The Lord of Rings most infamous plot hole has received a spirited stop motion defense with a LEGO-tastic twist.
As beloved as The Lords of the Rings is, there’s no shortage of fan and nitpickers alike who will happily point out that the story includes a fairly massive plot hole, otherwise known as the eagles. For the forgetful and uninitiated, it’s established fairly early on that Gandalf is in pretty good with a race of a giant eagles who are generally happy to swoop in and save the day whenever the story needs a dose of deus ex machina. The biggest exception, of course, is the quest to destroy the One Ring which the allied races of Middle-Earth inexplicably decide resolve by marching into Mordor when they presumably could have just flown across the border.
This plot point has been the butt of more than a few jokes over the years. That said, it recently received a rare defense in the form of a video from the folks at Brotherhood Workshop using stop motion LEGO bricks to illustrate one of the probable outcomes of the “use the eagles” strategy. Put shortly, everybody dies. The eagles fly the Fellowship over the Black Gate and are promptly assaulted by the Sauron’s armies who shoot them down with arrows, magic and trolls launched via catapult.
Now, to be fair, this video is obviously played for laughs. Setting aside the fact that it features the painful deaths of the entire principal cast of the books and films, it’s much more amusing than it is grim. Even so, you could argue that it still does a good job of making its point that “eagles can’t solve everything.” Just personally, I can’t understand why so many people would think that any ways. Even if the eagles are powerful, it’s not like Sauron didn’t have forces to counter them (cough Nazgul cough). Any who, whatever your take on the subject, you should still give this video a watch just on the merits of seeing Legolas and Gimli pulverized by an airborne cave troll.
Source: BrotherhoodWorkshop
