Return of the King Reviews

[ChasingBlueSky 0]

Wow, just home from seeing it......

I always hated coming to the end of the books because this amazing story had to come to an end....and I had the same feeling going into it tonight.


(Some Spoilers below)

It's a fantastic movie....go see it. Is it exactly to the book? Of course not, but I have to admit, I don't miss the ommision of Scouring of the Shire.....but I did miss the lack of the Houses of the Healing...more thoughts to come......

What did you think?


OH yea...the whuffos didn't find it funny when I yelled DOOR when they finally opened the theatre for us to sit down.

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you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me....
I WILL fly again.....

[BikerBabe 0]

I saw the whole trilogy yesterday.

ROTK is too overwhelming for me to review right now. I've read other people taling about this or that part that was so incredible, but when I try to think about those parts, the entire scope of the film overwhelms me. I'll have to see it again.

Yes, I could have given up a few minutes of fighting for the houses of healing, but other than that, I didn't miss everything as much as I thought I would. I' even having a hard time figuring out what parts of the battle to cut, because it was pretty streamlined as it is.

Miranda Otto and Sean Astin were the standout acting performances for me.

And the ending is perfect.

I'm sad, because an old friend is gone...anticipation of the next film, I mean.

Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

[ChasingBlueSky 0]

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I saw the whole trilogy yesterday.

ROTK is too overwhelming for me to review right now. I've read other people taling about this or that part that was so incredible, but when I try to think about those parts, the entire scope of the film overwhelms me. I'll have to see it again.

Yes, I could have given up a few minutes of fighting for the houses of healing, but other than that, I didn't miss everything as much as I thought I would. I' even having a hard time figuring out what parts of the battle to cut, because it was pretty streamlined as it is.

Miranda Otto and Sean Astin were the standout acting performances for me.

And the ending is perfect.

I'm sad, because an old friend is gone...anticipation of the next film, I mean.

Well, I would have liked "The third age was my age, and Sauron was my enemy" and the revelation of the secret ringbearer....and they never mentioned that Sam was a ringbearer but I don't know if "Samwise The Gardener" would have fit with the tone at that point......and I thought Frodo gave him Bag End?

Still, I liked it, I liked the rebuilding of the Fellowship at the end, and how he handled it overall. And Shelob?! Holy cow he did a great job there! Still not sure which one is my favorite of the three, but at the moment I would say Fellowship.

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you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me....
I WILL fly again.....

[Vallerina 2]

I haven't seen it, but I'm looking forward to it. I'm trying to think of how in the heck they were able to squeeze all of that in one movie, especially since he left of the last 100 pages or so from Two Towers.

Did it jump around as much as the second one? It seemed to me like the second one wouldn't have made much sense if you hadn't read the book.

There's a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning

[ChasingBlueSky 0]

It does jump around a bunch - but it is very easy to keep up with what is going on.

During the last week I found out they used a different editor for each movie, therefore each one has a different feel.

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you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me....
I WILL fly again.....

[CanuckInUSA 0]

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I found out they used a different editor for each movie, therefore each one has a different feel.

Plus they used a number of different directors which all fell under the supervision of Peter Jackson.

Truly an epic worthy of being called an epic. Looking forward to seeing it later today.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[ChasingBlueSky 0]

Watch for the Orc that looks like the guy from Goonies. No joke....I wanted to scream out ROCKY ROAD at one point.

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you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me....
I WILL fly again.....

[quade 4]

Well, usually I'm the first kid on the block to see a huge Hollywood spectacular, but because of some wacky calendaring issues I didn't get to see Lord of the Rings -- Return of the King (LOTR3) until last night.

I read the books as a child and although I have fond memories of doing so I can't really say I'm a fanatic on the subject. One of the things that sort of put me off the books was the dizzying number of characters with impossible to remember and pronounce names. Sure, the main characters are easy: Frodo, Gandalf . . . but tell me again what's the name of the Elf princess' father and where does he live again? Eh . . . I'm drawing a blank.

