Overall, I think the Moria scenes are well-rendered, including Gandalf's confrontation with the Balrog. The scene near Balin's tomb is especially touching, now that viewers can associate Balin with Ken Stott.
But I don't have much more to say about Moria, so I'm going to skip forward to Lothlorien and Galadriel and an interesting visual "solution" to separated characters in film.
For Tolkien, every character is limited by distance and knowledge. Characters in The Lord of the Rings continually state that they only know so much. They can't see ahead. They aren't sure what will happen when the one ring is destroyed. They are acting morally because they believe they should, not because they omnipotently know the outcome (even the books' Big Bad is limited, which is refreshing).
Even the Valar (the gods who work for Middle-Earth's God or Illuvatar), once they descend to Arda or Earth, must abide by the world's functions. They only know what is possible for them to know due to their wisdom or power but no more than that.So, in LOTR, Galadriel can only see within the borders of Lorien. That country is fading as is she. She is well-aware of her situation. She doesn't so much make a choice about the ring but accept a choice she made ages earlier.
Yet there is a strange scene in the film version of Towers, where Galadriel and Elrond speak by...telepathy? Not to forget: in The Hobbit, Galadriel suddenly becomes capable of transporting herself!
What is interesting to me regarding these scenes is that Jackson is obviously trying to solve a narrative problem: how does one create a visual scene with characters who are not present physically but are present in voice or thought or opinion?
So, the scenes will start with them on the phone and then move to them speaking face-to-face as their conversations become more personal. The result is one of the most touching scenes in the series when Tinn comforts Gun after Gun relays the story of his father's death when he was young.
It's a visual device that I give a pass to--
I ALSO would rather see characters interact face-to-face.
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