[Ungoliant]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't think a deus ex machina has bothered me more than the one in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I spent about 8 hours of my life wondering, "How the hell are these few humans and elves gonna defeat thousands upon thousands of orcs?" The characters kept harping on it too, making sure we knew what an obstacle they were facing.

Then 3/4 of the way through the last movie Viggo Mortensen slaps his hand to his forehead and says, "Oh yeah! I almost forgot, we have a [censored] ghost army that's invincible! We'll just use them!"

I know that that's Tolkien's fault and not the fault of the filmmakers, but since I've only seen the movies I choose to blame Peter Jackson.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, that entire sequence is quite different in the book. In the book, the army of the dead actually only participates in a series of smaller battles in the south, helping to free up several armies of men who were under siege there, and defeating reinforcements of Sauron's army who were on their way to Minas Tirith. The importance of them was that by helping to defeat Sauron's forces in the south, it enabled the large armies of men to come to reinforce Minas Tirith. The army that Aragorn leads to that battle was an army of men, and it is they who are critical in turning the tide of the battle. The idea of an invincible ghost army that just arrives and instantly kills everything in sight is completely the invention of the filmmakers.

[/Tolkien geek]