I had recently rewatched the first two movie installments to try to get back into the swing of things, but the movies really do nothing to help clarify things for the casual watcher.

Ok, so I'm basically approaching this from less of a fanatic of the books but rather a student of film and on those points I'm impressed by -some- of the special effect, totally unimpressed by others (which are actually more critical to the believability), unimpressed by rehashes of scenes I'd seen in other movies, totally bored by the pacing of the film as a whole and totally pissed off by the ending.

Very impressive are the computer generated sets both expansive exteriors and realistic interiors. Flawless and amazing. About the only real criticism here is that all I could think about during a couple really crucial scenes was "Hey, cool BASE site" which obviously took me out of the movie for a bit.

Very unimpressive was some -really crappy- blue screen shots of the Hobbits to make them smaller next to other characters such as Gandalf or even worse, the very obvious substitution of the lead actors with little people (or possibly children) in slightly longer shots or shots from behind the characters. This last bit of substituting little people in the place of actors -really- bugged me during some scenes especially near the very end of the movie. The issue is that they never seemed to get the proportions of the heads, shoulders, hair and bodies right so it was a bit too obvious and again, takes me out of the movie.

Other scenes that took me out of the movie were scenes that looked an awful lot like scenes I'd seen in other movies. In particular, there is one extended battle sequence that looks amazingly like one that took place in Star Wars -- The Empire Strikes Back. Again, this just screams out to the audience to compare the two -- while watching the movie. Other movie to watch out for in this movie is The Wizard of Oz. Hey, it's not like film makers haven't been doing this sort of thing for years, but to make such obvious references seems a bit, well, out of place and frankly I feel a bit ripped of as an audience member because the film makers didn't think of a more unique and creative way to present the material.

Plot and timing -- for the love -- please remember this is supposed to be a movie. After I've seen my (what?) 4th battle sequence -- ok, I sort of get the idea, good guys against bad guys. Cut a few minutes out of every battle sequence and cut at least one of them out of the movie entirely. It's just too repetitive.

Lastly -- for the love of God -- end the freekin' movie already! I actually said that out loud. After the crowning of the King there is a shot of the Hobbits. Extreme close up of Frodo and freekin' fade to black already! We get it, they lived happily ever after. End this damn movie and let me go home! But NO -- we have another freekin' half hour of tearful goodbye scene after goodbye scene. For the love! It's a freekin' three and a half hours since I sat my ass down. My butt is numb -- let me go take a pee would ya?!?

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[CrazyIvan 0]

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Lastly -- for the love of God -- end the freekin' movie already! I actually said that out loud. After the crowning of the King there is a shot of the Hobbits. Extreme close up of Frodo and freekin' fade to black already! We get it, they lived happily ever after. End this damn movie and let me go home! But NO -- we have another freekin' half hour of tearful goodbye scene after goodbye scene. For the love! It's a freekin' three and a half hours since I sat my ass down. My butt is numb -- let me go take a pee would ya?!?

Now that you mention it, when that happened, a little kid somewhere in the front said: "Oh man!!!!...I thought it was over", we all laughed, it was funny.

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Blue Skies and May the Force be with you.

[Samurai136 0]

I think 2 towers was better than Return of the King.

The opening of ROTK basically negated watching 2 Towers or duplicated it. Saruman is ignored; all the characters congregate at the Rohan set and go off to fight another big hopeless battle. They could have concluded Fellowship saying 'Merry and Pippin go back to the shire and we skip a head to ROTK'.

The biggest problems I had w/ the battle scenes were the army of the undead rolling in to save the day and Eowin (woman) decapitating the Naz-ghoul's flying mount (dragon?). It's may just be me but I'd expect the the villan of the tale to be employing an undead army not the hero. In addition it seems strange that none of the other heros were at all shocked to see an undead army rolling in to save the day.

Did Eowin have some magic sword that slices thru a dragon's neck in 2 strokes? The Naz-ghoul are supposed to be the most feared monsters in the film short of the ring and Sauron.

