Pedro
Admiral
I have to announce a British perspective because Lord of the Rings is a British book with British subtleties that may not have made the international transition well (Americans in particular seem to an awful lot of the humor). And this is an American movie, because it has American funding, now American movies are the only ones where no matter how famous the director and tbh prior to this Peter Jackson was not anyway, where the people with the funding always ensure a happy ending no matter what (god help us, the original blade runner).
First let me point out I'm not greatly articulate and whilst I've read the books several times ever since my mother got me hooked at the age of eight it has been a while since last I read them so there may be mistakes, especially in spelling
Correct anywhere I went wrong. I'm going to focus on the flaws of the movie so let me first state that the first 3 hours IMO warrant a 10/10... but the ending drops the entire movie, hell the entire trilogy down to a 7/10... don't think an ending can be that bad?... think again
Next let me comment on the best part of the movie, i.e. the majority of it thankfully
The Two Towers ended rather early so RotK had to cut corners, it did so rather expertly in my opinion and was thoroughly enjoyable right up to the point where the ring has been cast into mount doom, but we'll get to that later. Minas Tirath was a WONDERFULL creation, as usual true to the original artwork and especially breathtaking and believable.
Mordor was exactly as I had imagined it (however the time saving means Sam and Frodo somehow, despite being the only 2 people in a vast open empty land with a giant eye right next to them scouring said land make it to mount doom unnoticed...blame for this I suppose goes to the Two Tower for time line distorting however).
Shelob... although not giving the same sense of fear, or the cliffhanger, as in the books looked fantastic, she was really organic and believable.
We lost some nice scenes showing Eowyn and Faramirs getting together, Denathors Delantir scene showing just WHY he was mad as a hatter, but hopefully we'll get these in the extended edition, the Two Towers extended edition was a very welcome release indeed and truly raised the quality of the entire movie (in the extras of that the script writer apologizes for Sams butchering of the fairy tale speech... and blames the actor, d'oh). We also lost Saroumans escape from his tower thanks to Treebeards naivety, but of course... given the ending... that would have been pointless as hell...
The army of the dead was superb and incredibly creepy, although their role in the movie was somewhat changed I didn't feel it was inappropriate.
Music was good but... out of place, the battles had ever such cheery hope giving music at times when a feeling of despair would have been more appropriate, good music but not as good as the previous two, and it didn't feel as though it was written around the specific scenes.
Battle at Minas Tirath was visually stunning and exciting (with the exception that a belief in an afterlife had to be introduced, thank you very much
).
Death of King Theodin... he just had to find out it was Eowyn didn't he? But you'd never have captured the emotion of him not knowing on screen, infact it might have come out laughable so its probably for the best I suppose
What is above includes almost all of my nit pickings of the first 3 hours, for a book to movie transition this is very impressive so do not think I am putting it down, its just easy to pick on the flaws when the quality is generally so high that you're completely overwhelmed.... the ending has the opposite effect....
Once the ring has been thrown into Mt Doom we have another 30mins to go, easily enough time to implement the "true" ending, an ending that speaks of the war after wars, I'm speaking of course of the rebuilding of shattered lives, of loss and sorrow amidst the joy of a victory. Now Peter Jackson claims the destruction of the shire just "didn't work" and asks fans to trust him, hopefully this is an indication he was pressured into the final ending, but perhaps this really was his vision, in which case he should have been removed from all emotional scenes and just left to direct the breathtaking battles.
You see after the dramatic scene where the ring gets hold of Frodo, which works beautifully I might add, Elijah Wood(sp?) was a great choice for the role, suddenly once the ring has been destroyed he turns round, gets a Cheshire cat grin on his face and says words to the effect of "oh its alright, I can remember all great things about the shire and I'm completely cured with no adverse effects from the ring whatsoever"....ok now I'm getting worried, and with good reason.
First the shire is all alive and well, nothing has happened, saroman has not taken over with hobbits living on rations... oh no... all is happy and green. And so 4 years later Frodo JUST thinks maybe the ring effected him just a little (why on earth can't a main character have a breakdown, is it really worth breaking consistency and losing the message about war for an American cheesy ending?!) so he goes off with the elves and is happy and smiling at which point you're left thinking "right... so you're cured now right? You can get off the boat". Don't even get me started on the fact they felt it necessary TO RAM DOWN OUR THROATS the fact it was going to the afterlife. Or the fact that it was a boat, a rowing boat really, not a beautiful ship, the whole ending felt VERY rushed to me.
I had my hand on my head all through the last half hour thinking "PLEASE JUST STOP NOW, STOP RUINING IT!". And don't forget about all the hugs and smiles and ignoring all the deaths, and a brilliant sunset every other scene.
So all in all the end is a half hour of dullsville which literally screams out "bad things happen but everything works out just fine in the end", I find this an insult to J.R.R. Tolkein who fought through World War I, wrote the books around World War II, he knew what people really came back to, he knew the heroes didn't return to the perfect country that they had been promised and it DISGUSTS me what mindless drivel we had to endure to take things down to the lowest common denominator. He'll be spinning in his grave, no wonder the family will have nothing to do with the movies! They must have seen the ending!
