tolkiens legendarium - What was Sauron reaching for?

In the films of Lord of the Rings, in the flashback to the battle where Isildur takes the ring from Sauron's hand, why was Sauron reaching towards Isildur, thus allowing him to cut off Sauron's finger? This is the scene, skip to 3:54 to see Sauron reach down towards Isildur. But why? Surely he knew that, even with a broken sword, Isildur would try to kill him.

Answer

In-universe, Sauron was most likely reaching for Isildur to choke him and burn him to a cinder, as seen in this official concept-art picture from the "Art of the Fellowship of the Ring" (note the smoke rising from the body).

Out-of-universe, we can be reasonably confident that the idea was simply to have Sauron be in a credible position to have his fingers chopped off. Note that in the earliest storyboards, Sauron overbalanced after striking at Isildur with his mace, however since the entire purpose of this scene (according to Peter Jackson in the commentary track) was to establish Sauron as a very credible enemy, having him then turn out to be a poor fighter only a few seconds later doesn't jibe with the extreme fighting prowess the audience has just witnessed.

For the record, there's nothing in the script itself to indicate precisely why he was reaching.

IMAGE: SAURON lays waste to the armies of the LAST ALLIANCE. With desperate courage, ELENDIL leads a charge...THE BLACK MACE OF SAURON LASHES OUT!! IMAGE: ELENDIL'S body falls like a crumpled rag doll... IMAGE: ISILDUR cradles the body of his father in his arms. The SHADOW OF SAURON falls over him...

GALADRIEL (V.O.) (CONT'D) It was in this moment..when all hope had faded, that Isildur, son of the king, took up his father's sword.

ISILDUR snatches up the BROKEN BLADE OF NARSIL..The BLADE severs SAURON'S FINGERS... AND THE ONE RING FLIES from his body.

_{^{Fellowship of the Ring: Screenplay}}

Comments

Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l...

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir...

story identification - Animation: floating island, flying pests

At least 20 years ago I watched a short animated film which stuck in my mind. The whole thing was wordless, possibly European, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it... It featured a flying island which was inhabited by some creatures who (in my memory) reminded me of the Moomins. The island was frequently bothered by large winged animals who swooped around, although I don't think they did any actual damage. At the end one of the moomin creatures suddenly gets a weird feeling, feels forced to climb to the top of the island and then plunges down a shaft right through the centre - only to emerge at the bottom as one of the flyers. Answer Skywhales from 1983. The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is found in his home sleeping as the noise wake him up. He then gets ready and is about to take his weapon as he hesitates then decides ...

warhammer40k - What evidence supposedly supports Tau as related to the Necrontyr?

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec...

Blog

Search This Blog