RotK thoughts *spoilers*
Well, obviously it was good, but...
Scenes that really dragged:
- Opening with Deagol and Smeagol
- Climbing up Mount Doom
- The last battle and Aragorn's soliloquy. Theoden's was much better. Aragorn almost sounded like Bill Pullman in Independence Day
- Any extended shot of Legolas grinning and trying to look badass.
- The ring melting. Just DIE ALREADY, JESUS.
- Frodo and Sam reflecting on everything while surrounded by lava.
- Frodo recovering in bed...boom there's Gandalf. Boom, Merry and Pippin. Boom Gimli and Legolas. And Aragorn and Sam. PLEASE...How campy can it get?
- Frodo hugging Sam, Pippin and Merry at the end with the slowest sailboat ever built.
...basically any scene with more than one Hobbit.
And why they dragged:
What the $$$$ is with all the slo-mo? I'm just glad they didn't insert a bullet time sequence in there somewhere. Slo-mo wriggling on a bed doesn't do it for me.
And what's missing or corrupted:
- Uh, Saruman?
- How does Denethor II know things before they happen? Where's ANY mention of his palantir? Why did they leave it out? He died with the thing in his clutches, for chrissakes! Not in the movie of course.)
- Denethor II is portrayed basically as an evil character when we should in fact be sympathetic. It goes back to his mind being weakened by the palantir though...
- Theoden passes his rule to Eowyn? Uh, no. Eomer's supposed to be come the ruler of Rohan.
- Uh, Easterlings? Where? Why put them in the second flick if they are NOWHERE in the third?
- Practically all of the appendices. We see Sam marry Rosie. We see, Frodo, Bilbo and Gandalf sail to Valinor, but that's really about it. There is no closure regarding Eomer, Faramir, Eowyn, Pippin, Merry, Aragorn, Arwen, Legolas or Gimli. Come on! The appendices were like ONE THIRD of the RotK.
- A bunch of other stuff I can't recall at the moment because it's 5 AM.
I was told certain parts would make me hysterical. I laughed out loud at a few of the comic bits, but I wasn't shocked at anything. Those wideangle/surveyor shots of epic battles are really humdrum if you ask me. The battles should have leaned on the more intimate close-ups rather than the CG chaos. And yeah, when all the people bow to the four Hobbits, that was a good tear-jerker moment, but what after that?
Why was Elrond grinning like psycho-Agent Smith at the end?
I raised my expectations and they bit me in the ass. I thought the initial battle with the Rohirrim was great. I liked Theoden rallying his army. I liked Sam being a badass and Gandalf whacking people with his staff. The CG with Shelob and the marble structures of Minas Tirith crashing down was awesome.
The extended Fellowship of the Ring is definitely tops for now. I'll reserve judgement on Return of the King until I see the extended version.
Without being predisposed to the original written work, I would probably have been much more satisfied...as long as all the stuff that happened AFTER the War of the Ring was left out. Crown Aragorn, do the tear-jerker bow to the Hobbits and wrap it up there. It makes no sense to only mention little bits and pieces of the goings on in the beginning of the Fourth Age.
I was really looking forward to what was going to be done with the appendices. That's where ALL the closure is. Since it was left out, the story is so obviously incomplete, and a review is impossible.
This is precisely how I felt about RotK, though I think the first two movies weren't quite as scattered as this one. *Sigh* Gotta wait a year for the extended DVD to come out. Each of the three books are basically two volumes each. I almost wish each of the films could have been doubled in length.
Scenes that really dragged:
- Opening with Deagol and Smeagol
- Climbing up Mount Doom
- The last battle and Aragorn's soliloquy. Theoden's was much better. Aragorn almost sounded like Bill Pullman in Independence Day
- Any extended shot of Legolas grinning and trying to look badass.
- The ring melting. Just DIE ALREADY, JESUS.
- Frodo and Sam reflecting on everything while surrounded by lava.
- Frodo recovering in bed...boom there's Gandalf. Boom, Merry and Pippin. Boom Gimli and Legolas. And Aragorn and Sam. PLEASE...How campy can it get?
- Frodo hugging Sam, Pippin and Merry at the end with the slowest sailboat ever built.
...basically any scene with more than one Hobbit.
And why they dragged:
What the $$$$ is with all the slo-mo? I'm just glad they didn't insert a bullet time sequence in there somewhere. Slo-mo wriggling on a bed doesn't do it for me.
And what's missing or corrupted:
- Uh, Saruman?
- How does Denethor II know things before they happen? Where's ANY mention of his palantir? Why did they leave it out? He died with the thing in his clutches, for chrissakes! Not in the movie of course.)
- Denethor II is portrayed basically as an evil character when we should in fact be sympathetic. It goes back to his mind being weakened by the palantir though...
