^
yeah I agree with that. I think that Gollum e.g. was portrayed very well in the movies, I really really liked that.
To what Eä said about Gimli.. yeah, I can agree with you, but I think with Gimli it's not as bad as with Legolas, because Gimli still has some typically dwarvish character traits in my opinion.

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Well, I personally have a love-hate relationship with ol' Mr Lego.

He's a good character I think if a little too brilliant. I like who he is, what he stands for and the part he plays. He acts well and I prefer Orlando in LotR to anything else he's ever done.

However, he's just too clean. Before you sigh and roll your eyes and tell me he's an Elf, he should be perfect etc etc, let me speak. Legolas just always looks like he's just come out of the make up room, he's never messed up with his hair knotted or mud smeared over his face, or at least so few times that it doesn't make an impression.

So I like him and don't like him, yay and nay. On the whole I think LotR wouldn't be LotR without him, but he's not the be-all and end-all of the films for me.

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"Without music, life would be a mistake." - Friedrich Nietzsche



"Make happy those who are near, and those who are far will come."

Fwee!

I agree with a lot of what's been said here, with one disclaimer: I love Legolas. Really, I do. I love ALL of the characters in Lord of the Rings because they play a vital part. Legolas got a lot of hate from serious fans because of his fangirl-attracting nature. This is perhaps the worst in TTT, where I don't think he says much of anything noteworthy. (They're taking the hobbits to Isengard!)

So, I'm frustrated with how the filmmakers treated him, because he could have been a lot better. With the right interpretation, what they've given us of Legolas isn't that bad, but it's not that good, either. You can take his quietness as something related to his elf-like serenity and aloofness, or something, and his 'perfection', again, as his elf-ness.
But I don't really like it much.

Altariel Frodo put it wonderfully: "The bottom line is that apparently the screenwriters were desperately searching to find a purpose for Legolas, and this is what they found: he would explain everything to all the fangirls who were only watching him anyway."

That is what it looks like a lot of the time.

So do I hate him? No! I'm frutrated with the way the filmmakers changed his character, yes. But I don't hate him.

Also: regarding Gimli, his comic relief does serve as some sort of character development. I am annoyed every so often as Gimli seems to be the 'let's throw a punchline at him' sort of guy, but he does have an important role in representing the dwarves and...sharing his unique perspective with the fellowship.

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<center> all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us


Thank you for five-plus wonderful years of obsession, friendship and fun

Legolas. Hmm.

Well, if Legolas wasn't in the Fellowship, his race wouldn't be represented. I don't hate Legolas, I hate his fangirls, but thats a story for a different campfire. It's dissapointing how Legolas has turned out, but it was Orlando's first job, he was young, playing a character that was suppost to be 3000 years old (correct me if I'm wrong). I suppost we could just write it off as Legolas being a prince of Mirkwood? Pretty little rich boy kinda thing. And, from what I remember, the Elves of Mirkwood are an odd lot compared to the other Elves of Middle-Earth, sort of the Black Sheep of their race?

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~Old lurker from '06 crawling back for another adventure.~

You may call me Cazz.

You know, I like Legolas. He was a wonderful character in the book, funny, sensitive, kind... and in the movie, they lost a lot of that. I can count the times he smiled on my fingers.

Now, I still watch the movie and enjoy him and all that, and I think Orlando Bloom did a good good, but I think J.R.R. Tolkien's Legolas was MUCH better.

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Well...I don't think he was pointless.

I liked how they showed Legolas and Gimli's friendship developing throughout the films.

But yeah, I think I liked book Legolas better. But then, don't the books trump the movies every time? XD

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and I'm still a dreamer, a believer
I've lost my faith in so many things but I still believe in You

I will say this (in agreement with others, of course) PJ and the rest had a lot of amazing actors, writers, musicians and composers, and designers. But the fact that he came so close and yet wasted so many opportunities...never fails to irk me.

Despite all that, keep in mind, Legolas may not have gotten a lot of big parts in the movie, but with that bow he accomplished those tasks that are important and yet not very noticable. Like shooting those orcs on the Moria bridge. They seriously would have taken out a few travellers without being spotted in the darkness, and nobody else had a bow. Legolas also rescued Boromir from a fall, recovered the Evenstar pendant...seemingly trivial things, I know, but picture the movie without him. There would have been a few quick deaths right from the start.

So...just a few thoughts! Even though I do greatly miss Legolas's main parts, like spotting the Eomer and his riders 200 miles off, leading the company in the elves' territory, going ahead on Caradhras to "find the sun", delivering the news of Gollum...the list goes on and on.

^
yeah Legolas does come across as a person that always acts in the background and yet does his best to save everyone. This is of course a character trait that the book Legolas has as well and it is portrayed very well in the movies, but unfortunately his other character traits are not portrayed very well..

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