OT: Return of the King

TelegramSam · Post by **TelegramSam** » Sat Dec 20, 2003 6:19 pm

Well I finally saw Return of the King, and it was lufferly.

I wasn't tooooo upset by most of the changes, and there were a lot. Most notably the lack of the entire scouring of the shire and the death of Sarumon and wormtongue sequences, and where wormtongue threw the evil-orb-thingy I forget the name of out the window of Orthanc, and Aragorn looking in said evil-orb-thingy to scare the piss out of Sauron. I can forgive all that.

What I cannot forgive, however, is the fact that they robbed my poor Pippin of his hero moment where he kills a troll and gets smushed by it, later to be found by Gimli.

Also, as much as I find movie-Arwen to be an annoying twit, I must say I enjoyed the moment where Aragorn literally glomped her and made smoochy-face in front of old Elrond.

I give it 2 pointed ears up!

Cees · Post by **Cees** » Sat Dec 20, 2003 7:41 pm

Sam, I really enjoy your choice of words. "Glomped"--that's one I haven't heard before. It's great!

Oh yeah, and the evil-orb-thingy is a "palantir."

I finally got to see it, too!! Today. My husband and I went. He tolerated it and was glad when it was over, but I really liked it. True, whomever said "check your book at the door" was right...but I couldn't do that. I was still going in my head "hmm, that isn't how it goes" but I was still able to really enjoy it. I think the next time I see it I will like it even more because I will know how they are doing it and be able to relax more.

As someone said, I loved the Mt. Doom part the best, too...exactly how I imagined it. That is my favorite part of the books and I always cry buckets when Sam carries Frodo up the mountain. I did in the theater, too. The only beef I had with that part was when Gollum was fighting "invisible Frodo"--that part looked really dumb and unrealistic. Not at all fitting the book description.

Oh yeah, and let's not forget the whistling...I assume Joanie Madden's that she has told us about...I noticed it in three spots: Mt. Doom, the Grey Havens, and I don't remember the other one. The most striking one was Mt. Doom. Here they were climbing up, half dead, covered in dirt, etc., and then this lovely whistle theme starts up. It was very poignant, perfect, and inspiring.

I was a little frustrated with the many changes but decided that all in all, it was a really good movie. I think this trilogy is going to become a classic and perhaps the best movies I will ever see made. And I'm really excited to see the extended DVD because, like the others, it will make it a much better movie, I'm sure. Three cheers for LOTR!!

Henke · Post by **Henke** » Sun Dec 21, 2003 8:12 am

sturob · Post by **sturob** » Sun Dec 21, 2003 8:55 am

Oh, gosh, well, here's a post to balance all the honey.

I thought ROTK was OK. It was pretty enjoyable, until the whole ring-is-destroyed, middle-Earth-is-saved stuff. Then, I felt like the movie was saying . . . oh, crap, we've got like SO many unfinished plotlines to take care of.

Is it over . . . no, looks like they have to go back to the Shire. Oh, where it's been ravaged . . . no, looks like Hollywood couldn't deal with the real ending so everything had to be hunkey-dorey in the shire . . . so it's over. No, wait, Frodo has to write in the book. . . . no, not over, Sam has to marry Rosie (why that was included eludes me completely) . . . whoops, not over, looks like we need some elf action . . . OK, oh, look, here's Bilbo . . . still not over . . . some folks are sailing West, it would seem . . . kinda over . . . wait, it's over.

I seriously thought that we'd get a real-live, down-and-dirty rendition of the book, but NO, they took some real liberties with it to make it more feelgood than the books were. Ah, Hollywood. (Or Ah, Auckland, as the case may be.)

Good movie, kinda long, and I think they should have just omitted a bunch at the end. I liked FOTR the best.

How's that? Did I live up to my party-pooper image? Eh, it's just my opinion.

Stuart

Jens_Hoppe · Post by **Jens_Hoppe** » Sun Dec 21, 2003 9:57 am

sturob wrote:How's that? Did I live up to my party-pooper image?

Could have been worse, Stuart!

Personally, I wouldn't have missed a moment of the ending of the film, sentimental or not, but when I saw the film there was quite a lot of snickering at the Grey Havens scene. I liked it a lot, though. And you gotta see Sam marrying Rosie! Wraps up his part in the story.

I was disappointed that the Scouring of the Shire was left out, but PJ & Co. had stated that at the time of the first film, so my disappointment is a few years in the past by now.

