> Secondly, in the film they destroy Sauramon's factory/castle while in the book (if I recall correctly) they intervene in another battle and turn the tide. (Correct me here if I am wrong.) I think the director made a pretty heavy-handed choice to have the trees destroy the industrial baddies. I guess this is what passes for subtlty nowadays.
I guess that's what passed for subtlety 60 years ago, when Tolkien wrote it that way, too. In the chapter "Flotsam and jetsam", Merry and Pippin give an excited description of watching the Ents and Huorns destroying the complex surrounding Orthanc, since the tower itself was impervious to their efforts. Here's a snippet:
I thought that they had been really roused before; but I was wrong. I saw what it was like at last. It was staggering. They roared and boomed and trumpeted, until stones began to crack and fall at the mere noise of them. Merry and I lay on the ground and stuffed our cloaks into our ears. Round and round the rock of Orthanc the Ents went striding and storming like a howling gale, breaking pillars, hurling avalanches of boulders down the shafts, tossing up huge slabs of stone into the air like leaves. The tower was in the middle of a spinning whirlwind. I saw iron posts and blocks of masonry go rocketing up hundreds of feet, and smash against the windows of Orthanc.
