The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

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Ok I am geting off topic sorry about that!Anyway the movie was a bit long and what was Awen doing in it she is not in the last movie!Beside that it was great!
and the music was good as well!At the end of the movie everyone cheered there loudest and claped too!But there was some teens talking through the movie saying stuff like this is so dumb which was really annoying!I might go see it a second time with my boyfriend on saturday that is if we get tickets!
Anyone have a hard time geting tickets?and praying that it will not be sold out?Well see you around!JM

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Very nice review Yoda… Thanks…





Arwen was in the last movie...

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Maybe he meant that she *shouldn't have been* in the last movie...?

(Just a guess.)

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This is what I meant that Awen should had not been in the third movie, They had given her a bigger part then she should have!
She is not a big part in the books so why is she in the movie?
Sorry but she annoyes the heck out of me!See you around!JM

Ok, I have read Tolkein's magnificent trilogy (twice) and seen the movies. Arwen is in the last book and should have had a larger space in the movie...You see she marries Aragorn and becomes queen of Gondor in the book..The just alluded to this in the movie. Now the parts with her father Elrond, well that was in the other books
LOVE<
LISSA

He he he just kiding with you!Anyway I think you are right it been a while since I read the books I am going to go check it out right now!
and yes the books are magnificent!Great books I had ever read!
Anyway pm me if you likle to chat sometimes see you around!JM

Thanks for a wonderful review, Yoda. I don't totally agree about the not needing such a long segment regarding Denethor's derangement, but I would say the rest of your review was right on the money. I couldn't believe I had spent three plus hours at the theatre......I was just entranced. Captivating is right. And I too wish there was just a little more time spent on the ending. But I was right when I said before that I would be bawling like a baby at the end.......out came the hankies all over the theatre in fact. I was in good company.

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Very nice review, Yoda. I agree almost completley.
I was almost expecting credits when the screen went to black over frodo and sam on Mt. Doom, i would have just died.
I, along with most of the theater, was of course dissapointed with the absence of the 'Scouring of the Shire', but i realize that in a cinematic sense, it simply would not have worked. It would be fun to see as a short movie on the DVD, though.
Entrancing? Absolutley. I found myself flipping the bird to Denethor when he was speaking with Farramir, and i think i have permanent goosebumps from the Sam/Shelob scene!

wonderful, wonderful movie.

At the end of the movie there was no part with Sarman and Wormtonge at the shire!What was with that?
I mean it was not that good that they skiped that part since in "The Fellowship of the Rings" they had a part with the looking at the water and seeing the shire on fire!
Why show that if they are not going to end it like the book?Does it anyone wonder what happen to Saurman and Wormtonge?Sorry to sound fuzzy but it was a disapointed to me how they end the movie!The whole Awen part was a waste of time if they skiped that out they would have time for the shire part at the end!Oh wel see you around!JM

A 200-minute running time was what was with that. That and the fact that the Scourging of the Shire was a tacked-on, out-of-place portion of the book (the books are brilliant, but not flawless). Everything the Scourging conveyed was embodied in Frodo's inability to lead a normal hobbit life after the ordeal was over, anyway.

It would've been complete cinematic suicide to introduce such a twist after the crescendo of tension in Mordor.

They showed it precisely because they were not going to end with it; as an homage of sorts.

Originally Posted by Jackie Malfoy

The whole Awen part was a waste of time if they skiped that out they would have time for the shire part at the end!Oh wel see you around!JM

Any man who's ever been in love knows it was not a waste of time at all. Arwen gives Aragorn an enhanced drive and motivation which, ultimately, makes all the difference.

i absolutley agree with Yoda. A lot of people have been whining about the love story blown out of proportion, but it really adds a lot of depth to Aragorn, Arewen, Elrond, and even Eowyn.
I heard a rumor that they did in fact shoot the scouring of the shire, and it mioght appear on the DVD, any validity in that?

I read an article in Entertainment Magazine and it mentioned that he didn't. However, I don't see why not when the ending is as prolonged as it is already. It can't be more than another 20-25 minutes to add it. I really wanted to see Merriodic kick some ass. That was one of my favorite aspects of the ending of the trilogy.

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I'm at a loss for words. For lack of something more creative to say, this film is perfect. A few quick notes:

-LOVED the extended ending tying up RotK, LotR, and the third age of Middle Earth.

-I for one really liked the Denethor scenes. One of the highlights for the movie for me.

-Effects and acting were brilliant.

-Mount Doom rocked my world.

