The official thread for Lord Of The Rings - The Return Of The King [LOTR ROTK TROTK ROK] (NOW CONTAINS SPOILERS)

I am finishing up work, I am cleaning up some stuff...I am off. I will post something incoherent and babbling at 3 am. (Not that this is different from most times.)

Anyway. Trilogy showing! Ned happy! ROTK fucking awesome! The world is great! I need sleep! More later! Good night!

I haven't seen TLOTR: TROTK (I love these abb.), but I'd like to
chime in and agree with Chrissie H that the first two movies were
directed averagely at best. Keep in mind that I'm a Tolkien fan
(though not a rabid one), but even more I'm a film buff. And I
wasn't too impressed with Jackson's screenplay from either
standpoint; his Fellowship was fairly cohesive, with Gandalf
playing the wise, all-knowing wizard, while Tolkien's Fellowship
was a bickering, contentious gang, with little sense of direction
or purpose.

Meanwhile, Jackson's direction seemed perfunctory. His style was
way too overbearing, desperately trying to convert the viewers
- "yes indeed, this is an epic! epic epic epic!!!" Observe the
endless closeups and slow-motion shots in part 1 - and part 2's
long, boring battle scenes. These had little drama or excitement -
just more CGI's furiously thwacking. Overall, I agree that Jackson
added nothing new or interesting to this movie. Fortunately, the
original story is so compelling that the films are modern
classics. But I still can't help but wonder what a great
director like Gilliam, Scorsese, or Doug Liman could
have done with the series.

I think what might be key in all this is to remember two things about Jackson's approach that are objective as opposed to subjective:

1. He made it clear from the start that he was not interested in an ironic approach from his actors et al, that the story as interpreted had to be taken at face value. In otherwards, a story conceived in an epic tradition would be treated as such.

2. Within that framework he was also interested in keeping it as 'realistic' as possible, quotes intentional. This covered everything from focusing on the characters to specific camera choices, ie hand-held 'documentary' approaches at points and so forth.

Whether or not you think these approaches were justified or successful is up to the individual beholder. Personally speaking -- as a reader of Tolkien, my favorite author, but not one interested in a slavish reinterpretation where it would not work in another medium -- I think this conception was exactly what was needed and that he hit the bullseye. It will not be to everyone's tastes.

liked/loved:
-minas tirith, which was incredibly awesomely realized
-the battle at minas tirith, obv
-everything in mordor, incl. the spider
-the very end, which "got" me
-the beasts that the nazgul ride on (sorry I forget their names, but I thought they looked and especially SOUNDED incredible--kinda freaked my shit out, actually)

didn't like:
-the opening sequence with pre-gollum smeagol, which I thought was really awkwardly shot and not a very strong beginning
-most of the humourous stuff
-the fact that the battle of minas tirith came over an hour before the movie was over, which felt anti-climactic
-the battle at the gates of mordor, which felt even more anti-climactic considering the greatness of the minas tirith battle
-the fact that we didn't get to see more awesome gandalf-with-glowing-staff stuff (though when he chases the nazguls away it was awesome)

Heh heh heh...the sounds were altered donkey howls. Really!

Aren't they the fell beasts?

actually, all the oversized beasties--the spider, the olyphants (wicked), the things the ogres were riding on, these were all incredible

I loved the huge sweeping shots of the beacons being lit on the snowy mountaintops. The spider was fascinating, how she was so neat and quick about wrapping the body up and it made a cool, weird dry sound.

I didn't love the cursed ghost mountain people. I don't know what the alternative is, but all ghosts in movies look the same.

Sam and Faromir are my favorites. I hope Faromir marries Eowyn and they have like 10,000 babies. But I hope they live in Minas Tirith or wherever, not Rohan. I find Rohan drab and depressing.

and yeah, the ghosts weren't that impressive but I really liked the long shots of them making there way up minas tirith

Where did those eagles come from again? They felt so deus ex machina-ish

Awesome movie though. Minas Tirith = !!!!! And teh funny worked way better than in part 2 (the dwarf's comment on Legolas' AT-AT action was perfectly timed)

Ha! My friend Misty thought the same thing (and approved). Pretty spectacular.

Very important question: is Ghan-Buri-Ghan in it?

No. Maybe extended DVD will have it, who knows.

I have no idea about those eagles though.

It's in the original text, blame Tolkien if you must. (The moth reappearing was a movie invention and I *KNEW* it would show up again -- loved it).

Beacons -- pretty damned awesome. They're in the book but the version here was the way to go.

The one moment I looked at completely askance -- the exact death of Denethor. He does indeed immolate himself and all but in the book he simply lays down on the pyre -- the movie variation was just a little too much.

The reworking of Sam/Frodo/Gollum in the Minas Morgul/Shelob's Lair sequence was intriguing but I'll have to wait until I see it again tonight to judge better. The telescoping of the Cirith Ungol to Mount Doom sequences was abrupt but understandable. The expanded role of the Dead rooled and the actual breaking into Minas Tirith nicely ratcheted up the tension.

Anyway, back to work.

thanks for those with the spoiler warnings... perhaps a mod can add a spoiler title to the message title?

:*(

And for my money, "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote"
would likely have been
as brilliant as the rest of them, had it lived.
I mentioned Gilliam because his fantasies (_Baron Von
Mucnchausen_, _The Fisher King_) have been stellar, and
Scorsese because _Gangs Of New York_ had a dreamlike,
mythical visuals that would have suited Middle Earth quite
nicely.

Er, I fear we have nothing further to talk about here if this is the example given. (The argument that one can take Tolkien's example in order to myth-create in different styles and approaches, however, is perfectly fine in and of itself, though the sense that a later/different approach will automatically be superior as a result seems forced.)

Sometimes I think the only reason Tolkien is considered the best
is that he's usually the first (or only) fantasy author that
people read. Of course, there's nothing wrong with holding this
opinion (Tolkien's the best) but I strongly disagree.

I only mentioned _SOS_ because it was the first book to come out
of Tolkien's tradition, not because I consider it the best.
Still, it was addictive and hard to put down, qualities that are
of utmost importance in fiction. In contrast, I found Tolkien's
books to be long, long slogs indeed.

If you're talking about Williams's fantasy trilogy, I found that to be astoundingly dull, much more so than Tolkien has ever been to me -- it was overarching but overstuffed, a couple of great characters aside. Kay in contrast I'm deeply fond of but the Fionavar books were a formal exercise in comparison to the alternate histories since, all of which have shown a much greater sense of range. Kay's ability to foreground moral ambivalence is indeed wonderful but I think this obscures Tolkien's own abilities in this field, something which I'm sensing you are dismissing all too readily.

(xpost Ned, Robin Hobb is really, really great and George Martin is even better. You should give them both a look.)