After watching LOTR during the snow days, it really underscored a major failing for me.
The villains never won a battle.
They lost the battle of Helm’s Deep. They lost the battle of Minas Tirith (pardon the spelling if that’s wrong.) They lost the battle at the Black Gate (ran away from it, actually, even though they outnumbered the forces of man by a hundred to one.) They lost the battle of the Ents vs. Isengard. Even when they did succeed, it was overthrown in short order. The Orcs made off with the Halflings, but it was the wrong Halflings and they got slaughtered later anyway. Saruman manipulated events in order to get rid of Gandalf in the mines of Moria, but he came back even more powerful. The Orcs took that port city, but that was taken back by Aragorn and his ghost army.
And Sauron, for pity’s sake, should have had guards on Mt. Doom 24/7. If that was the only place where the ring could be destroyed, wouldn’t you want the ringbearer to walk into an ambush instead of a clear shot at the lava flow?
Twelve hours of movies and the villains never did a dámņëd thing right. Sheesh.
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“Hmm, I knew the Tolkien books came first, but I always figured the X-Men character’s name was a play on the suffix “saur”, as in pterasaur. Also, the obvious connection to the word “soar”, which is something the character could do with those big ol’ wings of his.”
Those possibly were both reasons why the creators named him Sauron, but it is true that the “in-book” reason is that Karl Lykos was a LOTR geek.
Your reasoning certainly does make more sense!
“Anyway, it still doesn’t help. I still think of a big, energy-draining, hypnotic pterasaur man whenever I think of the name Sauron. When some things get stuck in your psyche, you can’t really get them out.”
I’m with you, frankly. Actually, I think X-Men is a million times cooler than LOTR. There’s more bang for the buck in a single page of X-Men Visionaries: Neal Adams than there is in an hour of the Peter Jackson films. (My opinion only, naturally.)
“but it’s a movie that, if the hero wasn’t even involved, the ending would have been exactly the same — without Indy’s influence, the Nazi’s would have got the real medallion, found the real crypt where the Ark was buried, and performed the same ceremony where they all got fried.
A movie where the hero made no difference. Now THERE’S a great flick.”
I’ve seen Raiders at least four times and I never thought of that. Thanks, James.
Earlier comments, “Life imitates art”: simplistic much. Are you equating Iraqis with Sauron’s horde? If continued, the analogy would have me rereading the book with a mind to questioning Gandalf’s motives.
Hopefully the elections will lead to something better.
In keeping with the whole bad guys never being any good at fighting the good guys…anybody remember a farmboy, a smuggler, a walking carpet, a princess and their walking toasters running around a planet sized space station then escaping and blowing up same? I mean, everywhere I’ve ever seen, the Empire has the best troops anywhere,and they can’t even keep from knocking their heads on their own DOORS, for Pete’s sake!
If I may put on my geek hat for just a moment, I believe that Sauron had no control whatsoever over the balrog. Wasn’t is supposed to be some ancient, primal force, that had walked the (middle) earth for aeons before anything else?
I believe that it was mentioned either in the LotR books or in the Silmarillion that it actually turned out to be fortunate that the Fellowship ran into the balrog, because it kept Sauron from recruiting him. Same deal for Smaug from the Hobbit.
Charlie Martin wrote…
I believe that it was mentioned either in the LotR books or in the Silmarillion that it actually turned out to be fortunate that the Fellowship ran into the balrog, because it kept Sauron from recruiting him. Same deal for Smaug from the Hobbit.
I don’t think that’s in the trilogy so it must be Silmarillion. I’ll have to take your word for it as I haven’t read it. I’d say that definitely makes sense for Smaug. I’d buy it with the balrog as well, if only because any ancient being with enough intelligence to forge a flaming sword and whip is surely capable of forming alliances with others.
At the very least Indy saves the girl, the nazis would have killed her, also he saves the people that would have opened the ark after finding it on the Island.
Not to bad for someone without the benefit of hindsight.
You know, the same thing happens in comics too often. The villain never wins. And then it turns from formidable foe to pathetic looser.
Take Emma Frost, since she is so popular lately. In her tenure as a villain, not once did she win against the X-Men or New Mutants. Bad guys should win every once in a while, we should see that more often. And by winning I don’t mean just getting away alive, but really inflicting some serious pain.
The Balrog I couldn’t say, but I’m pretty sure the mention of Smaug’s downfall serving the function of keeping him out of Sauron’s hands was in the appendices to LOTR. The film also culled many things from the appendices. Gandalf was seeking a way to get rid of Smaug for this reason, when he bumped into Thoron, who’s mind was also much on Smaug. The appendices are well worth reading. It only took me 18 years to get around to it…
Sauron couldn’t imagine anyone not trying to use the ring. The point was made in the book and movie.
They didn’t win at the black gate, Gollum fell and the ring was destroyed.
So Saurons powers, not yet fully formed without the ring, dissipated along with his lands and servants. Who didn’t run away, but were swallowed by the (middle) Earth.
At Helms Deep their losses were huge. I don’t think any of the Elves survived.
Which is sad since they that sacrificed their immortality.
The Ent’s won at Isenguard, But Saruman either escapes to be killed later by Grima (book), Or gets killed by Grima at Isenguard (movie).