i finally got around to seeing return of the king on sunday. honestly, it was kind of an exhausting movie; it didn't feel quite as long as the two towers, but it was wearying to say the least. that said, i think the best way to sum it up is 'wicked good'. a good movie indeed, but honestly, it still falls far, far short of the first in my opinion. i probably need to see it again, obviously, but i'm sure both my loyal readers would be disappointed if i didn't have some sort of opinion.
first, the good. number one, all the stuff in gondor was very cool. i think the most compelling (and best-constructed) storyline was that of the humans; the design of the city was amazing, and the hints at the history in their past are very cool. makes me want to get out my castle legos, and that's the best compliment i can pay, pretty much. the big battle was pretty decent; it would have been cooler if it weren't for the one in the previous movie, though--the flow of this one was just less consistent, and the buildup to it was not quite as effective. many complaints were about the end--i liked the end, or ends, even. i thought they tied it up well, and i liked how the end focused on sam. and sam, sam was totally the best part of this movie, to boot. oh and i loved the empire strikes back homage with the elephants. haha. awesome stuff.
as for the bad. i know someone is going to correct me on this, but my first impression is my first impression. the ghost soldiers sucked in my opinion. i'm sure there's some justification for them in the book, and don't get me wrong, they were well and thoroughly explained by the film, but i thought they were a cop-out. a deus ex machina, and with animation noticeably below the standard set by the rest of the movie. pissed me off. and the whole arwen thing. leave or stay, stay or leave, make up your damn mind. saruman's end is profoundly unsatisfying, but that's already been discussed in depth by others who know what the hell they're talking about. the spider was pretty cool, when you could see it, but the scenes in that fight, as well as some in the big battle lacked the clarity of the ones in the second.
all in all, it was a great movie. one i'll see again, for sure. and maybe, if the extended dvd makes more sense to an unenlightened, non-book-reading type like me, maybe i'd get that instead of the normal version. but at the same time, i couldn't help but be left with the feeling of having a discussion in english class for which i'd not done the reading...
You should have seen RotK on IMAX. It was so much better seeing the oliphants 4 stories tall.
If you're going to object to deus ex machina you should also be pissed about the battle of helms deep, where Gandalf (who is essentially a demigod sent back from the dead by the gods to save the world) shows up with an army of rohirim and saves the day.
Honestly, it doesn't bother me.
I have to suspend disbelief enough as it is, what with the whole 'divine right of kings' thing Tolkien has going on all throughout his books, where 'the good guys' are only leaders because they're descended from the right people.
aye, but at least the justification for gandalf showing up with the riders in two towers was laid early in the movie and thoroughly tied in with the rest of the movie's plot. this seemed a little too arbitrary for my tastes. bear in mind that this all stems from my ignorance of the books, but to me, it seems to be way too convenient indeed. i'm told it's less so in the books, though...