From: "John D. Giorgis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
NOTE PLENTY OF SPOILERS AT THIS POINT, since I think that everyone has had a chance to see the movie.
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
1) Overall, I think that The Two Towers is the best movie. The Fellowship of the Ring might have been good, but in my mind it was too slow, too confusing, and most of the great special effects were given away in the previews. The Return of the King was hyped a little less, and less was given away, so I place it in the middle. In fairness, I should note that my single most memorable moment from reading the entire Ring Trilogy was the meeting of the Ents - so The Two Towers probably had a bit of an advantage in that department for me. Nevertheless, I just found The Two Towers more intense, more fluid, more believable, and with overall the best battle scenes I had ever seen.
For me, compared to the battle at Minas Tirith, the Helm's Deep Battle in TTT was a bit more satisfying and realistic, but it was dwarfed in terms of sheer spectacle. As long as it was, the Minas Tirith battle was too short to really fully show what happened. As usual in this movie, I suspect far more footage was filmed than was actually put into the move, so I'm hoping for more to be shown in the extended edition.
O.k., I know that Gandalf is not supposed to be around in The Two Towers (which is one thing that ruined the climax to The Fellowship of the Ring for me - as I *knew* that Gandalf was supposed to "perish" in the pit with the balrog.), but by the second movie
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Gandalf certainly is around in the TTT novel. The Balrog scenes with Gandalf are pretty much faithful to the books. The only real difference being that the movie shows the battle up front, while in the book, Gandalf tells it by flashback when he later meets up with Aragorn. But Gandalf meets up with Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli right where he's supposed to.
2) In my mind the movie was too long... and too short. 3.5 hours is definitely a long time to sit in a crowded theatre, especially with 20 minutes of advertisements tacked on. At the same time, you could just tell that this movie was squeezed into the timeframe, as the storytelling was often choppy.
Yes, all 3 movies seem slightly choppy to me because of this. The TTT extended edition fixes this greatly with 45 extra minutes of footage. I'm told the FOTR extended edition does the same for the first film, but I haven't seen it yet. And I'm betting the extended edition of ROTK will fix a lot of quibbles I have with the third movie.
As just one example, where did the Eagles suddenly come from? I think they might have been in the first movie... but that was two
The eagles arriving deus-ex-machina is a running thing in the LOTR world. They show up in the Hobbit, one rescues Gandalf in the Fellowship, and they show up at the Black Gate and to rescue Sam in ROTK. IIRC, the're a large moth that presages their arrival at the Gate, similar to the one Gandalf "spoke with" when trapped at Orthanc in Fellowship.
years ago... an eternity. Overall, I would much rather have preferred that they go the "Gettysburg" route, make it a full four hours+, and put in an intermission. Or why not even make it two separate movies.... we are about making money after all, right? - and there is plenty of material in The Lord of the Rings to make the books into four movies.
The initial plan was to split LOTR into two movies, and it was considered very risky at the time. When the studio saw how well it was going, it expanded the budget to allow for 3 films, but the situation was a huge gamble. They were spending $300 million to produce 3 films all at once without knowing how any of them would do. If LOTR flopped, it would mean the end of the studio. While I would have loved to see 4 movies, I doubt they would have been willing to gamble $400 million, and also, I'm not sure if there would be any good split-points to break the story into 4 parts.
The ending of the movie is simply interminable. Maybe I have become a jaded American
I guess you'd agree with Bemmzim then about being glad the scouring of the shire was not included; that'd have added at least another 15 minutes to the end, I'd guess. I'm glad the conclusion wasn't rushed. I really hate movies that have their big finale and then feel it necessary to immediately end the movie on that note. Sometimes some wind-down is nice to see.
moviegoer, and maybe I shouldn't have caught a 10:30 showing, but after the raging climax.
3) The Army of the Dead is a major disappointment. Now, to be clear, I did not recall this scene at *all* from my reading of the novels a decade ago.... so I almost half-wondered if they were added in, but that seemed unlikely to me. Nevertheless, the story line just simply did not seem believeable.
