Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (spoilers)

well people seemed to be interested in thoughts about the movie, and i did one of these big posts for two towers, and since i wanted to write my thoughts out anyway - here goes.

SPOILERS ENSUE. you've been warned twice.

many of the minor changes didn't bother me too much, not even that whole thing with arwen and her future son. tolkien did write about how there was argument between arwen and elrond near the end of the book, but it's a really super brief mention. i found it kind of interesting, even though it was done in a way so completely different than anything tolkien probably would have done. oddly it was probably one of the least irritating arwen related changes for me.

elrond meeting aragorn was completely off from the way the book worked. but since so many days and so many miles of travelling are curtailed in so much of the book for the movie (in some cases it needed to be done to save so much screen time, in some cases doing it rather clumsily for convenience), i suppose it can be overlooked - plus it helped explain things for the lay audience. plus there's more drama with the sword being reforged and presented to aragorn, blah blah. sort of messy, but generally ok. also - and this is something that really needs to be remembered - is that the three movies needed to work more or less on their own, and so characters needed to have their own screen time in each, and things needed to be explained (or re-explained).

that brings me to the osgiliath scenes - in the book osgiliath is discussed and is important, but only peripherally by the writer, and iirc there's not even one single major scene set in osgiliath at all except for one or two minor flashbacks and some exposition (the whole two towers movie osgiliath scene just seemed really messy). i guess having it in rotk gives viewers action, and it re-explains things, but it also took away time for other stuff.

saruman? who's that? err. apparently he'll be in the extended dvd - i just hope they don't fuck things up too much, especially since there's no way he can meet any demise that isn't completely fabricated by the moviemakers, since the scouring of the shire segment is gone.

minas morgul - in the book sauron signals the hosts at minas morgul by causing mount doom to give off a huge explosion. in the movie you get something different. i guess the moviemakers thought: "well, we've shown mount doom exploding a number of times before, so let's have a huge ass spire of green glowing shit instead." *shrug* - a bit oddball.

the stairs were way the hell too steep and way too close to minas morgul. the lembas stealing and frodo's shunning of sam was forced and just felt off...but again, it just wrapped things up quicker.

where were the witch-king's glowing red eyes?

with the exception of legolas' cheezy-poof oliphaunt slaying scene (i guess he needed screen time, but it was just so over the top) the entire siege of gondor and the battle of pelennor was really pretty exciting to watch. they did change numerous details, mostly to show more action and carnage. my only real gripe is that it was TOO FUCKING BRIGHT. in the book mount doom has been clouding the skies for days and it's pretty much completely dark except for some very very low sunlight and light from the fires. but then i guess you do have another concern for the filmmakers - if it's too dark, you can't show too much, especially from many of the high altitude angles. but i'm sure it could have been darker without really screwing things up.

the first half of the whole shelob sequence was altered pretty severely. it more or less worked but it just really lacked so much of the dread and terror of that entire sequence in the books. too brief, way too bright (although again, it's kind of impossible to film pitch black sequences, especially if they're as long as they are in the book. moria would have been pretty boring in fotr if they had) and just not scary enough.

"the pyre of denethor" became "X-TREEEEM PYROTECHNIC BASE JUMPING SANS-PARACHUTE TO THE MAXXX!!!!" *coffff* more than a wee bit over the top for me.

they changed the army of the dead pretty significantly. the dead hardly exchange any words to aragorn like they do in the movie at all, and they were a shitload less vivid and visible. but having the whole meeting scene explained stuff fairly well to the lay audience, and having them land and be released at minas tirith instead of in the south tidily wrapped up what probably would have been another 15-20+ minutes of screen time. it also eliminated the need to introduce and explain the rallying of the southern armies and the (albiet minor) characters that part of the book brought with it. it was really a pretty large change, but it didn't bother me nearly as much as it probably should have.

i think the tower of cirith ungol sequence was a sort of a mess. they did so little to explain why the tension and the huge fight between all of those orcs. instead they just have this:

"tihs faggort tried to bleed me"
"OMFGWTF"
"hay lets all kill eachoter"
"LOL YAH"

errrm. again, i guess it was a matter of time, but i find it hard to believe it couldn't have been edited better.

and no shagrat and gorbag, no sentinal scene, and later no mountain orc and big mordor orc, and no frodo and sam marching with the orcs. BAHHH!!

