Legolas' Stunt Archery in FOTR

(Otherwise known as "the battle where Boromir actually remembers he owns a shield." )

Here we see Aragorn, ever supportive of his comrades, helping Legolas look great by comparison. ONE of them has their back straight. ONE of them has an anchor point. ONE of them has arms locked and properly aligned. ONE of them actually knows where the door is. Guess which. (Although to be nitpicky, Legolas needs to stop tilting his bow, even if it does let more of it show in close-ups.)

• First rush: Legolas and Aragorn alternate 1-2-1-2-1 taking out half the orcs in the front ranks; it's fun to see their completely different techniques. Aragorn goes for any opening he can; professional pride means the elf aims for frontal lobotomy.
  
  
• I've heard some people complain that Bloom's Legolas is too emotional. He looks downright angry during some of his shots here. I think Tolkien said it best... "The elves were the first to charge.Their hatred for the goblins is cold and bitter. Their spears and swords shone in the gloom with a gleam of chill flame, so deadly was the wrath of the hands that held them." Elves in general and Legolas in particular are usually portrayed as level-headed, but I see no reason to assume he never gets steamed.
  
  

• But he's still not human, because his aim isn't shaken in the slightest when he's angry or speed-shooting. See the orc that just leapt high in the air and spun dramatically? Bang, nailed eye socket on the way down.
  
  
• The Boss Fight is signalled by a loud boom, and a troll who only staggers for a second when hit by Legolas' arrow and Gimli's throwing axe. (Subtle detail: embedded arrow gets snapped while the troll's thrashing with its chains.) Time to get serious.
  
  

• Gimli gets knocked to the ground when Balin's tomb is smashed. (Poor Balin!) Legolas breaks off from knife-fighting, turns, and whips off a classic stunt to save his hirsuite friend: the double-arrow shot. It's extremely difficult to get the release right, because there's nothing on a bow to keep extra arrows from slipping and falling. The arrows tend to go off in different directions, especially if you don't have an arrow rest and are balancing the arrows on bare knuckles. Legolas uses the Computer Targeting Assist Fairy to avoid this problem. In yet another "Glad 'ee don't miss" shot; both arrows skim over Gimli's head before knocking the troll off its feet.
  
  
• Next up: troll-surfing. Now, lest you think shooting point-blank straight down into a large target is child's play, consider: the troll's bucking like a bronco, and its brain is the size of a pea. Unfortunately Legolas forgot to take into account the latter. I would also note that bows are not designed for shooting straight down; chances of jabbing the back of the arrow into your own gut are high. Trust me on this.
  
  
• After this, Legolas vanishes for a while and everyone else gets to be heroic. If only they had his Computer Fairy on their side! All it ever does for them is smash them against walls, floors, and occasional sharp pointy objects. Boromir will especially come to rue this fact. Note the nice collection of elf-arrows and Gimli's throwing axe in the troll when it's making Frodo's life difficult.
  


• In the end, Legolas scores the kill, but it's gratifying that the Boss Fight is won not by brute force, but teamwork. Gimli and Gandalf distract it, Pippin stabs it, and Legolas, who can evidently hold his draw longer than most archers without getting arm-fatigue, waits for it to bellow so that he can shoot up through its mouth and up into its brain, without punching through and killing Pippin. Another "Glad 'ee don't miss" shot which the hobbit was unfortunately not in a position to appreciate.
  
  
• Non-archery detail on the way out: While sprinting, Legolas looks up before you know what's coming, apparently the only one to get wind of the cockroach-like goblins in the ceiling before they come swarming out. Everyone else is concentrating on the path ahead, the pursuit behind them, and running like mad.

In which Legolas has to catch many people much smellier than himself.

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  Good thing 'ee don't slip, either: After Legolas saves Boromir from plummeting to his death, they all go charging down the steps.Boromir's not a clumsy idiot: he's just loaded with a chainmail coat, shield, and great sword, plus he's a big guy. Momentum is not his friend.
  
  
• By the first switchback the party is spread out about 15 feet vertically. Watch closely and you'll see Legolas leap over the side of the switchback and take a sickening drop - on horribly steep stairs, yet- to wind up close to Boromir before they hit the next snag.


• Legolas winds up assisting Gandalf, Boromir, Gimli, and Aragorn in their jumps. He also gets a couple gratuitous shots in which we get to follow his arrow all the way up to a target over a hundred yards away. That I could believe: he's supposed to have a 150# bow, and my little 30# recurve has a maximum range of about 120 yards. But sending an arrow that distance, against gravity, and still punching through helmet, skull, and embedding itself in a stone pillar behind the target? Elf-magic for sure! (Gimli)


• Both Legolas and the Moria Orcs seem to like whistling arrows! The sound is a bit hokey in the films. Nevertheless, real-life whistling arrows, ones with a small hole drilled in the shaft, are oddly terrifying: they make the same noise as the "falling bomb" sound effect in old cartoons. I froze in my tracks the first time I heard one on my way up to a practice range. Normal arrows are fairly quiet, although enough arrows loosed at once do make an eerie rushing sound.

 
That's the last archery for a while, but there's a fun detail as a result of this scene. Legolas arrives in Lórien with only three arrows left (Round it up to 18 total, assuming the camera didn't show a couple shots? That's reasonable). Nonetheless, he has the guts to pull one on the elves who ambush them. He's not stupid; Legolas Math will be explained later.

In Lothlórien, Legolas gets a gear upgrade from Galadriel and makes a visit to Archers Depot to refill his quiver. Unused stills show his boat utterly LOADED with spare ammo when the Fellowship is leaving Lórien.

