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Tim M.
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 Posted: Fri 26 Jan, 2007 7:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Bryce Felperin wrote: | | Tim M. wrote: |
4. Even though the word "knights" is used in Morte D'Arthur, knights did not even really exist in the time that the movie portrays. |
Actually the Romans did have a social class, "Equites" (sp?) I believe, in the early Republic that did reflect men who could afford to be mounted on horses. It was both a social and military class since the soldiers in early pre-Marian Roman armies had to afford their own equipment when called up to serve.
Of course whether this was carried further in Imperial Roman times and especially the Late Empire period I really couldn't tell you. I'm sure there are some better Roman history buffs on the list who could elaborate on this more than I. |
I had forgotten about them. If my Latin history serves me, the Equites were middle class group of men who like you mentioned were involved in the military. Their name derives from the the Latin word for horse because they were mounted horsemen. So yes in a sense the Romans did have the Middle Ages equivalant of knights
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Benjamin H. Abbott
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| Posted: Fri 26 Jan, 2007 7:20 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | 3) Another typical hollywood problem with films like this is where one guy fights ten or twenty opponents. I know you need to wow the audience but fighting say, four guys is pretty damn tough and quite impressive, I think even to a lay person. Wading into a crowd of twenty or thirty orcs swinging is just silly. |
Well, in this area, you should by more offended by the books. Peter Jackson greatly diminished Boromir's martial prowess. In the book, he initially routed dozens of orcs, killing many. Then he fought a hundred at the least, most of them shooting arrows at him. Boromir surely looked like a pincushion before he finally fell.
Personally, I perfer Tolkien's version of the scene. However, I agree that it's very hard make one-against-many fights look reasonable on the screen.
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Tim M.
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| Posted: Fri 26 Jan, 2007 7:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Benjamin H. Abbott wrote: | | Quote: | | 3) Another typical hollywood problem with films like this is where one guy fights ten or twenty opponents. I know you need to wow the audience but fighting say, four guys is pretty damn tough and quite impressive, I think even to a lay person. Wading into a crowd of twenty or thirty orcs swinging is just silly. |
Well, in this area, you should by more offended by the books. Peter Jackson greatly diminished Boromir's martial prowess. In the book, he initially routed dozens of orcs, killing many. Then he fought a hundred at the least, most of them shooting arrows at him. Boromir surely looked like a pincushion before he finally fell.
Personally, I perfer Tolkien's version of the scene. However, I agree that it's very hard make one-against-many fights look reasonable on the screen. |
Jackson did the same thing with the battle in front of the Black Gates.Tolkien describes how Aragon walks away from the battle completely unscathed but in the movie he almost dies
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Lafayette C Curtis
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| Posted: Sat 27 Jan, 2007 6:17 am Post subject: Re: the realisticness of The Lord of the Rings |
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| Jean Henri Chandler wrote: | | 1) The gondor knights charging without lances... where the heck were their lances? That charge looked really sad to me. The charge of the Rohirrhim in the third movie was infinitely better, at least they had spears... maybe in the Tolkein Universe the Rohirim were the only people who knew what a spear was i don't know. I would have really really liked to have seen some lances there though. |
That scene obviously wasn't present in the book. Unlike in the movie, there were several charges by the Knights of Dol Amroth during the siege of Minas Tirith and the battle of Pelennor Fields, but all of these were done with lances. I guess the movie just needed a way to show Denethor's madness and Faramir's futile and unquestioning loyalty to his father.
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Martin Wilkinson
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| Posted: Sat 27 Jan, 2007 6:26 am Post subject: |
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I read the books after seeing the first movie, and i was disappointed that Tom Bombadill was omitted, but i understand why. Think about it, as has been said, a movie with nothing left out of the books would have a staggeringly large running time, of god knows how long.
The arms, and armour, i'm just glad that the weapons used, by the good guys at least, are pretty close to accuracy, and the whole mail and plate thing, it's set in a fantasy universe, not here on earth, so i don't see what the problem is. If it were set in reality, then yes that would be a problem, but it's not.
Personally, i think Peter Jackson did a brilliant job, and create what could be described as the best movies ever. (i said could, not that i believe that, or that anyone else does, but that it could be said, and wouldn't be an outrageous claim.)
Yes, things were changed, and yes, that means it's not totally accurate to the source material, but it's 100% accurate to the feel, heart and themes of the source material.
