Thranduil in the movies - did he meet your expectations?

[Olorgando]

Amazon's doing Second Age, so the Tolkien Trust seems to be keeping a firm thumb on the Sil - and CoH, B&L and FoG now carry new copyrights of 2007, 2017 and 2018.
But I just had this thought: how did Lee Pace manage to sneak this performance past PJ's knack for messing things up? Like I said about Gandalf by Sir Ian McKellen elsewhere, spot-on performance often despite PJ.

 

[Miguel]

Where this elves supposed to be wearing that kind of armor?. I thought they wore lighter ones, though maybe dwarves helped with that?. Anyway, yeah, i liked his performance very much but i did not have expectations since i haven't finnished TH yet. His ways seemed more Elda than Sinda at times, or overall.

 

[Enyalie]

I absolutely loved Lee Pace as Thranduil. The moment he was on screen I fell in love with him. He's cool, smooth-speaking, and really does embody what a 'real' elf should look like!

 

[thattolkienlady]

I absolutely loved Lee Pace as Thranduil. The moment he was on screen I fell in love with him. He's cool, smooth-speaking, and really does embody what a 'real' elf should look like!

I agree-the LOTR and Hobbit movies are my favorites. Admittedly I have some pretty big "beefs" with some things that were done, BUT the casting and scenery was the finest I've seen. Thranduil was beautiful, as an elf should be!

 

[Ithilethiel]

I actually didn't like his portrayal. He was easy to look at but in the literature he isn't written as so heartless and cold. He led the elves in the The Battle of Five Armies being the first to charge the enemy, allied with the dwarves and Men of Dale against the Easterlings and had a sincere devotion to his people. I detested the way he was made to appear greedy and self-serving in the movie.

 

[CirdanLinweilin]

I actually didn't like his portrayal. He was easy to look at but in the literature he isn't written as so heartless and cold. He led the elves in the The Battle of Five Armies being the first to charge the enemy, allied with the dwarves and Men of Dale against the Easterlings and had a sincere devotion to his people. I detested the way he was made to appear greedy and self-serving in the movie.

Very very very true! And he made Bilbo Elf-Friend!

CL

 

[Olorgando]

I actually didn't like his portrayal. He was easy to look at but in the literature he isn't written as so heartless and cold. He led the elves in the The Battle of Five Armies being the first to charge the enemy, allied with the dwarves and Men of Dale against the Easterlings and had a sincere devotion to his people. I detested the way he was made to appear greedy and self-serving in the movie.

Now that you mention it, maybe PJ was silently using stuff (or taking hints) from early depictions of the Elven King of the First Age with an underground royal abode, Lúthien's dad Elu Thingol (Finrod Felagund had Menegroth "The Thosand Caves" as a template to copy when he decided to found Nargothrond, as Menegroth had already been built - excavated - long before the rebellious Noldor returned to Middle-earth). Thingol gained in nobility immensely in the decades of writing from the Books of Lost Tales, though the greed factor, aggravated by the Silmaril of Beren and Lúthien set in the Nauglamir, is an early development. PJ loves to dump on the good side, as he has shown often enough ...

 

[Phantom718]

The Hobbit films had their issues, but I thought Thranduil was one of the bright spots. The casting of Lee Pace in that role was absolutely PERFECT and he truly owned it. He was very charismatic and mysterious and really had a strong presence on screen. He seemed cold and cruel but mostly because his heart was shattered and never healed after his wife's death. Knowing that, I thought Pace pulled that off brilliantly.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I could have taken him more seriously, if not for the "mount" PJ foisted on him. For me, it was "Here comes Thranduil, riding in on his -- oh, good grief!". It was down there with the "armored rhinos" in "300".

 

[Olorgando]

I could have taken him more seriously, if not for the "mount" PJ foisted on him. For me, it was "Here comes Thranduil, riding in on his -- oh, good grief!". It was down there with the "armored rhinos" in "300".

Just took a look at Thranduil's entry into Dale (just after the people of Lake Town have taken shelter there). Erm, it seems to be an overly large reindeer (caribou in North America) with a bull moose's antlers. A bit low in the shoulder / back for a moose. As per Wikipedia (about the largest ones, the Alaskan subspecies): "The largest confirmed size for this species was a bull shot at the Yukon River in September 1897 that weighed 820 kg (1,808 lb) and measured 2.33 m (7.6 ft) high at the shoulder." Getting into the saddle of such a one would involve Legolas's jumping-on-the-horse-in full-gallop stunt from TTT. But on the serious side, such a brute (up there with the biggest shire horses and their relatives for weight) could be a serious war machine. Attacks by big bulls in Alaska / Canada have caused cancellation of commercial flights until the damage done by the antler thrust (the moose in question trotted away after having made his "point") could be repaired - often a matter of days rather hours.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Yeah yeah -- and traveling through Nova Scotia by rail as a boy, I learned that trains stopped for moose crossings. PJ wouldn't have let that stop him, as we can see from the resulting train wreck. I'm not even going to bring up the Dwarves and their -- but I said I wouldn't bring them up. 😣

 

[Olorgando]

