"A mûmak, to judge by the spikes on the ends of its tusks, is made by crossing a double helping of mammoth with a porcupine, and each one bears a company of archers on its back. Legolas, a fit fellow, takes one look and sees his chance for a workout. He shinnies up a back leg, hangs on to the hide, fells half the riders with a ping of his bow, chops a rope holding the rest, shoots an arrow into the presumably tiny brain of the animal, feels it slump to its knees, and then trips lightly down its trunk like Fred Astaire descending a staircase. Unconfirmed reports suggest that this is the coolest single activity ever recorded on film, and the audience around me went into spasms of worshipful hilarity. Somebody to my left actually stood to applaud, as George II is said to have done when he first heard the Hallelujah Chorus. "
-From the New Yorker review of Return of the King.
