I apologise for any offence caused. I just meant it was too much of a conflict against Tolkien's ideas.
And I've had a watch of PJ talking about the scene in question, which was interesting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqKt_h0E ... re=relatedWhen I hear him talk about it, it doesn't sound as bad as I thought initially. Someone described this scene to me quite a while ago, and the way he described it made it sound like one of these '80s Ninja films with a budget of £4.30.
And you make a good point about Lurtz, although the following must be considered - Tolkien originally wrote the books as one story, so there was no need to have a big combat character at this stage. In fact, I found that his style of writing didn't go into much description of actual fights, leaving it to the reader's imagination more than anything, so there weren't really that many 'epic duels' like we see in films. Also, when the books were split up, that scene was essentially split in half. The Fellowship ends with strange noises in the woods, and Sam running after Frodo. It's not until the first chapter of the following book that Boromir dies, so to split the fight up like that wouldn't have worked either. In films, however, audiences really need some kind of big evil character for the hero to fight, as I was saying before. And it wasn't really in the character of Boromir to get killed by standard Uruk Hai. I mean let's face it, it's just not going to happen! While in the book, he had been killed by arrows, the film-makers predicted the audience needed some dramatic fight to end it with, especially considering it was just a small skirmish, and that the film's absolute ending is really quite anti-climactic.
The concept of Lurtz isn't quite as offensive as the concept of a physical Sauron, as it's possible there was a Lurtz figure at Amon Hen that just wasn't mentioned. In the books, Ugluk led the assault, and he's not even mentioned until after the battle, when they're returning to Isengard with Merry and Pippin (I think), whereas in the film, he comes across as a kind of second in command, who took charge after Lurtz got decapitated. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that if Tolkien had had Sauron fighting Aragorn in mind, he would have said it, if that argument makes sense.
Overall, I'm thinking that, Sauron being the main villain, anything as striking as him gaining physical form would have been mentioned, whereas Lurtz, while a cool character, is no more than one of many Captains, whose fate is not wholly important to the story.
Haha, and yes, kudos to Lurtz for thinking of using his bow.
