r/lordoftherings • u/baxterrocky • Sep 03 '23
I can get behind Saruman using magic to get up there.. but where the hell does Wormtongue come from?! Movies
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u/SomewhereExisting121 Sep 03 '23
Considering how indestructible Orthanc is, I would imagine there is a trapdoor that opens from inside that is not be visible or able to be opened from outside easily, similar to the doors outside Moria. Saruman probably uses magic or command phrase to operate it
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u/LE_Literature Sep 03 '23
He piggybacked on Saruman. Legolas killed him as an act of mercy as he would have simply starved to death.
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u/empireofacheandrhyme Sep 03 '23
He worms his way up there.
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u/benny332 Sep 03 '23
The stairs.
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u/DontReplyIveADHD Sep 03 '23
I mean it was built by the Numenoreans so there probably is stairs or a ladder, just not a design considered for the movie
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u/baxterrocky Sep 03 '23
Where are these stairs you speak of?! They do a big panoramic sweep around the top of the tower. No stairs.
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u/PremSubrahmanyam Sep 03 '23
There is probably a track of stairs spiraling inside the tower somewhere. Gandalf was sent up via the magic elevator instead.
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u/AnfreloSt-Da Rohirrim Sep 03 '23
Bad movie design. In the book, Gandalf describes hundreds of stairs. Too much work, tbh.
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u/urgeigh Sep 03 '23
I don't think it's bad I think they just respected the audience's intelligence enough to not feel the need to show us how people ascend tall buildings.
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u/DaxHound84 Sep 03 '23
In the books the killing of Saruman takes place in the shire so it is not relevant anyway.
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u/ExtremelyManlyMan Sep 03 '23
Saruman has a remote control he can click to retract the stairs into the building.
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u/Hot-Exit-6495 Sep 03 '23
There is a door embedded on the inside of the northernmost spike.
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u/baxterrocky Sep 03 '23
Saruman better lay off the salted pork if he’s gonna keep using that door.
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u/Chen_Geller Sep 03 '23
Somewhere in the making-ofs its explained that there's a door in one of the "fins" of the tower.
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u/KyleD34 Sep 03 '23
In the books Gandalf tells the council of Elrond "They took me and they set me alone on the pinnacle of Orthanc, in the place where Saruman was accustomed to watch the stars. There is no descent save by a narrow stair of many thousand steps, and the valley below seems far away."
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u/JohannGambelputty Sep 04 '23
Also, in the books, Saruman is stabbed by Grima in the Shire after Frodo and company overthrows him. Many good hobbits died that day
IMO far worse of an omission than Bombadil
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u/bomboclawt75 Sep 03 '23
Hidden staircase?
You can thank me now, Orthanc me later.
“Orthanc!”, like the tower, Orth…….I’ll get me coat.
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u/monkeyinanegligee Sep 03 '23
The pattern on the floor looks like a teleport pad from Doom, my guess is there's a matching pad on the first floor
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u/Serier_Rialis Sep 03 '23
Saruman just yeets him up there Gandalf style for giggles
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u/PalKid_Music Sep 03 '23
Fun piece of unrelated trivia: Brad Dourif, the actor who plays Wormtongue, spent his entire time on set speaking in the Received Pronunciation accent he used for the role, to the extent that other actors and members of the crew didn't even realise he was from West Virginia.
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u/solicitis00 Sep 03 '23
Or maybe how Aragon lost his accent
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u/PalKid_Music Sep 03 '23
Tbf, Viggo Mortensen was bought up in Venezuela, Denmark, Argentina, and America, then lived in the UK and Spain, and then launched an acting career in America. People with that kind of upbringing tend to have accents that change and adapt. Personally, I think that slightly muddled accent works perfectly for Aragorn's character.
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u/ThisNameIsVeryHard Sep 03 '23
Having played Lego lotr, I know that the just climbed up all the laders, robes and random pieces of wood. It's loor
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u/UrsusRex01 Sep 03 '23
I have always assumed that Saruman made a hatch and stairs appear with his magic, that the Tower itself is totally under his control.
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u/MrFiendish Sep 03 '23
That square in the middle obviously is the hatch. Built to fit the frame perfectly as per Numenorian masonry.
