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Comment by bigDinosaur | Hacker News Reader

Christopher Tolkien I think was fairly correct in his analysis of the LoTR films, and I think it became clear with the Hobbit what the ultimate conclusion of that style of treatment of the source material would be.

What he got wrong is that they're perfectly fun and good films in their own right - it'd be more accurate to say they're heavily inspired by the LoTR books rather than being direct adaptions. In some cases they cut things which just would never have even worked on screen, and in general I don't think a deeply ponderous and weighty mood would have really been received that well. That said, some of the changes they made (e.g. to Denethor) were just gratuitous.

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Denethor and Faramir treatment hurt..

My number 1 gripe was the army of the dead being the deus ex machina making rest of the battle pointless joke. This is after making perfect entrance for Rohan

I like the movies and enjoy watching them, some parts are masterpieces but some not so much.

What was the original army of the dead like? It always seemed like the weakest point of all the films and certainly the most glaring plot hole of why didn’t they keep using them.

In the original the army of the dead was used to capture the ships, and grab the army under a Prince in southern Gondor, (I think it was Imiril) and bring his army up from Osgiliath, to surround the armies of darkness on 3 sides, who then broke and ran.

Were they a tide of untouchable murder ghosts though? Or were they more of a conventional zombie force that could be killed?

They cannot be killed but their aim is to abandon Earth, and they only need Aragorn to liberate them after they have fulfilled their oath. Not that Aragorn has true power over them. He has only the power to set them free, and they obey because that is the way to freedom.

More or less as in the film BUT they were eager to leave the Earth, and they only needed to heed their oath. They do so in a side battle (near Osgiliath IIRC) and, immediately, Aragorn sets them free.

But they are not “an army at the ser ice of Aragorn”. They just want to be liberated and to do so, they fulfill the promise they broke. They are not obligated to more (and Aragorn has no power to keep them “here”), much less to make them obey him.

That's what I think, they are not accurate to the books, or book in The Hobbit's case, but they are good films and I love watching them.

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