Jens

Henke · Post by **Henke** » Sun Dec 21, 2003 10:30 am

What I really miss is Saurons emmissary who is supposed to come out of the Black gate when Aragorn & Co. attacks Mordor. He is too cool.
But he really does nothing to help the story so I understand why they left him out.

thurlowe · Post by **thurlowe** » Sun Dec 21, 2003 10:36 am

I thought Harry Knowles had a very good point about the ending of the movie (spoilers):

THE ENDINGS are in actuality one. You see the story is THE LORD OF THE RINGS and the end of this film is about the passing of the ring bearers. We see the end of Sauron, the ultimate soul of the one ring, but we are also compelled over the course of these films to see the end of each who has carried the ring. In FELLOWSHIP we saw what became of Isildur and Boromir – both of whom carried the ring, no matter how briefly. In RETURN OF THE KING – we see the destruction of Sauron and Gollum… The passing of Bilbo, Gandalf and Frodo from the Gray Havens… and finally, the last ring bearer… Samwise Gamgee returning to his hole in the ground where the story which began in the HOBBIT started. THIS IS A SINGLE ENDING, following the narrative of the ring bearers and concluding as it began… with a hole in the ground.

As for my own thoughts, my favorite scenes were without the stilted Tolkien dialogue. Often just looks would put a lump in my throat. There were also some stunning images, like Bernard Hill (Theoden) galloping along the line of his mounted troops, touching his sword to their spears. I'll be glad to see the extended version, because even at 3 hours, it was a little... rushed.

C.

AaronMalcomb · Post by **AaronMalcomb** » Sun Dec 21, 2003 11:33 am

Fopah wrote:Although at the begining I though smeagol seemed a little to,,, crazy before he even had the ring,,, i always pictured him as normal,, and going crazy after being very unsocial for 900+ yrs.

I always gathered from the book that Sméagol was never normal. I would have maybe added that in the struggle with Déagol his throat was damaged and that's why he made the gollum sound. But that's just me.

I went into the movie expecting it to be good but also expecting a few jarring things but there weren't that many. I knew it was going to be very compressed even though it was more than 3 hours but thought that it flowed pretty well. The Arwen plotline wasn't too intrusive and actually liked the cameo by Eldarion (the character, not the C&F citizen). The charge of the Rohirrim into battle was great.

As for the continuous ending I thought it was necessary. It was made known early on that the Scouring of the Shire would be left out and to try and squeeze that in without adding an hour to the movie would really weaken it. Though a more cinematic, truncated ending would have been just as appropriate I think it's the characters that really drive the movie and settling their affairs was PJ's way of showing that.

I'll probably see RotK once or more in the theatre but I'm definitely looking forward to the extended DVD.

Cheers,
Aaron

Switchfoot · Post by **Switchfoot** » Mon Dec 22, 2003 12:12 am

Ok, I'm going to join sturob in being a party pooper in saying that I really really hate the extended edition right now, and heres why (in the tradition of mastercard commercials)

Hours spent inviting, confirming and double checking all schedules: 5
Hours standing in line for tickets: 1 1/2
Hours standing in line to get decent seats: 3
Having all your friends walk out of the theatre and say: "It was a good movie but I cant wait for the extended edition to come out": possibly one of the most aggravating moments in recent history

Ok, I feel better now

AaronMalcomb · Post by **AaronMalcomb** » Mon Dec 22, 2003 12:36 am

Switchfoot wrote: Hours spent inviting, confirming and double checking all schedules: 5
Hours standing in line for tickets: 1 1/2
Hours standing in line to get decent seats: 3
Having all your friends walk out of the theatre and say: "It was a good movie but I cant wait for the extended edition to come out": possibly one of the most aggravating moments in recent history

I'll give my version--
Hours spent inviting, confirming and double checking all schedules: 0.25
Hours standing in line for tickets: 0.125
Hours standing in line to get decent seats: 0.05
Having all your friends walk out of the theatre and say: "It was a good movie but I cant wait for the extended edition to come out": that one doesn't really apply to my situation.

I went with my girlfriend on Saturday and we live in a small city so scheduling and fighting the crowds wasn't an issue. I wouldn't have bothered anyways. All the aggro from fighting the crowd doesn't really put one in the best mood to watch a movie that tries to compress a dense piece of literature into 200 minutes of film. Instead I waited and I would say I enjoyed the movie more because of it.

As far as people saying they can't wait for the extended DVD... I say it's just proof that Peter Jackson and Weta did more than just make film versions of the books... they created their own thing too which is pretty magical in its own right. That's my feeling anyways. Other folks might just be dissappointed that so much was cut and changed and know that the extended DVD will at least fill some of the void.

Henke wrote:What I really miss is Saurons emmissary who is supposed to come out of the Black gate when Aragorn & Co. attacks Mordor. He is too cool. But he really does nothing to help the story so I understand why they left him out.

They had intended to include the Mouth of Sauron and they have even filmed a scene with him but it just didn't make the cut. In a book about all of the weapons and armour in the movie there were a couple pages of the Mouth of Sauron's gear. I'm guessing we'll see him in the extended DVD (I hear a couple folks groaning at the mention of it).

