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A Return Of The King Review
I must have read the trilogy three or four times since I was first introduced to it via The Hobbit back in grade-school. I am not a purist, but some of the changes Peter Jackson has made along the way weren't to my liking. For example, I didn't like the deviation in Faramir's character during the Two Towers, despite Peter Jackson's claim that he needed to create additional tension and discord beyond what Tolkien included.
The Return of the King has same flaws, but overall I thought it was a more engaging movie than the previous ones. Beware, there are a few spoilers ahead; obviously, most of the Slashdot crowd knows the story in the books, but what will follow should be considered a spoiler, as I am describing Jackson's adaptation of the book.
The movie opens at what I thought to be a strange spot - Smeagol's killing his friend for the Ring; why not put this in the first movie? I think this may have been foreshadowing one of the more prominent departures from the book: Jackson decided to increase the tension between Sam and Frodo over the Ring, with Golem playing on Frodo's Ring-induced distrust. This tension did exist in the book, but Jackson makes it more overt. Personally, I thought it was a little over the top.
Obviously, the book is too large to be made into even a three-hour movie, but I found that one large part is missing that I hoped would be covered: the Battle of Bywater. In the book, when Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin arrive back at the Shire, they discover that Saruman and his thugs have enslaved the Hobbits. I have hope that this may be added into an Extended-Edition (probably due out this time next year).
A good chunk of this movie is spent on the moments leading up to the battle, the battle itself, and the immediate aftermath. As a result, I noticed that there were a lot of speeches of the sabre-rattling kind made by principal characters that I'm sure weren't there in the book -- a kind of Holywood-ization in the Gladiator spirit. It probably makes the movie more interesting to people who haven't and won't read the book.
The humor that could be found in The Two Towers (specifically, Gimli) carries over into The Return of the King. I didn't mind the humor, though I know it's an addition that Jackson made.
Along the way, I noticed other small deviations, but I'll leave those for Tolkien fans to argue over.
Enough complaints; there were a lot of great scenes, and many of the plot lines were handled deftly by Jackson.
Shelob getting Frodo, and Sam taking him for dead, is done particularily well. Jackson didn't change much at all here, and the effects are great.
From the book, I remember a strong impression of bleakness as Sam and Frodo take the final stage of their journey to Mount Doom -- Jackson got that dead-on. Jackson does an excellent job showing the toll that the Ring is taking on Frodo.
The battle outside the walls of Minas Tirith puts the battle of Helm's Deep to shame. The high walls of the city built into the cliff, with a huge army of orcs outside the walls, have to be seen to be believed. I don't actually remember any in-depth description of the battle outside Gondor (in fact, I don't remember any great battle depictions from any of the books -- bad memory?), but Jackson does a great job of providing one. The trebuchets are particularily engaging.
Overall, I would have to say that this was my favorite of the three movies. The movie was a little more grim, a little darker, and showed some of the violence and fighting in a more disturbing fashion. I am hoping that some of what I perceived as shortcomings will be fixed in the Extended Edition (the Two Towers's Extended Edition was a much better movie that the theatre version). I can't wait to see it again.
Most of you already know this, but: The scouring of the shire scene will not be in the extended edition - Jackson didn't like it and never filmed it...but 10 minutes of other scenes with Saruman and Wormtongue will be back for the DVD.
The ride of the Rohirrim, the chapter covering the beginning of the battle of the Pelennor fields, is an incredible passage; probably my favourite little bit of fiction ever. I suggest you re-read before claiming status as Tolkien fan.
I saw it about 2 weeks ago. Peter Jackson was there afterwards with the two writers for an interview moderated by Carrie Fisher (who not only hadn't read the books, but I got the feeling she hadn't seen the previous movies either. In any event, she really had no interesting questions or comments of her own and relied on the audience to supply them.)
Okay, now that you all envy me, here's my mini-review:
It was really, really good. 3x the special effects of the last one. Spider (Shelob? or something like that) was AWESOME. Battle scenes were great. The Orlando Bloom elephant takedown will be talked about (and certainly parodied) for years. Gollum is constantly good in every scene he's in. His acting is awesome-- he gives Sam this one look look (it's in the trailer) that basically says "you're so screwed" while simultaneously kissing Frodo's ass. Sean Astin gives his best performance ever as the devoted best friend. There's a real cool "woman vs. funky snake-headed dragon" faceoff. The end battle sequence is cool, as is the volcano stuff-- flaming lava balls flying through the sky like giant comets. The sound was cranked up when I saw it, and the screaming, screeching audio was top-notch.
The bad: Some boring/slow parts, including the Liv Tyler subplot and the now-notorious "thirteen endings" featuring tons of Unexplained Stuff-- giant eagles, a mysterious boat trip to...somewhere. And at three hours and twenty minutes, you really really start to feel it at the end.
That said, I'm getting to see ANOTHER advanced screening tomorrow! It's my favorite of the three by far, and certainly one of the best movies of the year.
As far as Peter Jackson-- much of what he said at that screening has been reported widely already-- he's doing king kong (one of the films that got him interested in filmmaking in the first place), he wants to do Hobbit but there are legal challenges at the moment, and he talked a bit about making LOTR vs. "Meet the Feebles". He said LOTR was infinitely more complex, but it was just as difficult to do MTF because he didn't have all the people working on it. What else... he talked a bit about adapting the work-- the first thing he did was summarize the books into a ninety page outline-- 30 pages per book. He also talked about getting the rights to the book, working with the Weinsteins (apparently Bob didn't get the concept until he realized that the guy with the sword, axe, and arrows were "specialists") at Mirimax before switching to New Line, and how sometimes he'd be shooting four units simultaneously.
I don't know if anyone's even gonna read this, so I guess i'll finish with that. The point is, it's good. See it. You'll like it.
The movie opens at what I thought to be a strange spot - Smeagol's killing his friend for the Ring; why not put this in the first movie? I think this may have been foreshadowing one of the more prominent departures from the book: Jackson decided to increase the tension between Sam and Frodo over the Ring, with Golem playing on Frodo's Ring-induced distrust. This tension did exist in the book, but Jackson makes it more overt. Personally, I thought it was a little over the top.
This is one of the changes that occurred after they started shooting the first one. Originally, Gollum was going to be computer animated with very little mo-cap... but Andy Serkis changed all that, and turned Gollum's portrayal in the movies into a fully fledged character with true depth.
Of course, they'd already started shooting the first one when they discovered this, so this scene with Gollum and Smeagol was put in later.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Look, people, this has been stated since 1998--there will be no Scouring of the Shire. It was not filmed. It will not be in the Extended Edition. The homage to it was the vision in the Mirror of Galadriel.
In every single LOTR article, someone brings up how they hope for the Scouring, when it's already been covered that it won't appear. Peter Jackson has been open about this since the very beginning. Stop talking about how you hope it appears!
"Sufferin' succotash."