FReeper Reviews of Return of the King (Spoiler FILLED)

Dec 17,2003

[HairOfTheDog]

Lord of the Rings:
Return of the King!
FReeper reports and reviews thread

Beyond this point there be spoilers!

Like spoilers? – Keep reading!

Don't want spoilers? – Click HERE and don't look back!

[HairOfTheDog]

I have just woke up.... Sipping coffee and trying to remember all I saw last night (this morning). I may be on sensory overload, but I do remember crying some, laughing some, and smiling through the whole thing.

What a wild ride this has been!

Post your thoughts as you piece them together.

[HairOfTheDog]

Hullo honey! ping em?

[ecurbh]

Ring Ping!!

There and Back Again: The Journeys of Flat Frodo

Anyone wishing to be added to or removed from the Ring-Ping list, please don't hesitate to let me know.

[Snake65]

An epic end to this ode to heroism and sacrifice.

Superb special effects, thrilling battle scenes -- especially of the Nazgul wheeling and diving on Minas Tirith like JU-87 Stukas -- chilling moments as Shelob hunts Frodo, and a message of courage and hope: that even the smallest of us can make a difference in the history of world.

My main quibble was Jackson’s removal of the “Scouring of the Shire” (and indeed any scene of Saruman). It’s always been one of my favorite parts of the book, the Shire has been reduced under Saruman’s brand of Socialism to a realm of “gatherers and sharers” (with precious little sharing, one hobbit notes). Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin lead a hobbit uprising, and prove that the hobbits have indeed grown up and are now able to take care of themselves without any aid from Wizards, Elves, Dwarves, and Kings. Tolkien wrote his tale, in part, to give the English a creation mythos and in dispensing with the “Scouring” scenes --even in a future DVD -- Peter Jackson has done Tolkien the first real disservice of the Trilogy.

I was really looking forward to Bruce Spence (the gangly "gyro-captain" guy from Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior) as the Mouth of Sauron but he doesn't make an appearance in this verison. Oh well, hopefully on the extended DVD.

That aside, I found this an entirely satisfying conclusion and if anything, too short. If the spectacle level of Two Towers was a ten, this takes it, like Nigel Huffnel’s special amp, up to eleven. I’ve no doubt I’ll see this many times.

~E.E. Knight (snake65), author of WAY OF THE WOLF and proud Tolkien-geek FReeper.

[HairOfTheDog]

I liked the way it finished.... I think the end was really well done.

I felt a little out of sorts with the beginning starting out on Smeagol and Deagol like that! Not sure I wouldn't have liked the opening on Saruman's end better.

I saw I think, some of the places where the extended cut will bring us more. And Orthanc will be one. The Black Gate opens and the mithyl vest will be another.

Oh dear the battles were somethin. PJ did the part with the heads. Gads how horrid.

Sean Astin and Elijah Wood were great, and they are where my heart always lies in reading the book. Also so in the film.

I am going to see it again this afternoon. I am looking for things to remember now.... Not sure I should form too many conclusions after seeing it at the late hour and hyperoverload of seeng it the first time.

[Snake65]

The audience I was with when absolutely batsh!t during the Shelob scenes. My wife hid under her coat.

Nice addition with Gollum trying to split up Frodo and Sam.

Hope the DVD has more on Denethor and his Palantir.

The charge of the Rohirrim and Eowyn's confrontation with the Witch King of Angmar was everything I'd hoped for. I think that's my favorite scene.

The stuff with Minas Morgul was errily beautiful though, I want to go back and see it just for that.

I'll see it again very soon too, but not today. Maybe tomorrow.

[Professional Engineer]

Just don't tell us the Ring is destroyed!

[HairOfTheDog]

Ha! The ring gets destroyed, PE. Sorry.

[Professional Engineer]

I thought it might. Figured PJ would follow that part. Msdrby and I haven't planned a viewing yet. We're both stoked though.