"A bullet you see may go anywhere, but steel's, almost bound to go somewhere."
Schola Gladiatoria
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Lafayette C Curtis
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| Posted: Sat 27 Jan, 2007 6:46 am Post subject: |
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| Martin Wilkinson wrote: | | Yes, things were changed, and yes, that means it's not totally accurate to the source material, but it's 100% accurate to the feel, heart and themes of the source material. |
Accurate to the feel, heart, and feel of the source material? I wouldn't say so. There's way too much romance and too much of the "cool Legolas" while the darker aspects and the brooding sense of danger in the book didn't get conveyed properly enough--in my opinion.
Of course, everyone will appreciate the movie and the book in different ways. I'm just saying that, for me, the movies were quite good by motion-picture standards but didn't quite manage to deliver the book's powerful sense of wonder.
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Taylor Ellis
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| Posted: Sat 27 Jan, 2007 7:09 am Post subject: |
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| Benjamin H. Abbott wrote: | | Quote: | | 3) Another typical hollywood problem with films like this is where one guy fights ten or twenty opponents. I know you need to wow the audience but fighting say, four guys is pretty damn tough and quite impressive, I think even to a lay person. Wading into a crowd of twenty or thirty orcs swinging is just silly. |
Well, in this area, you should by more offended by the books. Peter Jackson greatly diminished Boromir's martial prowess. In the book, he initially routed dozens of orcs, killing many. Then he fought a hundred at the least, most of them shooting arrows at him. Boromir surely looked like a pincushion before he finally fell.
Personally, I perfer Tolkien's version of the scene. However, I agree that it's very hard make one-against-many fights look reasonable on the screen. |
I'm pretty sure that Boromir only killed 4 uruks in the book though...
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Bill Grandy
myArmoury Team
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| Posted: Sat 27 Jan, 2007 8:38 am Post subject: |
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| Martin Wilkinson wrote: | | it's set in a fantasy universe, not here on earth, so i don't see what the problem is. If it were set in reality, then yes that would be a problem, but it's not. |
Sure, I agree, but the question initially were asking about the realistic probability. Otherwise, yes, it's just a movie, and at the end of the day I don't really care too much myself, even if I'll nitpick here and there in the back of my head silently to myself. 
HistoricalHandcrafts.com
-Inspired by History, Crafted by Hand
"For practice is better than artfulness. Your exercise can do well without artfulness, but artfulness is not much good without the exercise.” -anonymous 15th century fencing master, MS 3227a
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R. D. Simpson
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| Posted: Sat 27 Jan, 2007 9:14 am Post subject: |
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| Martin Wilkinson wrote: | | it's set in a fantasy universe, not here on earth, so i don't see what the problem is. If it were set in reality, then yes that would be a problem, but it's not. |
Actually, it is set on Earth. It's perhaps not as obvious in The Lord of the Rings, but if you read The Hobbit and especially The Silmarillion, it is clear that Tolkien's stories take place in a mythic past of our own world. And from interviews with Jackson, it's pretty clear that's what he intended to convey, as well.
Gloria Virtutem Sequitur
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Martin Wilkinson
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| Posted: Sat 27 Jan, 2007 11:48 am Post subject: |
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| R. D. Simpson wrote: | | Martin Wilkinson wrote: | | it's set in a fantasy universe, not here on earth, so i don't see what the problem is. If it were set in reality, then yes that would be a problem, but it's not. |
Actually, it is set on Earth. It's perhaps not as obvious in The Lord of the Rings, but if you read The Hobbit and especially The Silmarillion, it is clear that Tolkien's stories take place in a mythic past of our own world. And from interviews with Jackson, it's pretty clear that's what he intended to convey, as well. |
I really don't get that feeling from the Hobbit, and in everything i've read/heard from Peter Jackson, it implied it had to be a realistic world, but he never to me explicitly stated, maybe you've read/seen something i haven't.
"A bullet you see may go anywhere, but steel's, almost bound to go somewhere."