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u/Damocles94 Rohirrim Sep 03 '23
If Saruman can magic himself up there, could he not then magic Wormtongue there too?
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u/baxterrocky Sep 03 '23
But he wasn’t there for the first half of his speech. Then suddenly appears. Why would he magic him up at that moment while he’s still verbally jostling with Gandalf and the others?!
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u/natsteel Sep 03 '23
I just assumed he was there but standing back from the edge where he couldn’t be seen by Gandalf and Theoden.
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u/Xray_Mind Sep 03 '23
My man, a few hundred feet below there is an army of humanoid talking trees and your first concern is the architectural egresses of orthanc?
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u/baxterrocky Sep 03 '23
Well it is a concern. What if there was a fire?!
Which is quite likely considering.
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u/aaron_adams Sep 03 '23
The book specifically mentions stairs, but in the movie, my guess is there's a trapdoor in the center of the ceiling.
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u/sporh Sep 03 '23 edited Sep 03 '23
There is a door in one of those spikes. Alan Lee talks about it in the behind the scenes. Specifically to answer your question. As I remember Peter Jackson loved Alan Lee’s design from earlier drawings, but he never painted the top of orthanc. So Alan did it for the movie with the realism of a way to get to the top.
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u/JavilonNoseJoe Sep 03 '23
I think it is insane they built New Zealand to have a place to film this movie… I prefer the Bollywood version more. It has more color, & the dancing fight scenes are really jazzy!
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u/Past_Worth4051 Sep 04 '23 edited Sep 04 '23
In the fellowship of the ring, a narrow stairway with thousands of steps are described by Gandalf in the council of Elrond. Obviously I’m discribing the book
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u/Skitchin98 Sep 03 '23
They were allow one “fuck”, maybe this was the place to use it? “Grima, where the fuck did you come from?”
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u/OmegaBoi420 Sep 03 '23
The dark side of the Istari is a pathway to many abilities some would consider to be unnatural
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u/hates_stupid_people Sep 03 '23
Just like many actual castle towers: A trapdoor.
Probably the square in the middle comes up, there's a ladder down to a landing with stairs going down.
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u/Mlabonte21 Sep 03 '23
I always wish Saruman was holding a megaphone during this scene.
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u/whydotavi Sep 03 '23
I can totally imagine a shot of Wormtongue free climbing his scrawny little ass up the side of the tower.
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u/RipMcStudly Sep 03 '23
He spends hours clambering up the incredibly narrow, rickety ladder that a disgruntled orc was forced to build because Saruman thought it’d be funny.
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u/MoonDaddy Sep 03 '23
This whole scene bothered me. He's a half mile up there and having a debate/interrogation with Gandalf, et al. In the book, he is at a window/balcony a normal (3-4 storeys) height above them.
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u/duke0fearls Sep 03 '23
In the books there is an extremely narrow stair on the outside of the tower that leads there
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u/jhwalk09 Sep 04 '23
I feel like there’s gotta be stairs and a hatch going up otherwise how would it have been built?
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u/Infinite_Quasar Sep 04 '23
I always assumed the symbol/pattern on the top of the tower was a transportation magic pattern.
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u/Loto_Nintendo Sep 04 '23
Ive always wondered how gandalf and saruman could talk to each other from that distance, thats gotta be atleast a mile away haha
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u/Flinty984 Sep 03 '23 edited Sep 03 '23
He didn't. At least not in the books. Grima was killed by an arrow fired by Legolas after Grima killed Saruman when he was telling him how he killed Lotho and made him less than a worm basically. Poor guy had a breakdown and couldn't take it any longer. I'd say it was much crueler than in the movies, both how Sharky dies and what transpires before, when they see him as a beggar and the dude starts kicking Grima etc.
Now that would make for a great Netflix show, the Scouring of the Shire. There's at least 3 seasons in it.
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u/FuntCaseKid Sep 03 '23
In a world made of music that magical creatures live and fight in, from Dragons to immortal Elves, where magical rings and jewels have caused countless wars and conflict our main concern is the doorless tower access.
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u/Rohnne Sep 03 '23
This is fan-made, based on the writings. The movies probably opted for a more impressive design sacrificing realism.
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u/porkandnoodles Sep 03 '23
I wonder the same thing myself but I thought maybe he was already up there with him like Saruman teleported the pair of them idk
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u/blueindian1328 Sep 03 '23
Middle-earth doesn’t have grappling hooks?