[BibChr]

SPOILERS GALORE: don't read if you haven't seen!

Boy, HOTdog, you *are* obliging! (c8

Well, I had spoken to the management of the theater twice in advance to be clear on what was going to happen, so I showed up about 9:00. I was maybe 60 people back, for a theater holding 500. My wife and Josiah (8) joined me just as the line was going in, about 10:40-ish. We got fine seats.

FOTR:EE started without trailers at 1:00, to much applause. The audience was just great all the way through. Obviously filled with die-hard LOTR fans, they applauded and/or hooted at the right places, were silent at the right places. Wormtongue actually got hissed! It was a lot of fun, and wonderful to see the EE's on the big screen.

Then came the long break after TTT:EE, with ROTK to start at 10. (Aside to the midnight-show people: hahahahahahaha).

Every trailer got booed, mixed with laughter. The first logo's at the start of ROTK got applause, followed by silence through most of the movie, except for a few outbursts of applause.

Now to ROTK itself.

My simplest and shortest review is that I literally — and I only use the word "literally" literally — had to keep telling myself to close my mouth. It was a jaw-dropper, start to finish.

And I don't just mean the battle sequences which, obviously, were overpowering and amazing. But equally the cut-the-tension-with-a-knife intimate scenes, between Sam and Frodo, Faramir and Denethor, and so on. Equally, just some of the imagery — the stairway up which Gollum leads Frodo comes first to mind. Just overwhelming, masterful.

Peter Jackson is a genius working with geniuses. I continue to marvel at the man's ability to do a tight closeup on some intimate, personal little moment, then sweep seamlessly to some huge, epic scene of battle or confrontation. The moth-to-Saruman scene from FOTR is a classic example; ROTK is filled with others.

Sean Astin deserves SOMETHING. He deserves a LOT of somethings. Having read LOTR for over thirty years, I say: Astin NAILS Sam, he EMBODIES Sam. I can't imagine a performance one molecule better, truer. Everyone else is wonderful, too; and Merry and Pippin get to bring up depths hitherto only hinted at, at best. But Astin's doggedly loyal, truehearted Sam towers over all.

I laughed, I tensed up tight as a drum-head, I teared up, I yelled, I whooped, I clapped. What more could one want from a movie?

I'll get to my quibbles eventually, but here I turn to the inevitable question: so now which is your favorite?

I'd have to say, still FOTR. It still has a magic not quite in the others for me. BUT I reserve the right to revise that verdict (A) after repeated viewings and (B) after the EE. I'm pretty sure TTT will never take that place, but conceivably ROTK could.

I hope I've expressed enough love for the movie to avoid a lecture over my quibbles. And if not, I'll add this: I'm astonished at how much Jackson crammed into 3:20. A maz ing. I say again: the man is a genius, and works with geniuses.

QUIBBLES

Preface: most of these are totally conditioned on the EE. Most of them might be swept away by restored footage. I hope they ALL are.

First: in FOTR, though he can't swim, Sam sees Frodo heading across the river, and wades out after him. He'll DROWN rather than let Frodo go on alone. "I made a promise, Mr. Frodo. A promise. 'Don't you leave him, Sam Gamgee.' And I don't mean to. I don't mean to."

Flash forward to ROTK: "Go home, Sam." He cries (very moving)... and then he goes home.

Huh?

And what changes his mind, and turns him around, is... finding lembas? Like he DIDN'T know BEFOREhand that GOLLUM must have done something with the lembas, but now he DOES know? It would have made sense if he'd put it in his pocket for proof to Frodo... but as it stands, it's an incongruous "Huh?"

Second: Aragorn hears that the love of his life, Arwen, has not left Middle Earth, and is dying. (An invention, but we leave that aside for the moment.) So he takes the sword, and does some kingly buttkicking. For Arwen (in part)! Okey doke.