Schola Gladiatoria
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Ed Chan
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| Posted: Sat 27 Jan, 2007 1:45 pm Post subject: Re: the realisticness of The Lord of the Rings |
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| Tim M. wrote: | | I just wanted to see what people thought about the Lord of the Rings concerning the realisticness of weapons, armor, seige battles, etc. For example, would the elven sword be an effective weapon or would it be just clumsy and useless to use? |
I'm far from an expert in historical arms, armour, and warfare, but I thought the conceptual aspect of the designs of the movie outweighed the practical aspects somewhat. However, adding realism to fantasy rather than adding fantasy to realism was the intent of the production team, I believe, so I think it was a success from that point of view.
I think the arms and armour of the "good guys" were more realistic than the "bad guys". The realistic(perhaps "practical" would be a better term to use) aspects of the arms and armour of the heroes was more evident. The designs for the villain items were more for cosmetic purposes like the spikes and such. It would have been nice to see more variety in the weapons used but swords are the dominant weapon in the story. It would be less of an issue if there wasn't so much use of plated armour in the movies.
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Benjamin H. Abbott
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| Posted: Sat 27 Jan, 2007 5:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | I'm pretty sure that Boromir only killed 4 uruks in the book though... |
Well, only four of their bodies lay by his, yes. But those were only from the second group of at least a hundred. He routed dozens before that. Some of them might have been Uruk-hai.
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Lafayette C Curtis
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| Posted: Sun 28 Jan, 2007 6:04 am Post subject: |
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Actually, I wouldn't think a swordsman of Boromir's skill initially defeating a hundred Orcs strictly unrealistic. Unlike the movie, the book did not give an interpretation of how he fought, and I've always pictured it as a more fluid fight where he's running this way and that, engaging only a few Orcs at a time--not like the movie scene where he essentially stood his ground and tried to beat the Orcs off (which is not a good approach, as anyone who has tried tactical swordsmanship scenarios would testify). And once the first dozen or so orcs were down it's not implausible that the rest might have considered him unbeatable in close combat and fled away from him.
Remember, the mechanics of massed combat are different from those of single combat.
As for Arda being a precursor for Earth, the most obvious clues are in the Silmarillion--or more precisely in Akallabeth, where it is told that the originally flat world was made round after a Numenorean king tried to attain godhood by invading the land of the Valar.
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Joseph J. E. Hancock
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| Posted: Sun 28 Jan, 2007 8:39 am Post subject: |
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[quote] Gandalf spins around with a sword in one hand and a staff in the other.[quote]
Well it may not be realistic for a human, but Gandalf is not human. He has great powers, lest you forget.
One historical reference describes an English knight, named Billefort, using a maul weighing twenty-five pounds when fighting, in 1315, a combat against French knights.
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Joseph J. E. Hancock
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| Posted: Sun 28 Jan, 2007 8:42 am Post subject: |
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| Lafayette C Curtis wrote: | | Actually, I wouldn't think a swordsman of Boromir's skill initially defeating a hundred Orcs strictly unrealistic. Unlike the movie, the book did not give an interpretation of how he fought, and I've always pictured it as a more fluid fight where he's running this way and that, engaging only a few Orcs at a time--not like the movie scene where he essentially stood his ground and tried to beat the Orcs off (which is not a good approach, as anyone who has tried tactical swordsmanship scenarios would testify). |
I agree entirely. I think that he engaged all those orcs over a fair stretch of time. I always got the impression (from the books) that Boromir was the most physically daunting man on the battlefield, and that Aragorn had the powers of leadership, amongst a great many other things, which was where his powers lie.
One historical reference describes an English knight, named Billefort, using a maul weighing twenty-five pounds when fighting, in 1315, a combat against French knights.
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Joe Fults
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| Posted: Sun 28 Jan, 2007 9:42 am Post subject: |
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| John Cooksey wrote: | | Tim M. wrote: | | I don't mind if a fantasy movie is a little inaccurate in terms of toughness of armor or swords or the way some battles are fought because hey it's fantasy. It doesn't need to be accurate when compared to our world because things may be different in that world. But when people, namely Hollywood, try to take something from history, make it historically inaccurate, and try to pass it off as historicall like Troy or Kingdom of Heaven, I get annoyed |
I dunno, Kingdom of Heaven wasn't *that* bad. I rather enjoyed it. Heck, I enjoyed Troy (minus every part with Paris in it).
Neither one of those pictures tortured my sensibilities in the manner that "King Arthur" did. I don't mind blue-painted Celtic warrior princesses and dark, brooding Sarmatian knights, but I do despise poorly cast and poorly depicted Sarmatians with over-developed British accents. |
A far as a the movie goes, the KOH directors cut was better.
