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First Review Of Return Of The King
dipfan writes "Newsweek has a first review of the third instalment of LOTR - and gives it two thumbs up: "Judging from a recent Newsweek screening in New Zealand, The Return Of The King is a sure contender for best picture. More than that, it could be the first franchise ever that didn't, at the end of the day, let audiences down--either because of laziness, pretension, greed or other phantom menaces. This is an especially poignant possibility at a time when we can all still smell the smoke from the wreckage of The Matrix." Fingers crossed. There's also an entertaining piece on LOTR gaffes with comments from Peter Jackson (such as 'Well, it's too late to fire anyone,' and 'We didn't think Elijah looked very good with pus')."
First franchise not to let fans down? I've got news for you. It's just a movie, its pretty darn good, but its not amazing, it's not a life changing event. You wanna see great film making go rent a copy of "The Man Who Would Be King" or one of the other thousands of classic movies out there you don't even know about.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
it's only right that he be rewarded with the respect that a movie created in his books name will be the best ever
It was tolkiens express wish that his books NEVER be made into a movie.
His daughter sold him out, and his masterpeace hollywoodized for the consumption of the illiterate masses.
Were he to come back to life, I don't think respect is what he would feel.
Personally, I consider the movies to be utterly forgettable, and anyone who sees them before reading the books will miss out on one of the finest examples of fantasy literature ever written. Even if they read it later, the experience will have been forever ruined for them.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
"More than that, it could be the first franchise ever that didn't, at the end of the day, let audiences down--either because of laziness, pretension, greed or other phantom menaces."
Umm, the first movie was so long and boring that I didn't even bother to watch the second one because every friend I talked to that loved both movies agreed that the second movie was more boring than the first. That is to say, my friends all loved the second movie as well as the first - but were at least willing to agree that the second movie is more boring than the first movie.
Don't get me wrong, I love the books. And don't give me the Attention Deficit Disorder cliche. I watched Spartacus the other day, unedited, and I couldn't help but laugh when half way through the 3 hour movie, there was an intermission. That's right, the movie came out (1960) long before A.D.D was invented as a term and they knew even then that the movie was longer than rightly justifiable.
Anyways, there are movies of extended length that I like. Spartacus for example. But the first Lord of the Rings movie didn't have enough content to deserve the length given to it. It reminds me a book in need of an editor. Anyone whose read the Anne Rice vampire books will understand this point. Interview with a Vampire is a great story, beautifully written, but Anne Rice is in dire need of an editor to cut out the cruft from her works. Peter Jackson, or should I say the screenplay writer Frances Walsh, is in need of an editor. The Lord of the Rings trilogy of books are superb, but they were written to be read, not turned into a movie. And as such they're not directly translatable to film. I can see the beginnings of editing in the movies, especially in the screenplay section - the lack of tom bombadill most notably. But the movie itself contained too many drawn out sequences for me to be able to respect the critical eye of the director.
Anyways, long story short: The Lord of the Rings movies is a franchise that proved to be a let down from the beginning. To say anything else, in my opinion, is to confuse the franchise of the books with that of the movies.
Joseph Elwell.
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I think the worst mistake people can make when seeing LOTR is to constantly be comparing the films to the book
Well, if Jackson didn't want to film Tolkien's work, he should have named it "Peter Jackson's Dwarf-tossing, wimpy-heir-to-the-throne-that-needs-to-be-slapped fantasy trilogy". Then nobody would compare it to the books. But no, he didn't do that.
When directors make Shakespearian films, while they may play around with scenery and do weird things like setting Richard III in 1930's England, or Hamlet in 20th century America, they know enough not to touch the characters or dialog. Tolkien deserves the same sort of respect. Instead Jackson treated it the same way crappy source material from Stephen King or Tom Clancy is treated by directors -- that is as something where fidelity to the source is of no great matter.
Hi.
You're discussing about how a talking tree was presented onscreen.
- learn to swim.
Amazing acting and directing?
I saw the first movie. First, you have a gaggle of Americans pretending to be British. They're not. Look at the Harry Potter movies for a good example of a well put together British cast. Secondly, the movie was choppy, melodramatic, and just not fun to watch.
Hooray, let's all be fan boys! Hoorah! Gandalph! Gandalph!
Gandalph was a crappy wizard! All he could do was light up the end of his staff with a crystal.
Oooooh Galdalph the Grayyyyy... scary. You know why he's the Gray? Cause he's dirty. The wizard can't even magic the road dust out of his hair.
Conche lomo!
I love the not-so-subtle allusion to how shitty SW: Phantom Menace was...