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Is Gandalf a conjurer of cheap tricks?
- Thread starter Dalek
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This. Both to keep him humble and prevent another powerful nemesis in Middle Earth in case he was corrupted.
Saruman is proof the wizards being restrained was the right thing to do. Imagine if the latter had become a second Sauron instead of just an evil man with some magic. There would have been no fellowship or War of the Ring. None of the races in the Third Age had the numbers or strength to face that.
Hopefully never, they still hold up incredibly well. At least it should not happen before a complete redo of the Hobbit in the 2020s, then maybe consider a new take of LOTR in the 2030s.
hermitpurple
Member
So is saruman dead dead or was that just an avatar and he's back to chilling in heaven or whatever
It was him and he died. After death his spirit looked to the West (Undying Lands), for forgiveness and permission back in, but he was met with a cold wind and blown away (rejection). Probably doomed to roam ME as a harmless, formless spirit.
Seriously. I'm rewatching Fellowship of the Ring after a decade or so and it still holds up quite well. I could only imagine what a more modern take might look like.
He is.
Hambulance
Member
He's not even as powerful as Ian McKellen.
The clip sounded badass, and it was, but from a gender perspective I feel everything about it got immediately invalidated since she saved Gandalf, but then you needed two men to rescue her. Only based on this clip, never saw the movie itself. She should just AOE pulsed the wraiths away IMO and everything would be awesome.
karasu
Member
It's not like we even saw what that thing could do.
Lord_Byron28
Member
The trilogy holds up much better than most films. To be honest, it'd be hard for me to imagine a better cast as I felt it was perfect. However, it's not unusual for Hollywood to remake 20 year old films which the first one will be in 2021.
She drives away Sauron himself right after, which makes her easily the most badass of them all. (that is allowed on ME, else saruman would have just stomped everyone)
Yeah i don't think he really did enough crazy magic stuff. He's more just a really chill old dude most of the time. but i did find it weird that when he said that line he was totally conjuring a cheap trick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKaw5SjeHx0
spooky
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKaw5SjeHx0
spooky
The Punisher (2004) and Punisher War Zone (2008) probably. Though I don't know if you would call the latter a "remake". Spider Man and Amazing Spider Man are only 10 years apart I think.
If you look at foreign movies that get remade by Hollywood (Let the Right One In, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), remakes can happen quite quickly. If you are talking about a situation where both the original and the remake have the exact same story and exact same characters AND are both Hollywood productions, I don't know. Most true remakes take at least a few decades (True Grit, Robocop, Ocean's Eleven, Dracula, Magnificent Seven).
FUNKNOWN iXi
Member
Anyone who believes anything other than Gandalf being a damn s a v a g e is objectively wrong. And they should be banned.
EmCeeGramr
Member
After they fell down the hole, Gandalf and Durin's Bane found a passage leading back outside and then fought for two days straight on the peak of a mountain, to the extent that onlookers saw massive thunder and fire storms on the peak, and when Gandalf killed it the mountainside was actually damaged by the balrog's falling.
He made it fall, then they had a hell of a fight that took them back to the top of the mountain where Gandalf wrecked it.
Also Gandalf wrecked the balrog so hard it took half the mountain with it in the book
Okay, I think you've sufficiently jogged my memory. I've probably only watched The Two Towers twice, but have seen Fellowship like a dozen times. There's a scene in TTT where he fights the balrog on a mountain top, right?
The most epic battle in the entire series, and it happens offscreen.
I don't know whether to praise Tolkien for inviting us to imagine it so we're no way disappointed by it, or just resent the bastard because I want to see it so bad.
Allegedly. Gandalf claims he did, but there's no witnesses to substantiate the claim.
Monocle
Member
Read The Silmarillion.
Gandalf is essentially a super powerful archangel with deliberate limits put in place so he can fulfill his intended role as a guide.
Gandalf is essentially a super powerful archangel with deliberate limits put in place so he can fulfill his intended role as a guide.
Might actually be safe to assume he's largely holding back for the sake of mortals. Once they're out of the picture entirely and it's another of his kind he's fighting he can go epic level rather than 5th level.
One of the rings forged by Sauron?
No, but they were forged with his techniques, so that was kind of a backdoor for Sauron to use.
Monocle
Member
Remember when Galadriel scared away Sauron's weakened form in that one Hobbit movie by unleashing her sorceress form or whatever? As a Maiar (or high angel), Gandalf is more powerful than Galadriel, who is merely an elf from the time when elves were all ridiculously badass. He's just not allowed to use his power directly. It's forbidden by the Valar, who are essentially minor gods who are subordinate to Eru, the great creator. (Eru might have been directly responsible for reviving Gandalf after his Balrog battle, btw).
