"But where's that light coming from" BITCH IT'S FANTASY WHO CARES
Ok but also from a like, theatrical storytelling perspective, there’s a thing called “willful suspension of disbelief” which is basically the concept that in order to let ourselves be immersed and enjoy a story, we need to turn off our knowledge that it’s all fake anyway.
like yes, we all *know* it’s unrealistically bright for a night time war, but it needs to be so we can SEE the story being told, and the lighting designer used blue light to show it was night time. We KNOW that Sir Ian isn’t actually a wizard but we SUSPEND that DISBELIEF because we want to be entertained.
theres the moon, theres the stars, in this fantasy world the stars might be four times as bright or there might be two moons or, considering this is a land without electric lights, its assumed that everyones eyes, including those of the viewers, have adjusted enough to the darkness that yes normal ass moon and stars provide sufficient illumination to actually see that the elf king is not wearing sweatpants like youd be able to tell or who the hell was that who just got stabbed thats kind of an important detail in an action scene
Elijah Wood said he brought this up with Andrew Lesnie, cinematographer on LOTR, once and asked him where the light was coming from in a particular scene, and Lesnie just smiled and said “same place as the music”.