all of those cuts can be rationalized because of lack of time, and also interfering with the way they had to re-pace and sequence the story for the movie. but it sucks - many of those scenes were really amazing to read. i hope some were filmed and hopefully will be in the extended dvd.

wished they had shown the mouth of sauron. they did film him, he'll probably be in the extended dvd.

the climax of the book was changed slightly, and i'm not sure how to feel about this. i guess from the moviemakers perspective the scene as written in the book may have looked a bit too quick or anticlimactic or maybe even silly on film - i don't know, i seriously doubt it.

i really wish they had shown sauron's last gasp in the book, with the dark clouds and the reaching hand. i also wish they had shown the brief glimpse of the undying lands that frodo sees as written in the book. they had explained it earlier, and they certainly had shown other stuff w/o much explanation.

the whole houses of healing was completely dropped - again, i can understand. having *everyone* at the black gate saved time, and it really helped to illustrate how completely fucked everyone was unless frodo pulled through.

and building a whole relationship between faramir and eowyn would have started really late in the movie and have taken lots of time, and probably would not have added much in the context of the movie, and would have been awkward since they had been focusing on how she was all sweet on aragorn.

the biggest loss was the scouring of the shire. as with tom bombadil it's a huge loss, it's such a major part of the book - really the coda of the book. but again that would have been an extra 45 minutes, at least. not to mention just that since the movies have been so focused on the ring and the battles around it, a battle after the ring was destroyed would have seemed - for lack of a better word - weird, from the point of view of a moviemaker and moviegoer.

more or less i thought it was really quite nicely done. i loved that they ended the movies with the same line that ends the book. rotk followed the book pretty closely and for my mind the changes they made (although grating sometimes) were more or less acceptable, and (not to be an apologist here, just realistic) if not needed to wrap up the book into a modern day film package. it wasn't as good as fotr but it was better than two towers. i think the biggest criticism, aside from what was listed above, is that certain scenes were either too abbreviated - either through stuff being omitted or through pacing - or too over the top and flashy.

i'm sure i'm forgetting other stuff i wanted to say, but this IS pretty long...

 

Visually amazing, but irksome in a few ways. My biggest gripes:

Gandalf beating the hell out of Denethor. Tolkien describes Wizards as immeasurably wise and subtle. Yes, subtle. Beating the Steward of Gondor with a big stick is not very subtle. A jarring and bizarre moment. Made all the worse by two rubes sitting next to me who cheered and clapped as though they were back at the trailer watching Steve Austin.

Denethor is suppossed to be crazy because he keeps getting his palintir peep on, not because he is simply the worst dad ever. Only once did Faramir fight at Osgiliath and he was wounded when Gandalf rode out to rescue him at the gates if memory serves.

The Mouth of sauron should have been there. He presents Gandalf with Sting and Frodo's enchanted wife beater which gives Gandalf pause, until he realizes that this some kind of bluff and Frodo must have somehow survived. The Mouth is cool because he is the one ambassador of Sauron, not another stupid orc or wraith or whatever. He is more frightening because he not stupid or enslaved, but Sauron's willing, corrupted lackey (kind of Iike Colin Powell). I guess they did turn Saruman into the mouth of Sauron in a way but that is another gripe altogether.

Eowyn's scene bothered me. It is much more frantic and powerful in the book. He shatters her sheild, Merry desperately stabs his leg stunning him for just enough time to allow her to kill the witch king- not long enough to taunt the bastard.

Gimli's stupid wisecracks. LoR the book is free of lame ironic wisecracks. The movie cannot say the same. I hate the comic relief at Helm's Deep and it annoys here as well, especially after Legolas' killing the Oliphaunt that way. Legolas is very skilled and brave but he is not invincible Spiderman.

There are other minor gripes, but these are the only ones that I have the motivation to write about right now.

Of course this movie is wildy entertaining and amazing to look at. If a few things were different it would be as close to perfect as a movie version of these books could be. I really love these books and they are a part of my childhood so when I perceive something wrong or in bad taste in the movies, it bothers me way more than, say, George Lucas shitting all over his own franchise.

 

I think the sleeper scene of this movie for me was Grond the battering ram (named after Morgoth's Hammer of the Underworld)... man, that thing was badass...

the movie was quite enjoyable, even if I would have rather they did some things a bit differently...

-Alex