Fast-forward. Now Aragorn has won, and is being crowned king. The hobbits are recovered, Faramir and Eowyn are recovered, everything's been arranged, invitations sent out, catering paid for. So it's been, what, weeks? Months?

And, oh, who's that behind that banner? Why, it's old Arwen! Dang, haven't thought of her in months! How do I know that? She looks at him uncertainly, and he does the same. I guess in all the hustle and bustle, he has just COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN about her! But it's all okay now, because he hugs her and kisses her (now that she's here, uninvited), and they'll get married and have kids and she'll have a miserable, hopeless future (so vividly envisioned by Elrond, who now unaccountably seems cool with the whole deal) because of choosing to bind herself to this negelctful, absent-minded man.

So again I must say....

Huh?

Third: IF I'm remembering this right, UNLIKE the book, Denethor does not slam the door and insist on immolating himself. No, Gandalf knocks him back onto the pyre, whereupon he (by Gandalf's direct doing) bursts into flame, screams, and runs off, horribly dying as Faramir watches. Whereupon the now-immobile Gandalf philosophically muses (concerning the man HE just set on fire) something like, "Thus ends the stewardship of Denethor [because I just set him on fire]."

Huh?

All others are minor, unless I've forgotten something. I'd heard Bruce Spence was the Mouth of Sauron; but no MoS in this picture. Why didn't Eowyn hide her identity totally, like in the book? Since it's my favorite part, I wished they'd stuck to it close. I loved it in the movie, but miss the Witch King smugly saying "No man can kill me," then being stunned and rattled as this GUY starts actually LAUGHING at him -- and then, shock of shocks, pulls off "his" helmet and says "But no mortal man stands before you," and the rest. It seemed to go a little fast in the movie. I still loved it, and Eowyn rocks — but I'd prefer it to have been closer to the book.

The appreciation of the hobbits was cool, but I'd've liked more, like in the book.

Well, there's my review rattled off for your perusal.

Did I like it? Mercy, yes. Will I see it again? Oh yes, again AND again. How would I rate it? Oh, 4.5 or 5 stars out of five. Do I recommend it? Enthusiastically.

And there you have it.

Dan

[BibChr]

See my #10; we had some of the same reactions.

Dan

[BibChr]

Snake jogged my memory of a couple of other things.

Yeah... no Palantir. So why did movie-Denethor wig out? Just went nuts, I guess? That was, I thought, an important plot-element: Saruman perverts Theoden's thinking, and Sauron himself perverts Denethor's.

Shelob is awesome, period, end of paragraph, end of essay.

So here's another thing I forgot. Okay, two. Lava is, like, how hot? Really hot. So scrawny little Gollum (with no cry of "Pre-e-e-e-e-ecious," darn!) falls in, floats (!) awhile -- in the lava (!!) -- and has the presence of mind to reach out for the ring (!!!), before finally sinking slowly.

But since heat rises, wouldn't you crisp up, say, thirty feet ABOVE the lava, let alone in it?

I have only one guess about that. As the Ring itself floats awhile before melting, maybe Gollum's connection to it made him that tough to kill. My best try.

But how do you explain Sam and Frodo napping on a rock in a sea of lava? How long would it take thar rock to become a frying pan -- to say nothing of (again) the rising heat?

Dan

[Jalapeno]

bumping for a read after I view this evening.

[HairOfTheDog]

Yeah - the drama with Gollum in the lava was a little over the top! Heh...

As for the other part with Frodo and Sam bearing the heat.... Well, they just did. That is how they were found. We know their odds of survival with Mordor self-destructing all around them were nil... It is explained by Grace alone, perhaps, Dan.

[DCBryan1]

Sipping coffee and trying to remember all I saw last night (this morning). I may be on sensory overload, but I do remember crying some, laughing some, and smiling through the whole thing.

LOL, its 1PM and I just woke up...that statement is EXACTLY what I wanted to say!

I had to get my Ticket on Ebay, paid $100.00 and then drove 150 miles to see the movie at the Malco Paradiso in Memphis, TN.

