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Viewing all posts with tag: writer: j.r.r. tolkien



The Lord of the Rings – The Return of the King review

I couldn’t sleep last night because there were too many scenes from the movies in my head. I haven’t reached a conclusion of what I think of RotK as a single movie, though I tend to say it’s excellent with minor flaws.

[spoilers for RotK, highlight to read further]


The opening scene, revealing how Smeagol became Gollum, is brilliant and sets the tone for what is to come very well.
That scene where Arwen sees the child and you get hints on a possible future for her and Aragorn is probably the worst in the whole movie, IMHO. Too kitschy, it doesn’t fit into the film at all. (Though I like Arwen quite a lot and I’m not one of those who believe she gets too much screentime.)

I’m really disappointed that there are so little scenes inside the city of Minas Tirith :( I also miss the great scene of Aragorn healing the wounded after the battle at the Fields of the Pelennor because I always thought that scene is very crucial as it shows how the people of Minas Tirith come to recognize and accept Aragorn as their king. Hope it’ll be in the Extended Edition!

Pippin singing for Denethor was almost heart-breaking. And all trying and holding back the tears was useless when Aragorn sang at his Coronation ;_;
Btw, it was definitely worth buying the soundtrack for those two songs alone. The other tracks are wonderful too, of course. I even made my peace with Annie Lennox (who almost ruined my childhood with her bland 80’s pop -_-;;)!

I noticed that the pacing of the film is not so good in some parts of the film. The battle scenes seem to have started a bit too early in the film thus they seem to drag on for too long.
As a result of the battles starting too early, I think we had to wait too long till we get to see what creature Gollum is leading Frodo and Sam to – especially since Gollum mentions it at the end of TTT but then we don’t get to see who ‘she’ is until almost halfway through the movie.
Unfortunately, the scene in Shelob’s lair somehow lacks quite a bit of the spookiness that this scene oozes in the book. So does Sam’s ‘conquering’ the Orc tower (which happened so fast *_* nice hobbit).

Eowyn doesn’t seem as bitter as in TTT which is definitely good. Her and Merry’s defeating the Witchking and then Eowyn being on her father’s side when he dies are such strong scenes.
The Legolas fanservice is, well… ‘gigantic’. Gimli delivers even more comic relief than before and I like his film character more than in the book.

So yeah, a few good scenes are missing but what is there is certainly brilliant ^-^ (And they do have to save a few scenes for the Extended Edition, of course. ^^)


That’s all I can think of at the moment, might add a few thoughts on the film after I’ve seen it again. I really enjoyed watching the three films in one go, it was a real privilege to see the them back-to-back as it made it even more obvious that the LotR trilogy as a whole are among the best films ever made. Period.

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Categories: Film/TV, Various.
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Posted on Dec 18, 2003 (Thu, 1:18 am). .

LotR – The Two Towers Extended Edition

TTT Ext. is here.

OMG. It’s like a whole new movie. This has to be the movie I’ve seen most in my life. (Except maybe The Goonies ^^; No, I’m pretty sure that’s not true.) And seeing this version broke my heart again from all its beauty.

I can’t really talk about all the new scenes because there were simply too many. Overall, I think the movie doesn’t seem as dark anymore.

I loved Eowyn singing at Theodred’s funeral. I don’t like her much, not even in the book, but the whole funeral scene was just so impressive and moving.
Faramir doesn’t seem as one-dimensional anymore. He’s still not the man he is in the book but he appears to be a lot more gentler. (I simply adore that small farewell-scene with Frodo, Sam and Smeagol towards the end of the film.)

The new scenes changed the passing quite a bit. Some of the extended and new Ent scenes really seemed to drag the story too much. (Even if it is the Ent’s nature to be slow and careful and not hasty…) I do love the new Merry and Pippin scenes, though. The Entwash scene and the one in the storeroom in Isengard were particularly funny ^^

It also changed the screen time balance: Arwen’s role seem pretty short, especially when you compare it to the screen time Eowyn got in this version.

(Eowyn’s and Aragorn’s ‘stew’ scene was so bad. I thought Gimli was in charge of the comic relief and not those two.)

This version is so wonderful. I’ll watch all the special features in the next few days to see if they can live up to the features on the Fellowship Ext. Version DVD.
I’m so happy.

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Categories: Film/TV, Various.
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Posted on Nov 21, 2003 (Fri, 11:12 pm). .




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