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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Buttercup" data-source="post: 1278771" data-attributes="member: 990">I saw it last night, and I thought I would post my thoughts before reading this entire thread, so as to avoid contamination.  After I've posted, I'll go back and see what everyone else thought, and maybe reply here and there. First, I think the casting was superlative.  I don't watch many movies or much TV, so most of these people were totally new to me.  But dang!  PJ nailed it every time. The only change from the book that annoyed me was the 'Arwen is dying' schtick.  Totally unnecessary and cheesy. I absolutely loved Bernard Hill's portrayal of Theoden.  It was masterful.  Shakespearean, even.  Of course, it helped that they left in his soliloquys from the book.  He really nailed the Beowulf aspect of being a King of Rohan. Eowyn was totally cool and inspiring in the battle of the Pellenor.  The only thing I wanted that was not there was to hear her say "Begone, foul dwimmerlaik!" like she does in the book.   Loved Legolas and the elephant.  Was it cheesy?  Of course.  What's your point?   Sean Astin put in an amazing performance.  Samwise the hero indeed.  When Frodo tells him to go home, his tears broke my heart, and made me shed some of my own.  I hope he wins best supporting actor.  At the very least, I don't think he'll ever want for acting jobs.  I wanted to see more of Faramir's story--the scenes in the Houses of Healing with Eowyn are poignant in the book, and I hope they make it into the extended version. I shed some tears at the way Denethor treated him.   Of course, part of why I want to see his story is because the actor, David Wenham, is tasty eye candy.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Now that I've seen Shelob, my players had better beware if I ever run giant spiders again, boy howdy.  Disgusting and frightening at the same time.  Filled with evil goodness.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> Generally, the battles were amazing.  I'm not a big fan of the shaking camera technique, but I can see how the disorientation and confusion it adds made the battle scenes appropriately chaotic.  And I loved the catapults of Minas Tirith throwing big chunks of damaged buildings out onto the enemy, where they squashed whole platoons.  Wholesale slaughter, baby! I'm glad that they kept going with the Gimli/Legolas competition, but I wish the dwarf would have been a bit more than comic relief.  Overall though, I think I liked TT extended version best so far.  I just couldn't care enough about Gondor and its people.  I knew from the books that I was supposed to, and why.  But if I had not read the books (10+ times) I don't think I would have understood who they were or why they mattered.  The Rohirrim seemed far more interesting to me, and captured my heart far more.  Perhaps PJ will spend a bit more time on the people of Minas Tirith, so they will seem worth all the trouble. That's all for now.  I didn't get to bed until 2:00 am, and woke at 5:15.  I'm not functioning fully today.</blockquote>

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