Alas, one fine bit of shooting is missing from the films, from the "Great River" chapter of FOTR:

'Elbereth Gilthoniel!' sighed Legolas as he looked up. Even as he did so, a dark shape, like a cloud and yet not a cloud, for it moved far more swiftly, came out of the blackness in the South, and sped towards the Company, blotting out all light as it approached. Soon it appeared as a great winged creature, blacker than the pits in the night. Fierce voices rose up to greet it from across the water. Frodo felt a sudden chill running through him and clutching at his heart; there was a deadly cold, like the memory of an old wound, in his shoulder. He crouched down, as if to hide.Suddenly the great bow of Lórien sang. Shrill went the arrow from the elven-string. Frodo looked up. Almost above him the winged shape swerved. There was a harsh croaking scream, as it fell out of the air, vanishing down into the gloom of the eastern shore. The sky was clean again. There was a tumult of many voices far away, cursing and wailing in the darkness, and then silence. Neither shaft nor cry came again from the east that night. [...]'Praised be the bow of Galadriel, and the hand and eye of Legolas!' said Gimli, as he munched a wafer of lembas. 'That was a mighty shot in the dark, my friend!''But who can say what it hit?' said Legolas.

("The Great River," Fellowship of the Ring)

 
In which Boromir discovers that the Computer Fairy is not his friend, and Legolas demonstrates that 1 + 1 = 1 for especially sharp values of 1.

• I think Aragorn was justified in being "late" in the next movie, considering how long it took Legolas and Gimli to give him a hand with fifty-odd orcs. Eventually they arrive, and Legolas runs in shooting the orcs surrounding Aragorn, in yet another demo of the Secret Mantra. I can't walk and chew gum, let alone sprint and shoot orcs.
  
  
• Legolas Math: One of his arrows in this scene goes through 2 orcs. Is that a longbow or a heavy crossbow? I'll be over here in this bunker.
  
  
• More Legolas Math: Jam arrow into an orc's eye, nock and reuse it on next target. Legolas, being a nature-lover, believes in recycling. Repeatedly slamming an old arrow into a concrete floor proved this does not snap the shaft, much to my surprise. (This was actually an improvisation by Bloom).
  
  
  
• After Boromir's heroic arrival rushing in to save Merry and Pippin, start watching closely as soon as he scores a kill with a throwing knife. The next camera cut shows Legolas' last great moment; after that the story belongs to Boromir, Aragorn, and the Hobbits.


Legolas decides to take up orc collecting while Aragorn takes up getting creamed.


• It's what brought me out of the seat most the first time I watched this movie, and it's easy to miss. Legolas shoots 3 arrows in 3 seconds, and of course, kills an orc with every shot. It's fun to watch, listen, and count the time between the lightning bolts! (Someone asked about my reaction after I saw the 6 arrows in 6 seconds on the Extended Edition. My reply: "Nothing that could not be cured with smelling salts"). Alas, Legolas then takes several seconds to line up his final shot. Personally, I would have taken, say, a couple weeks of test rounds before trying that one.


• Reality check: A speed-shooting addict, I get 6-7 arrows off in 30 seconds, about half in the kill zone on an unmoving target at 20 yards. I've seen an Olympic-class archer loose 14 arrows mostly on-target in 30 seconds, at peak performance. Aiming isn't the big problem; getting an arrow out of a quiver and onto the string is the problem. [EE...]

It's in plain sight, but things are moving so fast you just don't have time to think about it.

While Legolas was plinking away at lightspeed, he could hardly fail to be aware that Aragorn was having a spot of bother with an Uruk-hai. It's strangling him and slamming him against a tree, which blocks Legolas from doing much about it. Aragorn manages to draw his knife, at which point his opponent swings him around trying to snap his wrist with one hand and his neck with the other. In the process the orc steps away from the tree. Legolas sees his chance, steps forward, and shoots an arrow partway through the orc at nearly point blank range. Aragorn regains his feet and goes charging off to help Boromir.

If you recall Legolas Math and the orc kabobs a few minutes ago, you will realize that Aragorn should have been killed by the arrow that saved him. That shot didn't look spectacular, but it was impossible, unless Legolas knew exactly how far to underdraw his bow to keep from skewering both Uruk-hai and scruffy ranger.

So there's the last real Legolas Moment, and a perfect summary of his character. Although he's a king's son, he's not one of the party leaders, but instead serves as support for his friends. In the movie, Legolas is the quietest person in the Fellowship, tends to stay in the background, and usually steps forward only when acting as look-out, or to rescue one of the strong characters caught in a split-second moment of vulnerability. As an elf he doesn't rely on brute force, but rather agility and speed, focus and an uncanny awareness of physical space. And for all that he occasionally shows distress or anger, at times like this, when Aragorn is in mortal danger, the elf is patient, picking off orcs while waiting for the right opening, then taking that extra second he needs to get the shot right. There's not a flicker of doubt in those eyes that he can do it-- it's a look of pure concentration. While he's not singing elven ballads or climbing trees, that is an image of Legolas that fits the Elves Tolkien envisioned.

To me, while Balrogs and great thundering armies clashing at the foot of Mt. Doom are thrilling and glorious to behold, it's the use of FX to slip in subtle details like this that are the real gems. This impossible shot will be registered only in the unconscious of 99% of the viewers. Why bother to include it? For those who try to pay attention with elven-sight as well as human.

And so, fellow archery buffs, next time you get out your FotR DVD ...let me finish... be an elf and think about the little things you see but don't notice. And when Legolas does this last delightful shot, say the words Aragorn must be thinking as he catches his breath: "Good thing 'ee don't miss."

Legolas Scorecard for Fellowship of the Ring:     23     17    9