LOTR Movies Plot Summaries

[Michael Martinez]

I've taken the plunge and have added plot summaries to the Lord of the Rings movie / Hobbit movie Fact/Rumor Roundup. These are, of course, speculative summaries based on what we've all heard about changes made to the storyline by Peter Jackson.

[IronParrot]

Wow. Great work there.

[Michael Martinez]

Thanks. But I guess I should point out that most of the later stuff is pretty much guesswork. We really haven't heard what's going to happen with the third movie. Some people have expressed a little concern over my extrapolation. I expect to make changes to the summaries in the coming months.

[Darth Tater]

I hope the Wormtongue thing is just a rumor. It seems so silly, I can't see how a man who says he likes Tolkien could do something senseless like that.

[Michael Martinez]

You know, the funny thing about these rumors is that they are coming straight from the online Tolkien community, people who claim they love Tolkien's work. :)

Oh, the irony!

[Fat middle]

Love is one thing, good taste is just another thing...

[Darth Tater]

ROTFLMAO!!! Quite frankly some people are just too desperate to find out what's gonna happen in the movies, so they make it up themselves aka "rumors". :lol:

[Hernalt]

Perfectly adequate summaries, Martinez. At first I thought you should knock off the last line from the Two Towers plot, "But as Sam is leaving he encounters a company of Orcs and learns from them that Frodo is not dead." But upon further reflection, what makes a cliffhanger? The model of Frodo's animated suspension was perfected in Han Solo's, but it was the knowledge that Han was still alive that knawed our minds for the long burning interim until ROTJ. So the same should hold true with The Two Towers: For the novice Tolkien viewer to watch Frodo get stung and through Sam "know" that he's dead would make the plot a touch too self-contained. It would single-handedly amputate a valuable resource of emotional turmoil. So it's better that we get a knawing hint that "Frodo Lives!" rather than to bump into a suddenly resurrected Hobbit in ROTK. *I* don't want to be cheated of all the emotional angst of waiting.

As for Grima's rumored murder of Theoden: Would this be a result of his poisonings, which have been behind the scene already, or a violent act which would be *Quite out of character for the *Craven* Grima we all know and love? It could be shocking and emotionally draining to have a sniveling wimp villian suddenly man up and do something heroic. (hehe!) But it's true: the connectivity need not be there from Grima back to Saruman, and Jackson can neatly excise two characters in one scene should Grima kill Theoden and be immediately avenged by Eomer/Eowyn.

Were you figuring that Arwen would essentially accompany Aragorn the whole way? That would rob the audience of the emotional climax of their reunion. Let's hope she isn't with him the whole time!

[Michael Martinez]

I have tried to leave in as much ambiguity as possible so to be as wrong as possible while being as right as possible (if that makes sense).

Of course, six months from now, we'll all probably know far more about these movies than fans have ever known about any upcoming movies in the past.

[SamwiseGamgeeOTS]

that's great stuff there man......but, you were just a little off.....

[azalea]

Originally posted by Hernalt

As for Grima's rumored murder of Theoden: Would this be a result of his poisonings, which have been behind the scene already, or a violent act which would be *Quite out of character for the *Craven* Grima we all know and love? It could be shocking and emotionally draining to have a sniveling wimp villian suddenly man up and do something heroic. (hehe!) But it's true: the connectivity need not be there from Grima back to Saruman, and Jackson can neatly excise two characters in one scene should Grima kill Theoden and be immediately avenged by Eomer/Eowyn.


SG's dredging notwithstanding, I found this blurb to be interesting. I think from what we've seen so far, this will not happen, but the comment about poisoning reminded me of our debates about Theoden's exorcism. The idea that he was being poisoned into dottage (?) speaks to the "not possessed" argument. Anyway, I just found that interesting. But I'm pretty certain that from what we've seen so far, Theoden will indeed be offed by the Witchking in RotK. I for one will be shocked if it doesn't play out that way. (Maybe Grima will just wound him at Orthanc and incite the revenge slaying? Hmmm.)

[IronParrot]

One must remember when reading these old articles that very early on, a lot of the rumours about the changes to LOTR in the movies were based on the initial drafts, which were two films of about two-and-a-half hours in length. Back then, Arwen did indeed have a more prominent role, Eomer was out of the picture entirely, and I think even Lothlorien was bypassed. Crazy.