As a complete film, The Lord of the Rings ranks way up there with the best movies ever made.

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Just saw this...

Battle for Minas Tirith: excellent.

Gollum: excellent.

Gandalf: 'A' for 'improvement'. Although nothing will surpass his sacrifice at Khazad Dhun, I thought he gave a much better performance (compared to the rather wooden Resurrected Gandalf in TTT). It was good to see a stronger White Wizard. His rallying of the defenses of Minas Tirith was quite believable.

Faramir: Why isn't he dead? After squeezing tears from the audience during the doomed attempt to retake the river city, Jackson brings him back to life....to do what? He doesn't speak another line in the movie.

Aragorn: didn't impress me much until he bowed to Frodo. And at least he chose the right woman.

Witch King: pushover. I was honestly dissapointed.

Eowyn: see above. The whole "I am no man" strike-a-blow-for-feminism loophole just felt hollow. Did this happen in the book? I guess I'm just bitter over the fact that she stabbed him in the face when I really wanted her to lop off his head. I might have been more impressed with her accomplishment if we'd seen the Witch King dispatch a few legions of highly-trained fighters beforehand.

But I guess if one Aragorn with a sword and a flaming stick can fight off all the 9 at once, the strongest of them MUST be a pansy.

Merry/Pippin: meh.

Samwise: He actually carried the role pretty well. He carried Frodo pretty well, too.

Gimli/Legolas: call it camp if you will, they're still funny to me. Jackson must have made a rule: Legolas gets to do something preternaturally cool that causes involuntary joygasms at least once per movie.

Frodo: the eyes, the eyes.

Length Of Film: It seemed to me that Jackson really did not want to let this movie go. I was done at Frodo writing in the book. I was done at the pub in the Shire. I was done at the coronation at Minas Tirith. I was done at Mt. Doom with Sam and Frodo on the ledge. I was done a half hour before this movie was. Which would have been fine if I was with my girlfriend, but sitting in a movie theater, it was definately NOT OKAY.

Overall: When's the extended edition coming out?

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No doubt.


I kinda like how wooden he was in TTT. I think it was based on what his character has gone through. As you'll remember, he needed a moment to fully remember his name upon first meeting up with Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli. So it felt "right" to me that he'd be a bit colder than usual for a bit, and gradually become more "at home" in Middle-Earth (which, being a Maia, is not his real habitat).

In full agreement on Khazad-dum, though I think his single greatest moment came when he first heard Frodo volunteering to take The One Ring at the Council of Elrond.

A good point, but I still liked his prescence overall. I thought the Faramir/Denethor relationship was of tremendous benefit to the film, save for the bizarre twist it took later on.

My first big disagreement. I thought Aragorn was fantastic. He was not the film's central character, as he pretty much was in TTT (Gollum was a close runner-up), but between returning with the armies of the dead, and giving a rousing Braveheart-esque speech to his soldiers in the face of impossible odds (love his lonesome charge, and love the way the two hobbits followed just a moment later, before everyone else), I was pretty satisfied with Aragorn's role.

Yes, the whole "no man/I'm not a man" thing, to my memory, did take place in the book. I like it, actually, and think it felt forced in part because Tolkien generally gave his female characters so little to do. It certainly allowed her character to come full circle, though, given what we learned about her in TTT.

As for beheading; she got to decapitate the fell beast, so doing the same to the Witch King would've been a tad redundant. I fully agree that he should've done a bit more damage before being taken down, though; they needed to establish him with the same kind of brutality they did with Sauron in FOTR. We did see him plow through horses earlier in the film, though, so it didn't bother me much. What complaint I might have had was done away with by that incredibly vicious club thingamajig he had. Not to mention his voice and helmet. Conceptually, he was one of the best-realized characters in the series, right up there with Gollum, the Balrog, and Shelob.


This gets the biggest "amen!" of anything in your post. I was glad to see the Nazgul toughen up a bit in the third film, because they were, indeed, pansies in the first. To my memory, Tolkien specifically said that both Aragorn and Glorfindel,the Elf-Lord, would not, together, be able to stand up to all 9 Nazgul.

It should be noted, though, that he didn't fight off all 9 on Weathertop. I believe he only took on 4 (one for each bed in the inn during the faux death bit in Bree). Might've been 5, though.


Absolutely. The comic relief was decent in the second, but felt a little forced. It came much more naturally in ROTK. "That still only counts as one" was one of the film's best lines.