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u/baxterrocky Sep 03 '23
Weird, I’m watching Batman as I read this.
You weigh a little more than 108
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u/ieatair Sep 03 '23
I’ve been to where Isengard was filmed in NZ (from Queenstown)… theres no physical Isengard 😂but you can see the marshland and trees that they used in the movie
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u/Gandalf_Style Sep 03 '23
The Tower of Orthanc had a bidget surplus, so they built the Elevator of Orthanc
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u/PtotheX Sep 03 '23
If saruman put Gandalf there, why couldn't he put wormtongue as well?
In truth, I think the books describe a balcony on the side of the tower, leading inside, and it's where saruman and wormtongue are when talking to Theodens company. The film didn't depict that exactly
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u/Spooky_Shark101 Sep 03 '23
The boring answer is that it's just one of those things in film where the logic doesn't really matter because the director was more focused on the look of the movie than the nitpicky stuff like adding stairs or a ladder to make sense of why or how something is able to happen (like them being on top of the tower).
Probably my favourite film of all time is Jurassic Park, but it still kinda annoys me to this day how the T-rex paddock starts off as perfectly level when the rex first breaks out, only for a giant cliff to magically appear so that the suspenseful "car gets pushed over the edge" sequence can take place shortly after. I've seen diagrams online where fans try to explain the discrepancy, but they reality is that none of them really make much sense and I'm happy to write it off as a creative choice that took place during the film making process.
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u/txparrothead58 Sep 03 '23
If I recall correctly, Orthanc was built by Arnor and Gondor by the people who fled the destruction of Numenor. It was intended to be a watch tower as well as a home for one of the seeing stones. There would be stairs and doors because it was built by men for men.
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u/CthulhusEvilTwin Sep 03 '23
Saruman had a Stannah Stairlift installed last year. Takes a while, but well worth it.
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u/MrNiceguy037 Sep 03 '23
I think in the books Saruman doesn't die here but continues to siege the shire so it might actually be a flaw of the movie
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u/ZanderPinguBrownie Sep 03 '23
He wingsuits off whilst Dangerzone by Kenny Loggins plays
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u/anyantinoise Sep 03 '23
It annoyed me to no end that he was way up there and not the balcony they had built above the stairs. Actually, this was my least fav scene in the series tbh
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u/-Pikatchoum- Sep 03 '23
They installed that Minecraft mod with the slab where you jump to tp upward. Hope this helps.
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u/DenyingCow Sep 03 '23
Tbh it's just a movie plot hole. Much of the design of orthanc is more visual effect
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u/a_goestothe_ustin Sep 03 '23 edited Sep 03 '23
Obviously stored in Saruman's magical bag of holding foreskin.
Having a pocket wormtongue to deploy at his convenience was explained in the expanded universe books.
Edut: uh tie poe
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u/yeah230 Sep 03 '23
I thought that the second picture was showing the ring from the halo game.
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u/AnalysisMoney Sep 03 '23
Same shit with Gandalf all of the sudden being on top of orthanc after saruman spins him up the center of the tower.
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u/hamsterfolly Sep 03 '23
The tower was build by the numenoreans, there had to be stairs and a hatch
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u/heronjack Sep 03 '23
In the Fellowship book it mentions a narrow stair that allows people to reach the top of Orthanc. However it does appear that they missed that detail in the films.
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u/SnooChickens6278 Sep 03 '23
Maybe there’s a ski lift or elevator on the back that takes tokens. That’s why we don’t see him in the first shot bc the ski lift was still in motion
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u/Able-Ad-6248 Sep 03 '23
I'm fairly certain that on the books, when describing the inside of orthanc as Gandalf is recollecting his time there, he mentions that he was taken up and incredibly narrow and steep stair to the top of the tower, where the trap door was locked from the inside on him
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_SOULZ Sep 03 '23
I assumed the answer was obvious... The stairs.
The tower has to have stairs because you can't use the lift in the case of a fire.
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u/nJustice4All2392 Boromir Sep 03 '23
Saruman gets up there magically and drops a rope or Grima has climbing nails xD
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u/qmahmood94 Sep 03 '23
There could just be a hatch at the top