- Theoden passes his rule to Eowyn? Uh, no. Eomer's supposed to be come the ruler of Rohan.
- Uh, Easterlings? Where? Why put them in the second flick if they are NOWHERE in the third?
- Practically all of the appendices. We see Sam marry Rosie. We see, Frodo, Bilbo and Gandalf sail to Valinor, but that's really about it. There is no closure regarding Eomer, Faramir, Eowyn, Pippin, Merry, Aragorn, Arwen, Legolas or Gimli. Come on! The appendices were like ONE THIRD of the RotK.
- A bunch of other stuff I can't recall at the moment because it's 5 AM.
I was told certain parts would make me hysterical. I laughed out loud at a few of the comic bits, but I wasn't shocked at anything. Those wideangle/surveyor shots of epic battles are really humdrum if you ask me. The battles should have leaned on the more intimate close-ups rather than the CG chaos. And yeah, when all the people bow to the four Hobbits, that was a good tear-jerker moment, but what after that?
Why was Elrond grinning like psycho-Agent Smith at the end?
I raised my expectations and they bit me in the ass. I thought the initial battle with the Rohirrim was great. I liked Theoden rallying his army. I liked Sam being a badass and Gandalf whacking people with his staff. The CG with Shelob and the marble structures of Minas Tirith crashing down was awesome.
The extended Fellowship of the Ring is definitely tops for now. I'll reserve judgement on Return of the King until I see the extended version.
Without being predisposed to the original written work, I would probably have been much more satisfied...as long as all the stuff that happened AFTER the War of the Ring was left out. Crown Aragorn, do the tear-jerker bow to the Hobbits and wrap it up there. It makes no sense to only mention little bits and pieces of the goings on in the beginning of the Fourth Age.
I was really looking forward to what was going to be done with the appendices. That's where ALL the closure is. Since it was left out, the story is so obviously incomplete, and a review is impossible.
Quote:
San Diego Union-Tribune review:
"I was more impressed by the first chapters,The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, on DVD than I was in theaters .... Back in a multiplex for No. 3, I felt blitz-bombed again."
San Diego Union-Tribune review:
"I was more impressed by the first chapters,The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, on DVD than I was in theaters .... Back in a multiplex for No. 3, I felt blitz-bombed again."
This is precisely how I felt about RotK, though I think the first two movies weren't quite as scattered as this one. *Sigh* Gotta wait a year for the extended DVD to come out. Each of the three books are basically two volumes each. I almost wish each of the films could have been doubled in length.
Comments
Maybe you should watch it again without a checklist and a copy of the book in front of you. As critical as I am, I certainly liked Towers a little more the second time I saw it.
Theaters hate long movies, but I don't think audiences hate them. Cutting 1+ hours from RotK was purely a business move from New Line's anal retentive suits. And because the theatrical version has to make sense in context to the previous two theatrical releases, a lot of stuff already covered in the extended DVDs had to be covered AGAIN. That made for some pretty boring redundancy. A good example of that would be Gollum plotting Frodo's demise in Shelob's Lair. In the TTT special edition DVD, he's already mentioned her. In RotK, he vaguely mentions her again. Argh.
More comments...
Did they even explain the meaning of the White Tree of Gondor? That the trees came from Numenor, and that Isildur saved a seed to plant in Gondor... They didn't even explain that its health mirrored that of the kingdom's.
And what about Theoden's death? It was pretty abrupt. What did they do with his body? It's mentioned in the book...
I was lying in bed and I did remember some cool scenes though. The trebuchets at Minas Tirith were pretty cool. I especially liked the details like the hinged counterweights.
Eowyn kicking the Witch King's ass was better than I had imagined.
The horseback stuff was all really well done, even the CG when the horses got stomped, thrown or grabbed by the Fellbeasts.
The Dead Men were really creepy, especially when you could just barely make him out in the narrow-pass in the beginning.
Lighting of the beacons++
Catapulting severed heads...sort of bold, I guess.
As for cinematography, this is a Peter Jackson film. You either like his direction style, or you don't, and that's that. The third film focused on and emphasized the characters more than the previous films, and I thought it was handled far more elegantly than it might have been. The buildup was, for the most part, appropriate, and I was entirely pleased with the falling action and ending. We have only to wait for the few glaring omissions to be mended.
This was in every way an improvement over Two Towers, in my opinion, and a triumph for fantasy and genre films in general. My friends and I walked out of the theater thinking, among other things, that George Lucas could just <CENSORED> our <CENSORED>. This generation has its (proverbial) Star Wars, and it's called Lord of the Rings.
Originally posted by Influenza
As for cinematography, this is a Peter Jackson film. You either like his direction style, or you don't, and that's that
But I just said the other two movies were better in this regard. There are awesome visuals in RotK, but some sequences were just viscerally bad.
Imagine if I either liked or didn't like Tarantino's style. Would I love Kill Bill or hate From Dusk Till Dawn?