You make some really good points, but you seem to be placing the blame on Jackson, when they were actually in the book, by Tolkien. I myself wouldnt have been to happy witht he death of Faramir. To me, it would bring a sort of success to Denethor and his mad attempt to purge the world of his bloodline.

Well, I've seen it. And it could have been the best film in the trilogy had it tightened itself up a bit. Face it, the multiple endings were an annoyance, especially considering the fact that Jackson could have easily hidden them behind some smarter technical decisions. He faded to black twice before the ending, giving people the impression that it was over, when he could have used dissolves or something else. And the bedside scene, which was straight out of The Wizard of Oz, was completely unnecessary. People have been saying that Jackson should be allowed to end some many times, considering his seven-year attachment to the project, but I disagree. If anything, this should force him to tell the story as well as he possible can, for the audience, without indulging himself. I felt the end was an indulgence, and in compromised Jackson's integrity for a moment.

There were a few moments throughout the film that I really didn't like much, the most notable of these being Gollum's fall into the Crack of Doom. Why on Earth did Jackson choose to fall with him, and then watch him sink into lava? It looked awful. It would have been much more powerful had we stayed on the edge, and merely heard Gollum screaming in pain.

Mind you, Gollum blew my mind. More so than in the last picture, the CGI Gollum was a dead ringer for Andy Serkis, even when not in close-up. In The Two Towers, Gollum looked most like Serkis in the schizophrenic monologue scene, which made sense because Serkis himself basically acted that scene. In Return of the King, Serkis and his facial mannerisms were there all the time, completely apparent in everything Gollum did, even when from a distance. It blew me away how far the technology had come, and how it allowed Serkis' performance to really shine through.

Oh, and they nailed Shelob.

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Yeah. Good to see some familiar faces still hanging around.

Hmm. This makes sense.

It really threw me for a loop. Then, Gandalf's half-arsed rescue made it even sillier. He throws open the doors, mounted on Shadowflax, and commands everyone to hold. Everyone holds. Denethor flicks his lighter and drops it into the pile.

At this point, I'm waiting for Gandalf to half-smile, purse his lips and gently blow towards the center of the room, causing a massive gust of cold wind to snuff the flames. Instead, he canters all the want into the room, smacks Denny with his staff, and tosses the Halfling into the flames. I'm sorry, I thought he was a wizard. The decision to have him joust Denethor off the pile and throw Pippin into harm's way makes no sense to me, UNLESS Pippin's saving Faramir's life had some consequence later on (or, conversely, Faramir had saved Pippin's life earlier).

I'm really hoping this particular choice will be explained in the EE.

Well, Aragorn is Aragorn. When any given sky is full of bright stars you only notice the supernovas. I guess I was distracted by all the other big twinklies in this film.


I guess I agree with the logic here.

Speaking of Shelob....great movie monster. Absolutely, terrifyingly convincing. I thought she talked in the book, but it doesn't matter - she was horrible enough in the movie as it is. Actually, it would have been really nice to see her killed. Just imagining her still lurking somewhere on Mt. Doom is creepy.

You're probably right about this. Still, it seems a bit much, but I guess there wasn't a whole lot else Jackson could do to resolve that particular situation. Didn't Gandalf ride in with some cavalry in the book?

Zei - you're right that a lot of these are Tolkien's decisions, not Jackson's. I tend to be pretty hard on directors when they're working with original source material. Which is not to say that Jackson hasn't done the best damned job I've ever seen.

And how. I thought, for a sickening moment, that we were going to be forced to watch Frodo mouth every character's name in slomo.

"S-A-A-A-M!"

"G-I-I-I-M-L-I-I-I!"

"M-E-E-E-R-R-R-Y-Y-Y!"

"A-A-A-A-R-R-R-R-R-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-G-G-G-G-" you get the point.

Absolutely. This guy should get an Academy Award, and the CGI guys should get one for his character.

I hope Gollum is remembered as the first CGI character that really "worked" in the stead of a real actor, evoking emotions and portraying absolutely convincing character changes over time. This series proves that it IS possible.

Lord of the Rings...

Was this whole movie trilogy vastly overrated or what?

I mean... sure... it was somewhat entertaining... the special effects were good, and there was some interesting moralizing along the way... and the music wasn't bad...

But let's face it... there was no plot to speak of, other than a totally arbitrary chain of events, the characters were pretty shallow and two-dimensional and the movie just didn't have any sort of emotional depth at all. All in all, a somewhat blandly entertaining spectacle and not much else!