LOTR lore is extremely deep and really fascinating. Again, I'd encourage everyone to read the Silmarillion. So many cool stories. LOTR is so much better when you know the history, and where certain old characters like Elrond, Gandalf, Saruman, Galadriel, and Sauron came from.
None of the movies touch on it.Is talking about Gandalf's ring considered spoilers? Because reading some of these replies it feels like spoilers
Right, so do we leave the movie watchers with the image that Gandalf was the great motivator? Or tell the truth and admit
he just wore a magic ring he was given by an elf that did all that work for him?
melichrous
Member
I'm pretty sure that there were only 3? people that actually managed to kill a Balrog, without the fight killing themselves too, and that's including what happened with Gandalf.
Memory might be a tad hazy though, its been quite some time since I've read any of the books.
TwntyOneTwlv
Member
My sister once told me that Dumbledore was the strongest wizard ever, and that nobody could beat him. I told her that Gandalf could beat Dumbledore and it wouldn't even be close.
Right, so do we leave the movie watchers with the image that Gandalf was the great motivator? Or tell the truth and admithe just wore a magic ring he was given by an elf that did all that work for him?
Galadriel also had one, same for Elrond.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Rings
Megalosaro
Banned
Regular elves (and men too) were a heck of a lot tougher in the first age, particularly the Eldar, which were practical demigods themselves
You might be right as I also haven't read it in ages. I vaguely recall Glorfindel killing a few, but then its not even clear that that is the same Glorfindel as in Lotr, iirc.
OG elves who'd been to West were like superheroes with all that god power and the light from the two trees. They could drop Hulk or Thor easy.
Remember when Earendil killed a dragon so big that when it dropped out it flattened a mountain range?
melichrous
Member
I just quickly looked it up, and it seems to depend on which parts of the lore you've read. In earlier writings, there are hundreds of Balrogs, and they're much easier to kill than the one Gandalf faced. In the later writings, Tolkien states that there were more than 3, but not more than 7 in existence. Those Balrogs were much stronger and more powerful, and killing them was very difficult. Just the fact that one of them managed to cause the entire Dwarven nation of Moria to either be killed, or flee because it couldn't be defeated is crazy. Especially given that I believe the Dwarves were considered to be the best warrior race in Middle Earth.
Melon Husk
Member
I think that Gandalf is there to guide Men into the Fourth Age? ASOIAF is the inverse where the influence of magic is becoming stronger.
I've always been a bit annoyed at the VFX in the Kazad-dum scene. They show the whip snag Gandalf's leg, yes, that's how he gets pulled down, correct, but then they show the whip uncoil and the Balrog fall. The way the scene is supposed to play is that the need for sacrifice is forced on Gandalf. Despite all the planning and caution and discipline that he's exercised to bring the party safely through Moria, he's pressed into a corner where he has no choice. He can try to keep hanging on or he can let go, but his enemy is not going to allow him to get back on the bridge and rejoin his friends.
They play it this way with McKellen's performance, he's exerted and struggling as he's hanging from the bridge. Without the Balrog, this makes it looks like he's feeble with age and can't pull up his own body weight. He sputters out "fly, you fools!" and drops and then in the next moment he's all composed and battle-intent in some sort of sparkly sword dive. It has always played oddly for me. The scene looks pretty good and it really ought to have played well, but I think that there's a discontinuity of intent running through it. I'm not saying that there weren't any "Gandalf splits the party, is XP hog" jokes before the movie came out, but I think the way they did this scene really lent itself to people seeing a comedic angle.
They play it this way with McKellen's performance, he's exerted and struggling as he's hanging from the bridge. Without the Balrog, this makes it looks like he's feeble with age and can't pull up his own body weight. He sputters out "fly, you fools!" and drops and then in the next moment he's all composed and battle-intent in some sort of sparkly sword dive. It has always played oddly for me. The scene looks pretty good and it really ought to have played well, but I think that there's a discontinuity of intent running through it. I'm not saying that there weren't any "Gandalf splits the party, is XP hog" jokes before the movie came out, but I think the way they did this scene really lent itself to people seeing a comedic angle.
Patrick S.
Banned
He's also never too late. Or to early. That's quite amazing.
There was Exorcist: The Beginning (2004) and Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005). The same movie made by the same studio with the same sets but 2 different directors and both were released in theaters
Also death at a funeral (2007) and death at a funreal (2010) which falls under your second category as the former is British, but I mean... It's the same language. Peter Dinklage even had the same role in both
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