Had something rattling about in dim dungeons of my memory, so I dropped in my cinematic version of BoFA - but there was only Dáin Ironfoot on his boar - and one from domesticated stock at that, not the wild tuskers that would be more formidable fighters (ask the odd wolf hanging around the Halls of Mandos, looking rather worse for wear) - though some domesticated breeds might be seriously heavier, their ability to move has probably been reduced to a slow waddle. And, before Elves and Dwarves have a go at each other, the were-worms and then the Orcs (and monstrous Trolls) appear. Slight confusion.
But then I remembered the EE, and that in TH, it was almost 100% PJ indulging in his little fantasies in the EEs, contrary to the LoTR ones, where he did give nods to the book nerds, though less and less with each film.
In went the EE DVD and presto! The Elves and Dwarves do have a go at each other, the Dwarven cavalry riding on - eh? - bighorn sheep, I would guess, without consulting my numerous books (multi-book lexicons) on critters. Billy goats would have been what they wanted if expecting Trolls - but against those Trolls that do show up would have needed Mûmakil-sized ones, at least "Great-Beast"-sized ones, to be believably effective. And then those utterly ridiculous "arrow-scatterers" that the Dwarves fire off to block the Elven arrow volleys, and even do some damage when hitting the ground. Even if my high school physics are very rusty, dating from 1971/1972, alarm bells went of shrilly and a big PA-system loudspeaker blared "snowball's chance in Angband that that would ever have worked!!!". A short check on Wikipedia confirms that those Dwarven weapons "only" violate Newton's three laws of motion, and also the three laws of thermodynamics (which have a longer history and more authors). We're not talking about the relativity theories or quantum theory of any kind. I think any figure skater of moderate skill would have had an 🤣 🤣 🤣 attack looking at those contraptions.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

You forget -- physics works "differently" in the PJ universe. Though to be fair, the same is true in cinema generally -- witness "leaping away from explosions", for instance.

Re BoFA: much hilarity ensued on game forums I frequent at the "leaping over the shieldwall" scene -- what was the point of that? You're taking away the very purpose of the formation. The only people likely to do something so suicidal were the half-mythical "berserkers", and it's doubtful they lived long.

That said, I knew a guy who actually had such an experience, of a sort. He was an Iron Age reenactor, and he and his little band once decided to go all-in on authenticity for a shieldwall event, by painting themselves with woad, which, besides looking cool, also acts as an antiseptic, and (unknown to them) anesthetic and stimulant (and possibly mild hallucinogen). He realized all this only later; at the time, he knew only that he was encumbered by his shield, so he threw it away, thinking "I'll just get one over here!" as he jumped over the opposing shieldwall, and stared whaling away with his quarterstaff. Needless to say, the "enemies" weren't having that.

"The next day, I was Robert the Bruise, but at the time, I didn't feel a thing. Had a great time, in fact".

 

[Olorgando]

You forget -- physics works "differently" in the PJ universe. Though to be fair, the same is true in cinema generally -- witness "leaping away from explosions", for instance.

One of my absolutely favorite shows in the early phase of my retirement was "MythBusters", hosted etc. by Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman. Boy, did they shred tons of Hollywood Baloney Slices! This was in the time that, after my wife had gone to bed, I binge-watched one or the other documentary show on the smaller private TV channels in Germany. The binge watching was partially a necessity, as they binge-programmed! Several episodes at a time, not necessarily in the order of the originals - which could then get confusing. But filming documentaries can not be done on the daily soap schedule by any stretch of the imagination, so on the rare occasions I scroll through our TV's internal TV guide currently I almost always get a "seen that" feeling. The show originally titled "Medical Detectives", as it continues to be titled in the German TV channels airing it faithfully after midnight every day of the week, was another favorite (even my wife watched it when she had trouble falling asleep, even at times when I had finally gone to bed); it seems to now to be named "Forensic Files" in secondary, tertiary or whatever recycling.

 

[pippin le qer]

Lee Pace as Thrandruil made the rather obscure elvenking from the Hobbit a far more regal figure then Hugo Weaving made of Elrond. And that while Elrond was more or less the High-King and Thranduil at the start presented as a king of petty king of rather primitive Elves. I never thought Hugo Weaving "Elvish" enough, but Pace hit the nail.

Pity his wife never got a name, unless it was hidden in one of Tolkiens scribbles.

 

[Copia]

I think Thranduil was great in the movies, but that was only due to Lee Pace who did an amazing job.
Sadly they butchered all the elves with stupid stuff like Tauriel love story, and that stupid Strider speech to Legolas at the end.
He was also too angry and spitefull at times.
But Lee Pace did an amazing job given what he had to work with.

 

[Radaghast]

I don't know what expectations there were to be met. Tolkien never painted a very visual image of Thranduil and didn't even give the dude a name in The Hobbit. That said, I never envisioned him as a jerk with a switch-on scarface.

 

[Copia]

And even without much details in the books they went fare from his character in the movies. In the books he attacked the dwarfes as a last resort and with a heavy heart, and in the movie he seemed so eager to kill some dwarfes.
It annoys me more and more when I think about it, because to some degree I really liked Lee Pace's Thranduil.

 

[Elbereth Vala Varda]

I can't really accurately talk about personality and poise, seeing that I've never watched the full set of movies. However, the depiction to me was a bit disappointing, as I always imagined Thranduil to look differently. However, this is just my opinion-- and an opinion indeed is all it is!

 

[Tyelkormo the Fair]

I'm surprised this isn't a heavy topic here. He does remind me of characters from old Chinese movies (you know the ones where they sail through the air while wearing pastel-colored dresses), the way he was dressed and his hair --- so magnificently done!

I love the way Thranduil was potrayed - Lee Pace did a good job. Although the last bit in BoFA was really bordering on stupid (his speech to Legolas). I know they were trying to tie the stories together, but that was ridiculous since the timeline shows Aragorn being only 10 years old at the time of the Battle. He would not use the name Strider in another 15 years! LOL! So, that was really a bust. However, Lee Pace's Thranduil was well played. I think he really embodies what Elves should be like.

Of course, these are MY opinions.

Well in Peter Jackson universe there's only 60 or so years between BoFA and events of the LOTR so it does make sense kinda