Thoughts after seeing The Return of the King

[rsc]

Went to the final Lord of the Rings film today (along with jwg, bitty, bubblebabble, and pinkfish). I thought I'd do a little review/comment/quibble thingy.

If you haven't seen this movie, and have any intention of doing so:

1) Carry out that intention. I mean it.

2) Don't look behind the cut (if you care at all about surprises).


Peter Jackson and his crowd have continued, and probably exceeded, the excellence of their work so far. Advance publicity had suggested that there would be lots of what people have called "cry moments", which I more or less dismissed; but I found myself tearing up repeatedly. I think, once again, they have captured the spirit of the books, while necessarily not including every detail of what Tolkien wrote.

As jwg remarked, despite its 3½-hour length, it didn't feel like a long movie (although I'll confess that I was aware of my bladder well before it was over).

I laughed where I was supposed to laugh, too.

Among the highlights:

• The opening sequence. Although I knew (from the extended Two Towers DVD) that there was a flashback to the original finding of the Ring and the murder of Déagol, I was fortunate enough not to have heard that this was how the movie starts. The opening shot had me going "Huh? Who are these people? What are we doing in a boat?" And then the penny dropped. Wonderful.



• The Paths of the Dead stuff was fantastic, in every sense of the word.



• So was the destruction of Barad-dûr, which is such an incredibly vivid scene in the book that I wondered if they'd be able to live up to it.



• The Nazgûl-screech as the army marches from Minas Morgul was the first one that actually chilled my blood (I had been slightly disappointed by the Nazgûl in Fellowship). And the vertiginous view of Morgul Vale from the stairs was hair-raising.



• Pippin's offer of service to Denethor was very moving. I guess they thought it would feel redundant to include the parallel scene with Merry and Théoden, which is sort of too bad.

As someone who knows the books very well, of course I'm aware of what's been left out or changed. This is inevitable; if they included everything, they would have had more like 25 hours of movie; and some things probably just wouldn't have worked on film as written. So I don't mind that Pippin was assigned to lighting the beacon, or that all that was left of the courtship of Faramir and Éowyn was a couple of glances, or that the Army of the Dead fought at the Pelennor rather than just helping take the ships (I rather like that, actually). The modifications in the Arwen story (mostly made so there would be an Arwen story) are OK. Having Frodo get to the point of actually distrusting Sam and sending him away bothered me, but I got over it.

The one point at which I almost regretted that I'd read the book is the moment on Mount Doom when Frodo claims the Ring. As it was, I was just waiting for him to put it on already.

I already knew that the confrontation with Saruman at Isengard had been cut from the theatrical release, which I think is regrettable -- the only corporeal villain in the first two movies, and you don't resolve him on-screen? (Of course, without the Scouring of the Shire it's hard to really resolve him properly anyway.) Well, it's something to look forward to in the extended version.

There are a few things I think they could have done differently:

• We don't see Sam take the Ring after the fight with Shelob. I guess they decided that it was better for the audience to fear that the orcs had gotten it. To some degree this replaces the tension between what's known to the characters, the reader, and the author during the parley at the Black Gate at the end of Book V. Still, it's kind of too bad to lose that very difficult, and very significant, decision of Sam's.



• I think it would have been way more effective to do what Tolkien did, and not reveal that the rider who brought Merry to Gondor was Éowyn until the moment she confronts the Witch-King. I suppose it might have been difficult to disguise Miranda Otto sufficiently.



• I would have added one sentence to the dialogue explaining why the Host should march on Mordor, to indicate that part of the idea -- the reason the idea might actually work -- was to make Sauron think that they had the Ring.



• I wish they had developed Denethor a little more. He comes off as completely irresponsible from the moment we see him; whereas Tolkien depicts him as an effective, although narrowly focused, leader who is driven to irresponsibility by despair.



• And whatever happened to that Palantír after Pippin looked at it?

Well. That's probably enough rambling. Great film. Peter Jackson should get the Best Director Oscar.


And thanks to bitty for organizing the outing, and to bubblebabble for picking up the tickets.

Comments

[pinkfish.livejournal.com]

While I am far from feeling, as drevilmoo does, that the director must die, I didn't find the film nearly as moving as rsc did. I consider myself quite the crybaby at movies; but there were only a couple even slightly teary moments in this one. Somehow, the characters in this story are just a bit too heroic (or tragic, in some cases) to seem real enough to cry over.

I don't recall the book spending so much time on battle scenes. I felt I spent hours and hours and hours and hours watching arrows fired at and by orcs. How many battering ram scenes do we really need? How many frightened women and children? on and on and on and on and on and on and on. Was that movie really only three hours? I was sure that my the meeting I had to get to after the film had turned to a skeleton by the time it was over (as it was, I got home in plenty of time). Legolas and the Oliphant was pretty cool, I must say. Was that in the book? I don't remember it.

A beautiful film to behold; I love the scenery, the effects, the sets, the sexy actors chosen for so many roles. The lighting of the signal fires was just lovely; I found this more interesting than most of the fight scenes.

I agree about the Mount Doom scene; knowing what will happen here did take out a lot of the effect.

Don't rush out to see it, and if you have read the book, don't worry about spoilers (but if you are worried about spoilers, then you aren't reading this, I suppose!). But do go to see it - it is a lovingly crafted, beautiful piece.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

OK, yes, the battle scenes were too long -- that seems to go with the territory. Tolkien's battle descriptions are pretty detailed, actually, and do go on for quite a while -- but they're perhaps better balanced by rather a lot of quiet description and narrative, some of whihc just wouldn't film well.

Legolas and the Oliphant was pretty cool, I must say. Was that in the book?

No.

My concern about spoilers, as I've said elsewhere, was wanting to be surprised by how things were done, and what was in or out; and I assume that there are others with similar concerns. I'm really
glad I didn't know how the film begins, for instance.