Again if I’ve made any mistakes feel free to correct me, and sorry america, I love america really I just don’t like americas need to give every film a completley happy ending, devoid of any negatives whatsoever... atleast I hope it was down to the american funders...
First let me point out I'm not greatly articulate and whilst I've read the books several times ever since my mother got me hooked at the age of eight it has been a while since last I read them so there may be mistakes, especially in spelling
Correct anywhere I went wrong. I'm going to focus on the flaws of the movie so let me first state that the first 3 hours IMO warrant a 10/10... but the ending drops the entire movie, hell the entire trilogy down to a 7/10... don't think an ending can be that bad?... think againNext let me comment on the best part of the movie, i.e. the majority of it thankfully
The Two Towers ended rather early so RotK had to cut corners, it did so rather expertly in my opinion and was thoroughly enjoyable right up to the point where the ring has been cast into mount doom, but we'll get to that later. Minas Tirath was a WONDERFULL creation, as usual true to the original artwork and especially breathtaking and believable.Mordor was exactly as I had imagined it (however the time saving means Sam and Frodo somehow, despite being the only 2 people in a vast open empty land with a giant eye right next to them scouring said land make it to mount doom unnoticed...blame for this I suppose goes to the Two Tower for time line distorting however).
Shelob... although not giving the same sense of fear, or the cliffhanger, as in the books looked fantastic, she was really organic and believable.
We lost some nice scenes showing Eowyn and Faramirs getting together, Denathors Delantir scene showing just WHY he was mad as a hatter, but hopefully we'll get these in the extended edition, the Two Towers extended edition was a very welcome release indeed and truly raised the quality of the entire movie (in the extras of that the script writer apologizes for Sams butchering of the fairy tale speech... and blames the actor, d'oh
). We also lost Saroumans escape from his tower thanks to Treebeards naivety, but of course... given the ending... that would have been pointless as hell...The army of the dead was superb and incredibly creepy, although their role in the movie was somewhat changed I didn't feel it was inappropriate.
Music was good but... out of place, the battles had ever such cheery hope giving music at times when a feeling of despair would have been more appropriate, good music but not as good as the previous two, and it didn't feel as though it was written around the specific scenes.
Battle at Minas Tirath was visually stunning and exciting (with the exception that a belief in an afterlife had to be introduced, thank you very much
).Death of King Theodin... he just had to find out it was Eowyn didn't he?
But you'd never have captured the emotion of him not knowing on screen, infact it might have come out laughable so its probably for the best I suppose What is above includes almost all of my nit pickings of the first 3 hours, for a book to movie transition this is very impressive so do not think I am putting it down, its just easy to pick on the flaws when the quality is generally so high that you're completely overwhelmed.... the ending has the opposite effect....
Once the ring has been thrown into Mt Doom we have another 30mins to go, easily enough time to implement the "true" ending, an ending that speaks of the war after wars, I'm speaking of course of the rebuilding of shattered lives, of loss and sorrow amidst the joy of a victory. Now Peter Jackson claims the destruction of the shire just "didn't work" and asks fans to trust him, hopefully this is an indication he was pressured into the final ending, but perhaps this really was his vision, in which case he should have been removed from all emotional scenes and just left to direct the breathtaking battles.
You see after the dramatic scene where the ring gets hold of Frodo, which works beautifully I might add, Elijah Wood(sp?) was a great choice for the role, suddenly once the ring has been destroyed he turns round, gets a Cheshire cat grin on his face and says words to the effect of "oh its alright, I can remember all great things about the shire and I'm completely cured with no adverse effects from the ring whatsoever"....ok now I'm getting worried, and with good reason.
First the shire is all alive and well, nothing has happened, saroman has not taken over with hobbits living on rations... oh no... all is happy and green. And so 4 years later Frodo JUST thinks maybe the ring effected him just a little (why on earth can't a main character have a breakdown, is it really worth breaking consistency and losing the message about war for an American cheesy ending?!) so he goes off with the elves and is happy and smiling at which point you're left thinking "right... so you're cured now right? You can get off the boat". Don't even get me started on the fact they felt it necessary TO RAM DOWN OUR THROATS the fact it was going to the afterlife. Or the fact that it was a boat, a rowing boat really, not a beautiful ship, the whole ending felt VERY rushed to me.
I had my hand on my head all through the last half hour thinking "PLEASE JUST STOP NOW, STOP RUINING IT!". And don't forget about all the hugs and smiles and ignoring all the deaths, and a brilliant sunset every other scene.
So all in all the end is a half hour of dullsville which literally screams out "bad things happen but everything works out just fine in the end", I find this an insult to J.R.R. Tolkein who fought through World War I, wrote the books around World War II, he knew what people really came back to, he knew the heroes didn't return to the perfect country that they had been promised and it DISGUSTS me what mindless drivel we had to endure to take things down to the lowest common denominator. He'll be spinning in his grave, no wonder the family will have nothing to do with the movies! They must have seen the ending!
Again if I’ve made any mistakes feel free to correct me, and sorry america, I love america really
I just don’t like americas need to give every film a completley happy ending, devoid of any negatives whatsoever... atleast I hope it was down to the american funders...
