Return Of The King Footage From E3

Arathorn writes "TheOneRing.net has a Quicktime movie up of just over a minute's worth of live footage from Return of The King , as shown at E3. The quality's pretty abysmal, but it gives a much-needed taster of what RoTK's going to look like. The soundtrack (such as it is) is from the final act of The Two Towers." Update: 05/21 18:47 GMT by T : Reader Adam Roben has set up a BitTorrent session as well.

Comments

The reason for the bad quality

[shmuc]

Why is the clip horrible in quality? Because it's a video tape of the screen at E3.

LotR Music

[Bombula]

I have to say that I was disappointed in the music in the first two films, if only for the reason that it is not memorable in an epic John Williams sort of way. I mean, if 99% of people can up and hum the theme to Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark, then surely the film version one of the greatest works of 20th century literature should have a tune you can remember well enough to hum...

Re:Dont download it, dont go and see it

[Fruan]

One of the more important rules for storytelling in a visual medium such as film is that it is (almost) always better and more effective to show than it is to tell.

As LotR has quite a fair bit of characters sitting around telling each other things, this is a bit of a problem.

So, lets examine possible reasons for having the ring be taken part way to Gondor in the film, shall we?

One of the most important plot points in RotK, if not the most important, is Aragorn's leading what remains of the hosts of Gondor against the black gate, in an attempt to fool Sauron into thinking he is in possession of the ring, thus taking his attention away from the ring's real possition. There is all sorts of supporting evidence for Sauron to leap to this conclusion, but its a pretty complex and subtle point to get across. In a movie even more so.

By having the ring seen by an agent of Sauron, escorted by the troops of Gondor, selling to the audience that Sauron is convinced beyond all doubt that Aragorn has the ring is going to be far easier - One shortish speach from Gandalf about how He could never concieve of anyone willingly giving up the power of the ring, and Bam. Instant set up.

Compared to the (admitably more subtle and interesting) evidence presented in the book - Pippin and Aragorn's palantir experience, the film's evidence is far more easily grasped.

The films aren't messing with the mythology in any dire mannor - quite the opposite. They have gone to the trouble of setting up major plot elements, in the nature demanded of the different medium, well in advance, when they were needed.

Re:Spoiler

[Anonymous Coward]

It IS fucking boring. Too slow. I was reading the first book and literally skimmed over entire chapters. Way too much singing too, and I'm glad that got left out of the movie (like, say, in the Prancing Pony scene), or it would have been a friggin musical. This movie will do FAR more to expose the 'unwashed masses' to LotR that all the geek advocacy of the last 2 decades put together.