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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.
Erm, well there are currently a couple of popular LotR video game titles EA Games has published under Jackson's license, and one or two others in production. I think that would be the key to getting this kind of preview. So go write some games, or no movie for you!
no disrespect, but I really liked the last chapters of the book. I always got the feeling that when Tolkien was writing about Great Events he used the more poetic and formal language (i.e., more like Yoda-speak with back-assward syntax); when dealing with Hobbits, he (puposely?) slipped into more "Common" speech. While I agree that the style was different, it think it was done on purpose and with great effect. It FELT like they were coming home when I read it. It also sets up the idea that, although the Shire has been rescued from Saruman, Frodo has sustained too much hurt to remain and departs over the Sea with Bilbo. It's not as bittersweet if he just gets up and leaves coming back from Gondor. Although I can understand why PJ left it out of the movie (even accounting for the fact that he is on record of hating the "Scouring" chapter).
NO CARRIER
The movies are a lot more about humans than the books were. Tolkien created the hobbits and so had an affinity for them. So the entire book really is about how different the hobbits are from the humans.
For example, the book starts out with Frodo sitting on the most important thing in the world for 20 years. Then Gandalf tells him he must leave the shire immediately and he still stays for another 6 months.
The movie is much more human-centric. See how Boromir and such are changed.
As such, there really is no way to put the scouring of the shire in. The climax is when the entire world is saved, especially the human world. There is no way to follow that with saving a small group of shut-ins.
If I were filming the books, I'd do the same thing.
The scouring of the shire was one of my favorite parts of the books. It made the rest of the books more real for me. You don't just blow up the Death Star and go home to a world that is suddenly rosy and new.
Also, it really showed the character development that had taken place. Merry, Pipin, Frodo, and Sam would have been killed or they would have silently obeyed their captors like the rest of the hobbits if they hadn't gone on the journey they had. Yet they still remembered their roots well enough to know how to rouse their old friends and relations in a time of desperate need. Merry and Pippin really grew up and came into their own in those chapters.
I think an author would be hard pressed to come up with a better denoumont to saving the world. It brought you down slowly from the destruction of the ring. The book did not end with a jolt, nor did I find the last half of the Return of the King to be booring. The level of excitement died out gradually, as day-to-day business returned very gradually, not to normal, but back to a new normal because nothing could be as it was.
Anyway, I was sorry it didn't appear in the movie, but I've still got the books. The first two movies were many times better than I thought they would be and I enjoyed them emensely. I liked that women had a more prominent role in the movies. A feminist couldn't read the Lord of The Rings without grimacing several times but they could watch the movies. I also thought the Two Towers did a brilliant job portraying Gollum and the Hobbits. They were just as I imagined them.
Though I actually liked Tom Bombadil, cutting him was a good call. He was basically irrelevant to the rest of the story. I would have made some of the battle scenes shorter (particularly in the Two Towers - they only made it half-way through the book!). Then we could have seen the scouring of the shire. But I'm really splitting hairs here. The movies are great. I can hardly wait until next week!
Frodo throws Gollum and the Ring into the pit, defeating Evil.
That better not be how the movie ends, that would suck. It totally didn't happen that way. Frodo failed in the end, he succumbed to the Ring. The day was only saved by Gollum's greed and subsequent lack of care. That's why Gandalf was never so sure that Gollum should have been killed long ago, that he might still have a purpose.
The scouring of the Shire is the _point_ of the _entire_trilogy_! The message is about Man growing up and taking personal responsibility for himself and his world, and is summed up perfectly in those chapters. Personally, I've liked the films, but they are _not_ The Lord of the Rings; Jackson has changed the entire focus of the story (witness also the presence of elves at Helm's Deep, which detracts mightily from the meaning of the battle).
+++++++
"Look, dear, it's a crazy hairy scary man!"