It's not black and white. Either/or doesn't apply.
Originally posted by Eugene
Heh, I haven't seen any other Peter Jackson films.
Oh, well no wonder you're not that impressed!
And it seemed like Barad-dur took about 15 minutes to collapse, but Sauron's Eye frantically looking to and fro as it did so was great.
I didn't like the Deagol/Smeagol scene, would have put the Voice of Saruman scene in instead.
The Denethor stuff was too campy. Gandalf whacking him over the head with his staff rang false. The chomping on cherry tomatoes was too much. I rolled my eyes when Pippin sang his little song. And why have him say "I see more than you could possibly know" but never bring in the Palantir?
The film was much more fast-paced than the first two. Probably the toughest film of the three for those who haven't read the books.
Overall though, definitely a thumbs up. Not a dry eye in the house.
Originally posted by Influenza
Let me rephrase a bit. Return of the King, in particular, came across as a Peter Jackson film. Not the same was what you're saying, and I understand your point, but I think you can see mine, too.
That makes sense, because post-production work on The Return of the King reunited Jackson with Jamie Selkirk, who edited his pre-LOTR films.
I'm planning to catch a show sometime later this week. My biggest fear is that Jackson still has that slow-motion closeup fetish in his system... the draggiest bits of TTT were its flashback sequences, not to mention that scene were Theoden gets armoured up. These people are going to battle, you'd think they would sound a little more agitated!
It was fantastic watching all three filmes, back-to-back. When viewed together, the cohesiveness of the production, tone, performances, etc really make this trilogy special. While I don't have problems with sequels per se, I don't like how sequels change tone so dramatically between each subsequent film (Matrix vs Reloaded). Because LotR trilogy was shot at the same time, there's a certain consistency that I really liked. However, if Peter Jackson had gotten it wrong then all three films would've suffered. Thankfully Jackson/New Line got it right.
The fans I watched the trilogy with yesterday in Anaheim (AMD 30 at the Block) was great. No assholes, no noise makers, true cinema fans. Which was nice.
Now I'm a HUGE Star Wars Classic Trilogy fan. I grew up adoring those films (still do). But, I'm afraid to say that they have finally been surpassed by a superior trilogy.
Of course my ass was numb half of the time.
But yes, TTT could have done with three or four fewer flashbacks. We get it already! Angst angsty angst!
It's not quite that bad in RotK. Well, you be the judge.
Originally posted by Influenza
Yes. Yet another fine opportunity for the Academy to reaffirm its complete and utter irrelevance by failing to recognize greatness.
"Titanic" had all the same things going against it for Best Picture. And it won.
Now, I'm not saying that Titanic is equally as good as Return of the King. Not by a long shot (the DiCaprio factor will forever tarnish the film's reputation). But, Titanic is still considered a monumental achievement in filmmaking history and it was thusly awarded for it.
Originally posted by Influenza
But Titanic is not, strictly speaking, a genre film.
True. Fantasy has never fared well.
Putting genre aside, the Academy usually does not reward films that have had huge box office success (or huge mass appeal). Don't get me wrong, they do like epics like Out of Africa, but not the ones that earn nearly a billion dollars.
Fvcking people can't just enjoy shit anymore.
Originally posted by BR
Gah. The movie rocked hardcore. Quit being such nitpicky bitches.
Fvcking people can't just enjoy shit anymore.
I'm gonna have to agree with you on this one. I might try to pick it apart, but was too amazed, and I'm still too tired. Fantastic movie, end of story.
Originally posted by Influenza
Yes. Yet another fine opportunity for the Academy to reaffirm its complete and utter irrelevance by failing to recognize greatness.
Return of the King may very well win Best Picture from the Academy, but that would be retribution for the first film getting snubbed. The theatrical version of RotK is by far the least complete of the trilogy.
And as I stated before, Jackson has gone ALL OUT on his slo-mo fetish.
Man, I totally forgot about Denethor and the bursting tomato. Agh.
Originally posted by Matsu
Ahh, fvck it. Charge more and show the damn things as the director intended. Perhaps a per hour movie rate so theatres don't cry about revenues. This is annoying. Who wants to bet that they're still holding out some scenes from FoTR and TTT, and that we'll only see them in some complete LoTR special edition boxed set -- complete with a stainless steel replica of Narsil remade!
You can't really do this either because the extended versions overlap.
Some stuff left out in the theatrical TFotR, but put back into the DVD had to be put into the theatrical version of TTT. If you watch all the extended DVDs back to back, you'll be watching a lot of redundant scenes.
An interesting project would be a completely chronological re-edit of all three films into one. Show the forging of the rings, the last battle of the Second Age, Smeagol and Deagol finding the ring, the retaking of Osgiliath with Boromir, etc. as it would happen instead of in flashbacks.