Book vs. Movie - The Fellowship of the ring

[Sharpandpointies]

That's the thing though. Being able to walk on falling rocks as they fall is much faster than anything in the books (this is from the Hobbit)

Is it pure speed?

Legolas, in the movies, is shown casually walking across deep snow that the others need to slog through (going across the mountains). He doesn't sink into it. So, is it by pure speed that he jumps from rock to rock as they fall, or is it a combination of speed and this special ability that allows him to push off the rocks so long as he can touch them?

And does that make him faster than human eyes can even follow?

[Lord Falcon]

Yeah I really don't get the hate for Legolas's running on falling rocks feat. It bends physics, yes, but plenty of what Legolas does bends physics. He's shown repeatedly capable of doing things his body weight should render him incapable of, such as walking on snow light as a feather during a blizzard, catching a horse in full gallop one-handed and swinging himself around to mount it and sliding down a dying Oliphant's writhing trunk without a shield surf board. Running on falling bricks is very much in the same vein of impossible gracefulness that Legolas already showed himself capable of.

When King Bradley did a similar feat to escape his train falling into a ravine, nobody I know of complained.

[Sharpandpointies]

I'm actually fine with the feat when viewing it objectively (edit: by this, I mean yes, I do think it's all silly and massively exaggerated, and don't particularly like it, but viewing the feat against the character's demonstrated capabilities in the movies, I'm okay with it). He isn't shown running across water or the like, which is what he would be capable of doing were this pure speed (it might actually be EASIER, due to water having more buoyancy than what's under the bricks he's trying to run up, ie: air).

I feel it's a combination of some speed, sure, and whatever-the-heck-it-is that allows him to wander around on snow -- slowly -- without going *ploof* into it like everyone else (book Legolas does the same, frankly, though he's running).

I mean, I dislike the movies in general, but I don't feel the running up the bricks is something that is inconsistent with Bloom-Legolas due to his 'snow' thing in Fellowship.

[The Arbiter]

It is presented as speed on some level. IIRC, that scene plays out mostly in slow motion. As in, the rocks should be falling much faster when compared to the motions he is performing.

I'll double check though

[The Arbiter]

LOL I feel like you will all appreciate this
https://youtu.be/OpZvpPryb1E

Pure gold

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

LOL I feel like you will all appreciate this
https://youtu.be/OpZvpPryb1E

Pure gold

Has about as many pixels as the original Super Mario, too.

[Iron_Twister]

Truth. And it's actually BETTER than that.

Book Boromir catches up to the orcs carrying the hobbits and then kills the crap out of them. There's a bucketload of them ('dozens' as noted in the book), he keeps killing them and drives them off. He and the Hobbits then take off. It's explicit that a different group of orcs then catch up to them -- 'at least a hundred' -- and loose a rain of arrows at Boromir. Boromir gets feathered, and yet however many orcs out of the hundred that are loosing a rain of arrows at Boromir don't just kill him, no, he's fine blowing his horn and the hundred orcs are crap-scared of him and draw back, presumably because their buddies have told them how much of a killer this dude is. However, they start nailing him with arrows -- they're loosing volleys at one dude -- and Pippen's last memory of him is Boromir leaning against a tree and pulling arrows out of his body before he gets dragged off.

THEN Aragorn shows up to find Boromir almost dead, and twenty or so Orcs in piles all around him (remember, they moved away from where they were when he killed the first group, so this happened AFTER Pippen got dragged away).

Sooo...this means Boromir basically turns into a murder-marchine AFTER getting filled full of arrows.

That beats all heck out of movie Boromir, who doesn't nearly kill twenty orcs after getting a couple of arrows in him.

Edit: More that I think of it, it's actually even better than this, because Book-Aragorn doesn't arrive in time to help, but Book-Boromir is still alive. Which means the orcs ran off with Merry and Pippin, leaving 'at least' twenty behind to kill the lunatic leaning against the tree full of arrows. Which means Boromir massacred the group left to kill him (possibly some ran off when they realized it wasn't going at all as planned), and quite possibly could have continued despite having so many arrows in him he eventually died.