The Army of the Dead is part of the novel, but they do not fight at Minas Tirith. They drive off the enemy army that was manning the Black Corsairs, which Aragorn and his company of Rangers (which are not included in the movie) then sailed upriver to Minas Tirith. All the oathbreaker/debt repayment stuff is from the book, though.
The worst part is after The Army of the Dead arrives at the harbor and engages in a pitched battle with the arriving Army of Bad Men (?) and then arrives at the main battlefield and simply sweeps across the battlefield in a green wave, securing the victory. Huh? immediately
It was pretty cool to watch the AotD in action, but I wish the battle followed the book more closely.
afterwards, as Aragon releases the Army of the Dead, the battliefield has already been cleared of all bodies, and indeed the men of Gondor and Minis Tirith who held the battlefield long enough for the Army of the Dead to arrive are NOWHERE to be seen. What's up with that???? Overall, it was
IIRC, I think they were released a fair bit after the battle was over. I wouldn't expect the riders of Rohan and the soldiers of Minas Tirith to be hanging around out on the battlefield, particularly with the creepy AotD lingering out there.
just a major, major disappointment for me to see this battle end with ghosts sweeping across the battlefield, and the bravery and courage of the men who held the battlefield instantly and utterly forgotten.
I wouldn't say forgotten, but I agree that I'd rather not have had the AotD's participation in this battle at all.
4) Overall the battles were somewhat disappointing. Agree totally with whomever mentioned that the Army of Aragon at the Battle of the Black Gate looked like a pitiful force that simply had no chance. Much of the
That was probably me. Even in the book, though, the Army had *no* chance, and was doing it purely as a distraction to Sauron. The movie is really just exaggerating the odds rather than changing anything. I do wish they appeared as a more credible threat.
battle at Minis Tirith had a bit of a "been there - seen that in the last movie" feel to it. I also couldn't help but feel that I was going to be seeing jet-skis and Ewoks bringing down The Walkers. Unfair, I guess.... but once again, it definitely felt like I had already seen this battle scene once before - albeit in a different trilogy. Also, there were
That is a bit unfair - this wasn't low-tech pygmies using goofy tactics to destroy high-tech war machines. I didn't get that feeling at all and it never even occurred to me until you just now brought it up. But if the Riders of Rohan started using ropes to trip up the Oliphants, it probably would have at least brought up some thoughts of the Hoth battle.
numerous time inconsistancies in the leadup to this battle, in all the journeys back and forth - someone aught to have fact-checked the script, as the _multiple_ inconsistincies just became jarring. Furthermore,
I'm not sure what inconsistencies you mean here. Nothing jumped out at me. The book is *very* time-consistent, and while the movie cuts a lot of stuff out, it generally follows the same order of things.
perhaps the most memorable battle moment I had from reading the books was the arrival of Gandalf the White. There's definitely no way it could have the same effect in the movie with Gandalf never "dying" in the first place, but overall I just felt that the movie failed to deliver that moment.
I think you might be misremembering things here. As per the book, Gandalf is in Minas Tirith before the battle starts. Gandalf *does* die in both the book and the movie, and he is sent back, reborn, as the Gandalf the White.
I don't know if the "Woman of Gondor" (whose name I can never remember) killing the Lord of the Nazgul moment was in the book, but that was the highlight of the battle scenes for me - even she did nearly step on the line.
You mean Eowyn. She's from Rohan (niece/Shieldmaiden of Theoden), not Gondor.
That scene (including Merry's participation) is nearly exact from the book (and it's a favorite part of mine). I don't recall her almost flubbing the line - I'll have to check when I watch it again.
5) I've heard that Sam Gamgee is getting some Best Supporting Actor buzz - which I think would be great Of course, I still hope that Gollum could get a nomination, but that's probably too much to hope for. As has been noted, Gollum is again outstanding. The Orcs were also great as usual.
I'd love to see LOTR (and its actors) get recognized for their achievements by the Academy, but they historically don't treat F/SF movies well at all, so I don't have a lot of hopes there.
I seem to recall an Army of Dwarves getting involved at some point in the
books - maybe not - so was a bit disappointed to not see that. Anyhow,
overall a very good movie, but a notch below The Two Towers in my assessment.
No dwarf army in LOTR. There is one the The Hobbit, though, so maybe that's what you're thinking of.
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