Ken

"Buttons aren't toys." - Trillian
Ken

[kallend 2,150]

Tough luck, Paul.

At least Saruman didn't tell Frodo "I am your father".

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[lummy 4]

I'd have to agree with you Paul. I just wasn't impressed with ROTK like I was with the other two. It seemed to skip around WAYY too much, I was unimpressed with the tacky ghosts effects, and the ending dragged on too long.

IT was good, but not an EPIC like the first two.

I promise not to TP Davis under canopy.. I promise not to TP Davis under canopy.. eat sushi, get smoochieTTK#1

[quade 4]

Saruman, Saruman . . . let me see, which one of the bad guys was he again? The guy that's now powerless in the tower? The guy in the Darth Vader mask? The Eye?

Way too many and confusing characters.

I'm tellin' ya -- I'm just dizzy with it all.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Zenister 0]

wow! you realize a good portion of your objection is a 'poster-child' for the declining american attention span? there arent really that many characters and nearly all of them are important to one theme or another..

but i do agree PJ took out a great deal of what explained the details in an attempt to make it 'pace' better..he did in all 3 and so turned what is one of the greatest epics in western literature into an excessively long action flick..

now for something completely different..

warning, there are no spoilers here, but reading these will really color the way you think when you see any of the movie trilogy again..

the Very Secret Diaries of LOTR (movie)

a quick sample of one

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The Very Secret Diary of Legolas, Son of Weenus
By: Cassandra Claire

Day One:

Went to Council of Elrond. Was prettiest person there. Agreed to follow some tiny little man to Mordor to throw ring into volcano. Very important mission - gold ring so tacky.

Day Four:

Boromir so irritating. Why must he wear big shield like dinner plate all the time? Climbed up Caradhras but wimpy humans who cannot walk on snow insisted we climb back down.

Am definitely prettiest member of the Fellowship. Go me!

Day Six:

Far too dark in Mines of Moria to brush hair properly. Am very afraid I am developing a tangle.

Orcs so silly.

Still the prettiest.

Day Ten:

Gandalf fell into shadow. In other news, I think I am developing a spot on my nose. V. serious situation, as Elven spots likely to last for 500 years or more.

Still prettiest, despite blasted spot.

Day Eleven:

In Lothlorien. Suspect Galadriel may be prettier than me.

Also, am quite sure she copied my hairstyle. I was wearing that same look at least 1,000 years ago. Silly bint. She was most annoyed that I used her mirrored fountain to take a nice bubble bath.

I choose to ignore her claim that my hair clogged her drain. Not one strand of my hair has fallen out in 800 years, why would it start now?

Still prettiest by far.

Day 30:

All this paddling about in boats is hell on my complexion.

Aragorn obviously starting to find Frodo strangely attractive. Sam will kill him if he tries anything.

Still the prettiest.

Day 33:

Boromir tempted by Ring. So tedious. Cannot be tempted myself, as already have everything I want i.e. perfect hair and a butt like granite.

Have been getting very strange letters from someone calling herself "Stacey" who wants to do obscene things to my elfhood. Fortunately have super-duper elf vision so can run away if I see her coming.

Day 35:

Boromir dead. Very messy death, most uncessesary. Did get kissed by Aragorn as he expired. Does a guy have to get shot full of arrows around here to get any action? Boromir definitely not prettier than me. Cannot understand it. Am feeling a pout coming on.

Frodo off to Mordor with Sam. Tiny little men caring about each other, rather cute really.

Am quite sure Gimli fancies me. So unfair. He is waist height, so can see advantages there, but chunky braids and big helmet most offputting. Forsee dark times ahead, very dark times.

i guess someone was equally appalled that PJ (and his casting/makeup crews) really misunderstood the difference between 'fairy' and 'elven'

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Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[ScubaSteve 0]

Pros:
Good battle scenes

The Gandor castle had a great BASE lauch point!! I want to desing my home to be built just like that.

Cons:
Where the hell did the giant eagles come from?

I got sick of Hobbits hugging?