[SPOILERS] THE Return of the King Thread

[GMVictory]

I'm a comic book fan for 30+ years. Movies based on comics have overloaded the need to complain or nitpick and that urge has burned right out of me.

I watch book adaptations for the moments/scenes where they get it absolutely right. Those moments where, in the case of comics, the illustrations are alive. And, in other literature, where my imagination has somehow been stolen and is depicted on screen. Sometimes, improved upon.

These three movies were full of those moments for me.

 

[Endur]

1) This is a problem with the books too, but where are all the other dwarves, anyhow? Did every dwarf die in Moria except Gimli? Is there some other battle between dwarves and orcs that we don't get to see? Heck, there were more HOBBITS fighting in ROTK than dwarves.

The Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain fought their own battle in the book that we didn't get to see. Against the Easterlings. After the fall of Sauron, they cleaned out Moria.

8) So according to the movie, the ring-bearers were: Sauron, Isildur, Deagol, Smeagol, Bilbo, Frodo, Smeagol again. (Boromir, Aragorn, Sam, don't actually touch the ring, if I remember correctly). Oh wait, did Galadriel hold the ring or not?

In the book, Sam is considered a ring-bearer for the short time he held the ring in the Tower.

 

[Berandor]

Reading this gets me started again.
My favourite scenes in part three:

* The joy in Theoden's face when the Olifants attack. He really loves the challenge.
* Shelob's scene. It seemed to be over so quick, and then was sooo good!
* The charge of the Rohirrim, Sam picking up Frodo, Faramir's charge, naturally
* Gandalf talking with Pippin at the final gate
* Aragorn turning around to his men at the Black Gate: "For Frodo!" Wow.
* The Fellowship reassembled with Gandalf laughing.
* The hobbits in the Green Dragon
* How Gandalf and Pippin ascend Minas Tirith.
... the whole movie!

Legolas killing the Olifant was cheesy, but I loved it nonetheless. I was wondering, though, whether I would have allowed it in a D&D game. I hope I would have, because it was a cool scene

Hugo Weaving was always a little "Smith" in FotR and TTT, but here he really transformed for me. But despite the good to great acting by the whole cast, my favourite has to be Bernhard Hill. The old man riding into the battle, finally able to find the honor of his forebears - grand!

 

[Chain Lightning]

Just saw it again. Was surprised to find it better the second time.

I still hold to my first review that was posted earlier in this thread. Although, I suspect no one read it because of the huge amount of spoiler black out lines.

I add some more tid bits about the movie.

First time I watched it, everyone laughed and cheered at the appropriate scenes. Second time was a little different. No one ever laughed at either Pippin or Aragorn singing. But...the inappropriate laughter came in on the second time I watched it.

Some uncontrollable laughter erupted from two guys during the scene where Frodo wakes up in bed after being rescued by the eagles. They laughed when Legolas appeared at the door. Then when Aragorn appeared. Then they started to attempt to be quiet...but lost control again and laughed when Sam showed up. I assume its the nature of the dreamy lighting and the slo-mo that made them laugh. Probably misinterpreting the scene to be 'romantic like entrances' rather than just good friends entering a room. The slo-mo doesn't help I admit.

On another note, ever cheer at a part that no one else cheered at? Like your mind cheered on impulse without first waiting to hear if anyone else was cheering. Thus, you ended up being the only one cheering and slightly embarrassed. Well, I did a small cheer at a part no else cheered at. But didn't mind. I wasn't embarrassed or anything. It was when Rosie threw the flowers and Pippen caught it instead of the girl next to him. Then the girl next to him gives him this look, suggesting to the audience that Pippen may find a romantic interest next. At that I did a small cheer. A little "Yeah!"

Speaking of Eowyn vs. the Witch King. Indeed, Eowyn is one of my favorite characters. I too felt a tad let down on PJ's version. Not totally so much to dislike the scene entirely...but I just wish it was better. Yeah, the staging was very undynamic and so was the cheoreography. And I love Miranda Otta to pieces, but her fighting stance was poor and so was her warcry. I kinda wished that she didnt' do any warcry before thrusting her sword through the Witch King's head.

Having listened to the commentary and hearing Miranda yearn for some fighting time on screen (much like Eowyn), .......I expected her to be really physically ready when it came time. It didn't seem like it. She seemed to somewhat fight like a girl who's about a week into self-defense class at the local community center. Now, to be fair....the fault may not be in Miranda's performance. It simply could be the way PJ directed her to move or the stunt coordinator telling her to do this or that. Who knows. But the end product wasn't completely to my liking.

Having Faramir's character have extra depth in the movie version made me even more excited about seeing him and Eowyn find each other. So, yet another little disappointment when I don't see them in that moment when the talk to each other.

Here's another thing. Where were the Easterlings? Maybe in the book they don't show up at Pellenor Fields, but since they were shown in TTT.........shouldn't they have made an appearence?

