I don't think the slow-motion was as bad as some of you made it out to be.
The movie was great, but I don't see any point in rehashing what all of you have already said.
I was lucky to be sitting in a audience without any crying babies(that is easily more annoying than a cell phone). I made the stupid mistake of showing up 10 minutes before the film started, and had to sit in the very back row.
For a 3 1/2 hour movie, there were a few more weak scenes than the other movies, but lots more fantastic scenes as well.
The beginning was the weakest beginning of any of the three. Fellowship had the great prologue, which brought you into the world. In Towers, Gandalf plunging with the Balrog was fantastic. It was interesting to see Gollum's back story, but not as compelling as the other two.
The ending was slow too. They were trying to jerk tears with Frodo leaving, but it just didn't happen, at least for me. The emotional outlet had already occurred. However, one of my favorite parts of the book is when the hobbits go back to the Shire and everyone kind of ignores them, and I liked the way they were able to capture that in the movie. I suppose they could have ended it Star Wars style, with a quick cut to the celebration ceremony, but on the other hand I'm sure many people would have felt cheated if the whole trilogy just ended abruptly.
A couple of tricky parts that I thought were particularly well scripted:
The paths of the dead was better than I thought it might be. It was a nice way of forcing Aragorn to confront his destiny, the way it was written for the movie. The only flaw I saw was that, in bringing the army of the dead all the way to Minas Tirith, it made the whole Ride of the Rohirrim kind of pointless. That charge was probably the best battle scene of the entire trilogy, and then it's like "Oh, so you have this magic army and didn't need us anyway, huh?" (In the book the ghost army was released when they took the ships, south of Minas Tirith.)
I also liked the way they handled the rationale behind the last battle. The logic of it always seemed kind of iffy in the book, to basically go and sacrifice their entire army in order to distract Sauron. But they played it well in the movie - clearing Sauron's army out of Mordor so that Frodo and Sam had a clear path to Mt. Doom.
Loved:
? Shelob. Very creepy. My wife was freaking out. I enjoyed the "OK he escaped oops there it is again" gag. I still think that should have been at the end of Towers, though.
? Nazgul. In Towers the winged nazgul actually seemed less scary than the horsed ones in Fellowship. But in the battle scenes in King they redeemed themselves.
? Eowyn's scene. I expected that they would surprise the audience, but I guess that would have seemed cheesy. I also expected she would have been a bit... I dunno, stronger during the fight. But I guess it was more "realistic" the way it was portrayed.
? Faramir. One actually liked him in this movie. In a way, it was too bad they couldn't bring closure to Eowyn with Faramir, but it would have been yet another ending...
? Just about any of the cinematic scenes with Gandalf riding, beacons lighting, or horses charging, and Howard Shore music playing.
I thought Denethor was fine, but they really should have just left out the Gandalf smack. It was silly and demeaned Denethor too much. And yeah, it would have taken 10 seconds to show another palantir to explain why he was such a putz.
Comments
I still think it's funny. It is mostly coincidental, but it's still "hmmm"-worthy.
I don't think the slow-motion was as bad as some of you made it out to be.
The movie was great, but I don't see any point in rehashing what all of you have already said.
I was lucky to be sitting in a audience without any crying babies(that is easily more annoying than a cell phone). I made the stupid mistake of showing up 10 minutes before the film started, and had to sit in the very back row.
For a 3 1/2 hour movie, there were a few more weak scenes than the other movies, but lots more fantastic scenes as well.
The beginning was the weakest beginning of any of the three. Fellowship had the great prologue, which brought you into the world. In Towers, Gandalf plunging with the Balrog was fantastic. It was interesting to see Gollum's back story, but not as compelling as the other two.
The ending was slow too. They were trying to jerk tears with Frodo leaving, but it just didn't happen, at least for me. The emotional outlet had already occurred. However, one of my favorite parts of the book is when the hobbits go back to the Shire and everyone kind of ignores them, and I liked the way they were able to capture that in the movie. I suppose they could have ended it Star Wars style, with a quick cut to the celebration ceremony, but on the other hand I'm sure many people would have felt cheated if the whole trilogy just ended abruptly.
A couple of tricky parts that I thought were particularly well scripted:
The paths of the dead was better than I thought it might be. It was a nice way of forcing Aragorn to confront his destiny, the way it was written for the movie. The only flaw I saw was that, in bringing the army of the dead all the way to Minas Tirith, it made the whole Ride of the Rohirrim kind of pointless. That charge was probably the best battle scene of the entire trilogy, and then it's like "Oh, so you have this magic army and didn't need us anyway, huh?" (In the book the ghost army was released when they took the ships, south of Minas Tirith.)
I also liked the way they handled the rationale behind the last battle. The logic of it always seemed kind of iffy in the book, to basically go and sacrifice their entire army in order to distract Sauron. But they played it well in the movie - clearing Sauron's army out of Mordor so that Frodo and Sam had a clear path to Mt. Doom.
Loved:
? Shelob. Very creepy. My wife was freaking out. I enjoyed the "OK he escaped oops there it is again" gag. I still think that should have been at the end of Towers, though.
? Nazgul. In Towers the winged nazgul actually seemed less scary than the horsed ones in Fellowship. But in the battle scenes in King they redeemed themselves.
? Eowyn's scene. I expected that they would surprise the audience, but I guess that would have seemed cheesy. I also expected she would have been a bit... I dunno, stronger during the fight. But I guess it was more "realistic" the way it was portrayed.
? Faramir. One actually liked him in this movie. In a way, it was too bad they couldn't bring closure to Eowyn with Faramir, but it would have been yet another ending...
? Just about any of the cinematic scenes with Gandalf riding, beacons lighting, or horses charging, and Howard Shore music playing.
I thought Denethor was fine, but they really should have just left out the Gandalf smack. It was silly and demeaned Denethor too much. And yeah, it would have taken 10 seconds to show another palantir to explain why he was such a putz.