Lord Of The Rings fan? Stickler for detail? Today’s your lucky day.
In the first instalment of a 6-part series on his superbly named blog ‘A Collection Of Unmitigated Pedantry’, military historian Bret Devereaux takes a very close look indeed at the Siege Of Gondor in Peter Jackson’s ‘Return Of The King’. To wit:
The army Sauron sends against Minas Tirith is absolutely vast – an army so vast that it cannot fit its entire force in the available frontage, so the army ends up stacking up in front of the city:
The books are vague on the total size of the orcish host (but we’ll come back to this), but interview material for the movies suggests that Peter Jackson’s CGI team assumed around 200,000 orcs. This army has to exit Minas Morgul – apparently as a single group – and then follow the road to the crossing at Osgiliath. Is this operational plan reasonable, from a transit perspective?
In a word: no.
READ ON: The Siege Of Gondor, Professionals Talk Logistics (ACOUP)
