:

If Aslan and Gandalf got into a fight, who would win?

Who is - the deadliest warrior?

Hahahaha! :lol:


But seriously. Gandalf.