[SPOILERS] THE Return of the King Thread

[TiQuinn]

Ebert's review:

Give the guy a break. He doesn't have to think it is the best movie ever seen by man to be able to say he liked the film...

Nah.

He spends most of the review damning it with faint praise. He sounds like the editor or Peter Jackson has got him in a hammerlock while he's writing it.

 

[KenM]

I really wanted to see the Ebert and Roeper show last weekend, as they were reviewing RotK, but it was not on due to all the Saddam being caught coverage.

 

[KingOfChaos]

Excellent. Worthy end for the trilogy.

Favorite part was anything with the Witch-King of Angmar.

I cannot be killed by any living man!

Well scary character and well executed (pun intended)!

Yes, his method of execution smacked of Black Mage The implosion effect was quite nice as well.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I'm waiting to hear what the two friends I have say about it after seeing it last night. I know the one will gush non stop, he thinks these movies are the greatest thing ever. But then he's never read the books. The two reviews in the paper today were mixed. The main review said it's a great movie, but it needed a few coats of post-modern paint to get a larger role for women and bullcrap like that. Yeah, PJ should have re-written the story even more than he already did... The reviewer had never read the book either.

Now the reivew by the guy who has read the book sounded like me discussing the Two Towers, he has trouble with the butchered characterizations. He points out problems with Arwyn, Elrond, Sam & Frodo, Theoden, & others. He claims it's a good movie but diverts from the book too much and leaves too much out of the story.

Well I don't pay much attention to reviews but I get the feeling I'll be like the second guy after seeing the movie. The Two Towers damaged my lust for the next movie as it is. I'll probaly wait a while before seeing it, but I may hold out for the EE, if that's possible for me.

 

[John Crichton]

The spoiler blackouts are annoying in this thread. We should just rename the thread as being spolier laden, and be done with it. I really don't want to read 15 pages of half-blacked out stuff, which is what will happen.

Done, which I should have done in the first place...

 

[Tsyr]

Ya know, I have one quirky gripe.

Gollum bit off the last joint of the index finger on Frodo's left hand. And I admit, Frodo put the ring, strangely, on his index finger.

But the last joint? Who wears a ring on the LAST JOINT of a finger, much less the index finger?

 

[Mog Elffoe]

Ebert's review:

I don't get you guys. Ebert loved the movie. He has a few quibbles with it. But he starts out very clearly saying "This is the best of the three, redeems the earlier meandering, and certifies the "Ring" trilogy as a work of bold ambition at a time of cinematic timidity." ..."Still, Jackson's achievement cannot be denied. "Return of the King" is such a crowning achievement, such a visionary use of all the tools of special effects, such a pure spectacle, that it can be enjoyed even by those who have not seen the first two films"

Give the guy a break. He doesn't have to think it is the best movie ever seen by man to be able to say he liked the film...

Hey, don't get me wrong--it IS a good review. I just think that it's funny that Ebert would gripe about Gandalf being a powerful warrior, 'cuz, you know, even though he defeated a demon of the Old World single-handedly and is a Wizard and all, he LOOKS like an old man. Plus, his overall praise for the three films is pretty condescending. Basically, he says that because it's fantasy it isn't as 'good' as other films that take place in the 'real' world. You can't find it surprising that folks on a D&D message board would find that attitude irksome.

 

[Krug]

I watched the marathon and though the extended versions added a lot to the psychological depth of the characters. While I enjoyed RotK, I feel Jackson omitted some parts for the sake of brevity, and the extended RotK will round up everything nicely.

 

[Black Omega]

I didn't think biting the finger off at the second joint is that big of a deal. At least from watching it today it certainly looks like more of the finger is bitten off than the tip. Gollum gets the finger in his mouth, tries to pull the ring off with his teeth. It doesn't work since past the second joint a frantic Frodo can simply bend his finger and keep it from going further, so plan two. We bites it off!

 

[nikolai]

The film is brilliant, and the effects really give us something we haven't seen before. I thought it was great. That said, I want to spend the rest of my post bitching about things I didn't like...

• In terms of plot, it diverged way to much from the books. I'm not going to list all the ways, but I think some of the Tolkien has been jiggled around with for no good reason, to the detriment of the story. I realise the demands of adaptation, but they then spend way to much time having to solve problems that never existed in the books.
• There's loads of faux Shakespearian expository dialogue for the first three-quarters of an hour or so, and tonnes of voice overs. I really think most of this is redundant, some of it was pretty badly written too.
• The film has a sense of real evil at some moments (I loved the gargoyles). The nazgul are at times gothic and creepy in a way they weren't in the Two Towers. That said, I think the red lighthouse eye is daft, and there isn't the sense of forboding there should have been at times. I really liked the Eye of Sauron in the first film, and the wearing the ring effect; it's a shame they've both been abandoned. And Pippin gazing into the Palantir could have and should have been really trippy - instead we get a strange glued to their hands effect. The book is really, really bleak, I don't think the film even comes close.
• What's with the green fetish? I couldn't see what the big green energy spike from Minas Morgul was all about and Dead looked weird.
• The Siege of Minas Tirith was a let down. The book lays the events out very dramatically. I think some of this is lost, particularly with the Orc's eye view of the other side. I'd always imagined it more like Hoth.
• Oh and the sappy, sentimental, soft focus women and children shots. It's even worse than it was in the Two Towers. Surely there's a less blatent way of tugging at the heartstrings of the viewers than this.

Anyway, cinematically it's a triumph. There really is nothing else out there like it. Some of the special effects were so good I'm wondering whether any improvement in that area is possible. Is there any way some of the creatures could be made to look better? As far as CGI goes this may be as good as you can get it. Absolutely Stunning. I came out feeling someone had Format C:\ed my brain.