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

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Hurrah! (Well, you have to start somewhere.) I'm more just surprised at the existence of a piece which functions as an attempt to fight a rear-guard action in the name of Edmund Wilson and modernism -- did literature stop for this guy in 1940 or something?

Another magnificent achievement, which I would like to see again (in a more comfortable environment than the local multiplex - so roll on the DVD!)

Visuals: I had thought before that the Elves at Helms Deep were reminiscent of the fallen angels in Burne Jones' The Fall Of Lucifer , & I was struck by the same similarity as Faramir led his troops back to their doom at Osgiliath down the twisting street of Minas Tirith.

Then again, the Grey Havens are a dead ringer for any of a dozen of Turner's seaports (colour/light), take Dido Building Carthage as an example, with the final shot of the ship melting into the light even having echoes of Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus

Gripes: the second seeing confirmed to me the crassness of juxtaposing barmy old Denethor's "blood" (from a tomato?? wtf) stained lips & chin with those of the Orcs occupying Osgiliath who have presumably been feasting on a few Gondorian soldiers. I wish there had been some exposition of the reason WHY he had been driven bonkers.

I dislike the introduction of Frodo's rejection of Sam on the stairway up Cirith Ungol for the same reasons that I find the mistrust between Rohan & Gondor irksome - it doesn't ring true with my memory of the book.

Shelob, for some reason looked more male than female to me. I missed the dragging belly, but most of all I couldn't see any eyes on the beast! which I remember as being its central feature, expressing all the creature's emotions. It also seemed a little dangerous using the light of Eärendil to ward off a descendant of Ungoliant, but I checked that chapter & if it is an inconsistency it is paralled in the book.

The compression of all the action sequences contrasted unfavourably with the too long drawn out Hobbit-hugging farewell shots.

Maybe my seat was too uncomfortable but I find the hobbit love scene music reminiscent of the old Hovis ad theme which makes me expect them to break out into a Yorkshire accent at any time.

That enough bollocks from me.

When's The Hobbit coming out?

Yep, still brilliant. Now, the extended version. *sets some part of brain to somehow wait patiently for seven months*

I BLAME GORGE LUCAZ

::waiting anxiously for the multi-hour orgy to come when all three extended editions are in my hot hands::

I haven't watched this properly yet, just a skim through the extended or new chapters. Favourite part so far: Gimli tiptoeing delicately across the floor of skulls in the Dwimorberg.

Voila:

The thread for the _Return of the King_ extended DVD

Shocking fans who had assumed that director Peter Jackson, who was responsible for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, would direct The Hobbit -- a kind of prequel to those films -- and another Lord of the Rings epic, Jackson said on theonering.net website Sunday that he had been advised by New Line that the studio "would no longer be requiring our services on The Hobbit ...[and] was now actively looking to hire another filmmaker." Jackson said that the studio cited the ongoing lawsuit that Jackson filed against New Line in June of 2005, charging that the studio had committed fraud in reporting the revenue for 2001's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, which allegedly resulted in Jackson being underpaid millions of dollars. If the notice from New Line was a ploy to induce Jackson to drop or settle the lawsuit -- as Jackson seems to suggest in his message to "Ringers" -- it apparently failed to achieve its objective. In the message, Jackson said that he was "very sorry our involvement with The Hobbit has been ended in this way. ... This outcome is not what we anticipated or wanted, but neither do we see any positive value in bitterness and rancor. We now have no choice but to let the idea of a film of The Hobbit go and move forward with other projects."

You say that now, but wait until McG is attached.