 

[Kestrel]

Just saw it again. Was surprised to find it better the second time.

I have to see it a second time. Im always too busy trying to find the books in the first viewings. Its hard to enjoy the film for what it is when Im looking to see what they left out or changed.

 

[Umbran]

Some uncontrollable laughter erupted from two guys during the scene where Frodo wakes up in bed after being rescued by the eagles. They laughed when Legolas appeared at the door. Then when Aragorn appeared. Then they started to attempt to be quiet...but lost control again and laughed when Sam showed up. I assume its the nature of the dreamy lighting and the slo-mo that made them laugh. Probably misinterpreting the scene to be 'romantic like entrances' rather than just good friends entering a room. The slo-mo doesn't help I admit.

I think I know what was happening here, as there was uncontrollable laughing in my theatre atthat part too, and I know why my folks were laughing...

Have you ever heard of "slash fic"? It is a subset of "fanfic" - fan-written fiction, using characters from popular stories. Slash fic is about romantic and/or sexual interludes the author would like to see that don't appear in the original text. Frequently the stuff crosses the assumed sexual preferences of the characters - there's lots of Frodo/Sam (see that slash? thus the name) fanfic out there, because many folks like to interpret their relationship as homosexual.

Anyway, much fanfic is bad, slashfic often worse. In that light, that whole scene looks like the start of a really, really bad piece of slash fic.

 

[Assenpfeffer]

I'm too involved with evaluating the film as an adaptation of the books to really properly evaluate it as a film on the first viewing. Nevertheless, I think I'll end up liking this one at least as much as TTT. I'll likely go see it again tomorrow.

My bugs:

The pacing seemed off to me - the film just moved too fast. This made it less of a chore to sit through, but not so great a film as it otherwise might have been. It should have been 4 hours. I expect the EE to fix this, but waiting another year is going to grate.

Since it was announced back before the release of FotR, I've been defending Jackson's decision to cut the Scouring of the Shire as unnecessary and anticlimactic. Yet, at the end of RotK, I felt the lack of it.

The Armies of the West circling up on the hills before the Black Gate is right out of the book, save that there is no hill in the movie. After musing on it for several days, I think that the sight of the Black Bate, open, and Barad-dur beyond as the Host of Mordor marches through is one of the most awe-inspring sight of the film.

I though the "searchlight" effect of the Eye was a bit cheesy, but not jarringly so. And it's very much like it's described in the book.

Eowyn vs. the Witch-King: This was one of the scenes from the book that I felt Jackson needed to absolutely nail, but unlike Gandalf vs. the Balrog (which he got exactly right,) he didn't quite. I really wanted that dialogue, both from Eowyn and the Witch-King.

 

[Davelozzi]

I agree that Eowyn and the Witch-King, while still great to watch, was a not quite as dramatic as I had hoped. Perhaps, like barsoomcore and Joshua Dyal, I had built it up too much in my head, although from what I can remember, it was done well in the cartoon version of RotK.

And although, the fight itself could have been a bit better (a more deadly struggle would've been more climactic), the main issue for me was the way the whole secrecy of Eowyn's time as Dernhelm was glossed over. Sure, there's enough in the books to make it pretty obvious that Dernhelm is Eowyn, but they never come right out and say it until the final moment when she removes her helmet and says "I am no man". Having Merry say "my lady!" as she picks him up was a bad idea. Since they didn't mind taking such liberties with voice mixing to make Gandalf sound like Saruman when he first appears as the White Wizard in TTT, I would think they could've exercised a little more subtelty with Eowyn's disguise.

That said, Eowyn is one of my all time favorite characters in my all time favorite stories, so of course my expectations were high. Even with the slight disappointment, she is still one of favorites in the film. I've always been surprised whenever someone says that Tolkien couldn't do strong female characters. To me, Eowyn is probalby the strongest female character in fantsy literature.

But enough griping. This movie was incredible. The effects were insane. The siege of Minas Tirith was jaw dropping. I have a new respect for catapults. The adaptations to turn the book into a movie were well done. When I saw TTT in the theater, I was disappointed by the changes to Faramir, but with the extra footage in the extended version and the handling of his character in RotK, he is redeemed in my eyes.

Great film!

 

[Berandor]

Well, Eowyn is no wizard; she could onlyy disguise her so good. I think if PJ would have presented us with a "believable" disguise we would have seen through nonetheless (especially since false beards or something wasn't really available), and just thought how stupid it was that no character in the movie got that.
Otoh, now we can see her ducking away from Theoden riding by, so we see she's trying to remain undetected within her measly disguise. I thought it was alright.

 

[Ashy]

Weird. Nothing like that in my theatre; I thought the singing was quite a poignant backdrop to the utter waste and tragedy of the moment.

Same way with me, Joshua....