The theater is the newest in Mephis and had recliner seats, perfect view point (no heads in front, nice incline, wide aisles) and SERVED BEER!

Guys and girls were crying and I heard someone say, "How the hell can you go home and go to sleep after THAT"...I couldn't have said it better myself. Unfortuanely, I had to drive back 150 miles to LIttle Rock and enjoyed reminiscing a little.

Well, I have until 4PM and I see it again with my niece.

TAKE CARE, OH, and I took apicture of the audience and told them I would post it on www.Freerepublic.com....I just had to plug Jim's Hobbit Hole.....wait...that doesn't sound right.

You know what I mean.

[HairOfTheDog]

I can't think of a reason why Elrond's message was that she was dying, unless, what I think he meant, was that she had chosen immortality and chosen to stay. She wasn't ill, she was just now living as a mortal.

Not sure why her appearance at the coronation was a surprise.... was that just the most efficient way to get that over with or did anyone think that was a good way to do it?

[Tijeras_Slim]

How can there be spoilers if ya'll have read the book?

[HairOfTheDog]

ROTFL! Thanks! - You just reminded me that we took some pics in line last night.... will ping you when I post them.

[HairOfTheDog]

Because PJ switched enough stuff around that none of us knew ~exactly~ what would happen.

The spoilers are the changes!

[RightFighter]

Great moments from a great film:

1. Andy Serkis' performance as Gollum/Smeagol was brilliant again, especially the interplay between Smeagol and Sam. It was great to see Jackson really show you the evolution of the relationship between Sam, Frodo, and Smeagol. It was actually believable when Frodo began to distrust Sam. Even though you knew Smeagol had set Sam up with the elven bread crumbs, later events at the outpost in Mordor led you to believe that Smeagol was right - that Sam WOULD try to take the ring for himself. It was great though to see that in the end, Sam was the rock that anchored Frodo and allowed (or forced) him to succeed. As one who'd never read the books, I was pleased to see this.

2. The continuation of the playful competition between Legolas and Gimli over the numbers of Orcs each killed in battle. Who can ever forget Legolas jumping on that huge elephant-creature (Olipant?) and killing the 30+ men that were riding on it, then sliding down the trunk to the ground, only to be greeted by Gimli saying "That still only counts as ONE!" What a great moment.

3. Inside Minas Tirith, when Gandalf takes command of the forces of Gondor, and he's standing at the front gate, he tells the terrified soldiers something like "You are soldiers of Gondor. Whatever comes through that gate, you stand your ground and fight!" Then the door is broken through and the meanest, ugliest, most terrifying trolls in full battle armor break through the gate. The look in Gandalf's eyes is classic - almost like he was saying, "Whoops".

4. The speech that Aragorn gives to the remaining forces of Gondor and Rohan at the Black Gate as they are being surrounded by the Orcs coming out of Mordor was awesome. The main gist of it was something like "There may come a time when the age of men ends and the age of orcs begins, when shields are cracked and swords are broken and we are driven away from this land, but that time is not today!" Then, when he hears the voice of Sauron calling to him from Mordor, Aragorn turns to Gandalf and says "For Frodo" and takes off at full speed toward the thousands of orcs in front of him. I literally thought Aragorn was about to die. If only we had great men today like the character of Aragorn.... (Oh, wait a minute, we DO! They're in the US military!)

5. At the ceremony at Minas Tirith where Aragorn is crowned king, which, incidentally, reminded me a lot of both the final scene from Star Wars: A New Hope and the final scene from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, I loved when the four hobbits bowed to the new king, and he said, "My friends, you bow to no one." Then he kneeled and bowed to them, and the rest of Minas Tirith followed suit.

I'm sure I'll remember more later. This movie is just incredible, and if Jackson doesn't win best picture/best director/best everything for this one, it's all a sham. There's no movie that can touch the quality and breadth of this one.