Concur with Mecha on the generallismo. I kept thinking, "I don't think those Oliphaunts can turn as quickly as the horses. Maybe coming in from the flanks and behind would be better, eh?"

Concur with MM on the Oliphaunt slaying. As I noted upthread, Legolas/Orly was much cooler with actual human-sized moves in FoTR when he was poking Orcs in the face with arrows and his whirling slashing attack in Moria.

Legolas and the Oliphaunt took me right out of the scene, too.

But so did every time someone said "Retreat!" because all I could think was "Run away! Run away!" and then I'd start giggling.

Steph: BWAH!!

See???

I agree about the fighting evenness, Mecha. But I'd rather not laugh at him than cheer with him, if the negatives are correctly placed.

Next step is to have him kill more.

In both my viewings, Legolas slewing the Oliphaunt got the biggest cheer and Gimli "That only counts as one!" got the biggest laugh. Given my predelictions, I can deal with that division of labour.

It was really hard to avoid the Holy Grail associations too when Pippin kept yelling "He's not dead!"

But then, I also giggled whenever anyone got a "What the FUCK?" look on their face, which happened pretty often.

Hell, every time someone peers over the side of castle I think, "We've already got one!"

Mmm-hmmm, well, I'll have to disagree about the Legolas vs. the Oliphaunt issue, mainly because the Oliphaunts themselves had already taken me out of the movie a bit. I don't know why I'm perfectly fine with orcs and trolls, but not Oliphaunts. Maybe it's because they're so close to elephants, which are already cool and exotic in my book, and then have the various add-on that leave me going, "Wait, elephants tusks don't do that."

OK, there's also the elf-lust clouding things for me. But it's mostly the Oliphaunt thing.

Would it have taken people out of the scene had it been a stunt with a real elephant and not CGI?