...This probably explains why in a debate about Arthur Dayne from A Song of Ice and Fire vs Boromir I was probably the only one (who gave something similar but not to that extent) that got votes compared to someone who thought Boromir was a nobody...

[Sharpandpointies]

It is presented as speed on some level. IIRC, that scene plays out mostly in slow motion. As in, the rocks should be falling much faster when compared to the motions he is performing.

I'll double check though

LOL I feel like you will all appreciate this
https://youtu.be/OpZvpPryb1E

Thanks!

For starters, I'll repeat myself.

I feel it's a combination of some speed, sure, and whatever-the-heck-it-is that allows him to wander around on snow -- slowly -- without going *ploof* into it like everyone else (book Legolas does the same, frankly, though he's running).

Important point bolded.

Secondly, looking into that slo-mo scene, I'll note that Orlandolas is not actually moving faster than the falling rocks (the rocks are going slow, he's going slow). In fact, once they get going, they're faster than him (I'm not saying that they're moving full speed, it's clearly slowed down, but they're still moving quicker than he is).

Again, I'm going with the idea that this probably has more to do with the fact that he can stand on stuff 'weightlessly' than speed. More, not completely.

[Sharpandpointies]

...This probably explains why in a debate about Arthur Dayne from A Song of Ice and Fire vs Boromir I was probably the only one (who gave something similar but not to that extent) that got votes compared to someone who thought Boromir was a nobody...

I might have been in that thread and referenced this very scene to support my own vote for Boromir.

The Lord of the Rings people are epic heroes who do epic stuff. The people in ASoIaF are meant to be more 'realistic', if you get my drift. It's almost apples and oranges, and no shame there.

[BitVyper]

He isn't shown running across water or the like, which is what he would be capable of doing were this pure speed (it might actually be EASIER, due to water having more buoyancy than what's under the bricks he's trying to run up, ie: air).

Funny story: A friend and I theorycrafted a Pathfinder character fast enough to run on water by pure speed with a double move (no third party abilities). You can pull it off, but you have to devote pretty much your entire build to it. As I recall, you need to hit about 30 metres per second for a human to run on water.

After that, we tried to build something that would break the landspeed record. I can't remember if we were successful.

[Sharpandpointies]

Funny story: A friend and I theorycrafted a Pathfinder character fast enough to run on water by pure speed with a double move (no third party abilities). You can pull it off, but you have to devote pretty much your entire build to it. As I recall, you need to hit about 30 metres per second for a human to run on water.

After that, we tried to build something that would break the landspeed record. I can't remember if we were successful.

That's pretty amusing. ^_^

Fiddling with game rules can be fun... Remember Murphy's Rules, as well?

[wjowski]

I guess I never understood the drama about Legolas. Never really struck me as out of line with how Tolkien hyped up elves in general in the books.

[Sharpandpointies]

I guess I never understood the drama about Legolas. Never really struck me as out of line with how Tolkien hyped up elves in general in the books.

For me, it's less about his 'abilities' and more about his presentation, which (like many of the characters) I find grossly at odds with his presentation in the books.

Mileage, it may vary. ^_^ Probably does.

[Sol_M]

For me, it's less about his 'abilities' and more about his presentation, which (like many of the characters) I find grossly at odds with his presentation in the books.

Mileage, it may vary. ^_^ Probably does.

Come now, movie Legolas was the most important character in the movies! Without his elf eyes, the audience would never understand what's happening:

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

Come now, movie Legolas was the most important character in the movies! Without his elf eyes, the audience would never understand what's happening:

There was a Tumblr exchange some time ago about how the Elves are Flat Earthers and their (logical) defense was thie:

After the fall of Numenor the world curved, and the Elves (and a few others) were the only ones who could travel it straight, and make it to the Valinor.

---

So, Elves are Flat Earthers.

Sharp please don't hate me.