Cheers,
Aaron

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Tue Dec 23, 2003 8:28 pm

There was soooooooo much epic scale battling going on that I found myself pushing the light button on my pda to estimate how long until Gollum bites Frodo's finger off. Couldn't some of that have been edited a bit? I guess by the time you blow that kind of wad on extras, equipment, set, costumes, you can't bear not to make the most of it.
My 11 year old, btw, peed before the movie twice, 3 times during, and once after. He was somewhat disappointed to have missed the heads being catapulted.

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Tue Dec 23, 2003 11:38 pm

Plenty good. Reminded me of India.

msheldon · Post by **msheldon** » Tue Dec 23, 2003 11:51 pm

TelegramSam wrote:I wasn't tooooo upset by most of the changes, and there were a lot. Most notably the lack of the entire scouring of the shire and the death of Sarumon and wormtongue sequences, and where wormtongue threw the evil-orb-thingy I forget the name of out the window of Orthanc, and Aragorn looking in said evil-orb-thingy to scare the piss out of Sauron. I can forgive all that.

What I cannot forgive, however, is the fact that they robbed my poor Pippin of his hero moment where he kills a troll and gets smushed by it, later to be found by Gimli.

Also, as much as I find movie-Arwen to be an annoying twit, I must say I enjoyed the moment where Aragorn literally glomped her and made smoochy-face in front of old Elrond.

I give it 2 pointed ears up!

The whole scouring of the shire was never filmed, nor did PJ ever intend to. Apparently he just didn't like that bit. I think it was a mistake, since above all else, it shows how much Merry, Pippin and Sam changed since they left.

Wormtongue throwing the palantir down was cut from the movie, but will make it to the extended DVD.

Mouth of Sauron, was supposedly shot, but no idea if it will show up in the DVD.

Dunno about the rest...

Kar · Post by **Kar** » Wed Dec 24, 2003 12:31 pm

I was also disappointed about the lack of the scourging of the Shire because, in a way, that's sort of the WHOLE POINT of the story--the hobbit folk take home what they have learned. That's why we have to have all those endings, especially with Sam--it's important to the entire arc of the story.

However, I have seen a picture (a still) of Frodo & Sam, all cleaned up, standing with Merry & Pippin in their respective amour, standing together & looking quite impressive. I thought this would at least HINT at the scourging of the Shire idea, but then this shot/scene was not in the movie. I can only assume it will be in DVD, unless it was a promo still but it didn't look like one.

I like ROTK but felt there were some serious omissions that, yes, hopefully will be in the DVD (sorry, Switchfoot!). I won't go into all my favorite parts nor my nitpicking. I was one of the lucky Trilogy Tuesday attendees, and the emotional impact of ROTK was very powerful and satisfying, seeing it as the end of the one long movie that is the LOTR. So, in that sense, I was happy with it.

I do have to remember, though, that THE BOOKS ARE NOT THE MOVIES. We want them to be the same and they aren't--due to the nature of the medium and the fact that JRR wrote the books and Peter made the movies. Two different people. At least Peter got a LOT of it right, especially the look of Middle Earth and the excellent casting & characters. I am rereading the books this winter, and I will now have the best of both worlds. I can use the images to make the movies the way I want them--in my head.

AaronMalcomb · Post by **AaronMalcomb** » Wed Dec 24, 2003 12:52 pm

Kar wrote:I was also disappointed about the lack of the scourging of the Shire because, in a way, that's sort of the WHOLE POINT of the story--the hobbit folk take home what they have learned. That's why we have to have all those endings, especially with Sam--it's important to the entire arc of the story.

However, I have seen a picture (a still) of Frodo & Sam, all cleaned up, standing with Merry & Pippin in their respective amour, standing together & looking quite impressive. I thought this would at least HINT at the scourging of the Shire idea, but then this shot/scene was not in the movie. I can only assume it will be in DVD, unless it was a promo still but it didn't look like one.

I don't know if the Scouring is so much the whole point of the story. Tolkien came about these stories through his love of old languages and his creation of the Elvish languages. The Hobbits are proof of Tolkien's skill as a novelist and storyteller. They are an excellent guide to Middle Earth for us modern day Big Folk. Tolkien not only was writing the story of the Elvish language but also filling the void of an English mythology. Because England's lore is borrowed from Celts, Saxons, Danes, etc. Tolkien was also making up his own English mythology with its own linguistic history.

As for the shots of the Merry and Pippin in their armour it could be extended from the little bit in which they're returning to Shire and riding past the same old Hobbit we saw in the beginning of FotR.

I wonder if there are any symbolic connections between Ted Sandyman's big pumpkin and his role in the Socuring of the Shire.

Cheers,
Aaron