Filled some of the holes in the theatrical release a bit which I appreciated.
Otherwise they're just movies, and now they're all old movies at that.
"The goal shouldn’t be to avoid being evil; it should be to actively do good." - Danah Boyd
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Tim M.
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| Posted: Sun 28 Jan, 2007 12:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Lafayette C Curtis wrote: | Actually, I wouldn't think a swordsman of Boromir's skill initially defeating a hundred Orcs strictly unrealistic. Unlike the movie, the book did not give an interpretation of how he fought, and I've always pictured it as a more fluid fight where he's running this way and that, engaging only a few Orcs at a time--not like the movie scene where he essentially stood his ground and tried to beat the Orcs off (which is not a good approach, as anyone who has tried tactical swordsmanship scenarios would testify). And once the first dozen or so orcs were down it's not implausible that the rest might have considered him unbeatable in close combat and fled away from him.
Remember, the mechanics of massed combat are different from those of single combat.
As for Arda being a precursor for Earth, the most obvious clues are in the Silmarillion--or more precisely in Akallabeth, where it is told that the originally flat world was made round after a Numenorean king tried to attain godhood by invading the land of the Valar. |
Don't forget, he was trying to protect Merry and Pippin and that's why he was mostly stationary
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Richard R.
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| Posted: Sun 28 Jan, 2007 2:14 pm Post subject: |
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Being a fairly serious swordsman I have to say that the LOTR movies were a major dissapointment in the way of realism. Just a few of my beefs:
1) Gondorian Armor. People wearing that much plate should've been able to survive more than a little hit to the belly by a wimpy little orc wielding a butcher knife. That was one of the lamest scenes in the movie(s).
2) Rohirrim charge into pike squares. Anyone who has studied even a little bit into the history of warfare knows this is just a stupid idea.
3) Legolas. Gah.
4) Elven swords -- Some friends and I put some replicas together and tested this out. Anyone wielding one of those things doesn't stand much of a chance going up against somebody armed with a sword and even a minimally-sized shield. The way they were used, while visually impressive, was also highly inefficient and in general a bad idea.
5) Swordplay in general focused mostly on broad swings and belly cuts without taking into account any protection or targeting of the legs and other targets that a real swordsman would focus on. Aragorn's fighting style in particular left him particularly wide open for a quick thrust just about everytime he made a swing. Again, this was done for visual effect, but it was certainly not realistic.
Those are just a few of the things that really bothered me.
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Harry Pretat
Location: New Jersey Joined: 25 Aug 2006
Posts: 6
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| Posted: Sun 28 Jan, 2007 3:40 pm Post subject: |
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I think the fact that Lord of the Rings takes place in an entirely different universe gives them enough leeway to make up for any unrealistic arms and armor. Even if it does take place on a precursor to earth (which I've never read anything to indicate that. I could only get so far in the Silmarillion until I just fell asleep every time I picked it up.) it's still a world where magic is openly in use and elves, balrogs, dragons, and orcs exist. These differences make it different enough to expect a different pattern of weapons evolution.
It's movies like the 13th warrior, where Antonio Banderas can just take a Viking sword and grind it into a perfect scimitar in a matter of minutes, that make me mad.
PS: Someone complained about Peter Jackson adding in his own plot line with the Arwen/Aragorn romance. Tolkien actually did document their relationship in an appendix to Lord of the Rings. It's in the back of my copy of it.
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Lafayette C Curtis
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| Posted: Sun 28 Jan, 2007 8:06 pm Post subject: |
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| Tim M. wrote: | | Don't forget, he was trying to protect Merry and Pippin and that's why he was mostly stationary |
Well, in the book Merry and Pippin actually fought beside him. And it would make sense for him to adopt an aggressive approach--keeping the orcs entirely away from the Hobbits--rather than just waiting passively to take down those who came to take them.
| Harry Pretat wrote: | | PS: Someone complained about Peter Jackson adding in his own plot line with the Arwen/Aragorn romance. Tolkien actually did document their relationship in an appendix to Lord of the Rings. It's in the back of my copy of it. |
He did, but the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen there was neither so sappy or so flowery as the movie had it. And of course I don't know where they got the idea of Arwen surrendering her immortality to Frodo...
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