RotK...Official "I've seen it" thread...

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I went to see it with Baezle and co. I loved it. All of it, right from the beginning to the end. Only gripe is that my hero Gimli didn't do much, but then none of the heroes of the Fellowship did particularly much.

A lot of the details of the movie trailer were missing so it will need the EE version to reveal all. Like TeekC I can't wait for all 3 EEDVD's so that I can watch all of Jackson's version plus the extra extra bits...

 

AWESOME!

 

Generally speaking the tactics employed by everyone in the films were pretty poor but the cavalry tactics of both Gondor and Rohan of "lets do unsupported charges against anything that is in our way" does rank up there as being really stupid.

We have (A) several charges directly into infantry armed with properly set-up long spears which ought to have turned the attacking cavalry into hamburger except for the fact that orcs appear to have a genetic flaw that causes them to drop their spears whenever horses are approaching Apparently the concept of having archers on hand to bombard the defending infantry before the cavalry charge is something that has never occurred to the men of Middle Earth.

(B) a charge over the plain against the occupants of a fortified city with numerous archers - o.k. they were under orders to attack and knew that to do so was pointless and suicidal but you think they would have come up with a better tactic than "lets have everyone mount up and form a single cavalry line so that the orcs can turn us into pin cushions".

and (C) the charge against the oliphants. Quite frankly the only possibly effective conventional response to the oliphants' charge that I can think of would be an arrow storm. However, given that Theoden apparently thinks that unless you are defending a castle there is no need for archers, the best that they could have done would be to retreat and try to get the oliphants to tire themselves out.

The films also contain the fine tactics of (1)sending your entire army out, despite the fact that you obviously have overwhelming numbers, so that the leader is left sitting in the main base virtually undefended.
(2) having archers behind a single row of infantry
and (3) having an infantry force charging down from the top of a vertical cliff looking rather like a herd of lemmings.

 

Of course JSBB. Movies have always somehow managed to stick to some semblence of reality. That's why the entire movie was based on mythical people, places and occurences. A movie doesn't need to be logical, it just needs to look good and all will forget the lack of logic behind it.

Desperation in the face of danger, that's what made them charge. If they didn't, Gondor would fail.

 

Well, I saw it on Sunday night/Monday morning in a marathon with all three instalments and all I have to say is 'goddamn!'

Man, sitting there in a cinema to watch all three felt like it took years, but it was all worth it for sure. Though I was a little disappointed with the scenes that were left out, I thoroughly enjoyed this film in its own merits and not on the merits of the book.

At the risk of a possible spoiler (though without mentioning many identifying details) I was moved to tears during the final scenes atop Minas Tirith by Aragorn's comments to the Hobbits.

Certainly an easy 10 out of 10 from me. Though I would happily have sat through a longer film to get more of the details that were left out.

BTW. Did anyone else spot a possible goof during the 'lighting of the signal fires' sequence?? I'm not sure if I actually saw what I think I did so I'm probably going again tomorrow night to double-check.

 

It was awesome, but I also agree with JSBB. They were pretty stupid. And, also, what I find weird is that, although I know that elves are dexterous and nimble, how does Legolas look like he's skating down that elephant?

Looks like Aragorn finally got some good armor. Looks like Half-plate. In FotR, no armor. In TTT, chainmail that he takes from the armory in Helm's deep. But NOW, he has some decent armor.

 

Staggering, the only word coming to mind is staggering.

What a rush, since everyone commented on their sometimes long too long view, I won't have to say how great this movie is but here are a few good points.

Sound in our theater was so load people were trying to guard their ears when the nazgul were flying over. The part where the gate opens when frodo and sam are there was mind blowing.

I've never enjoyed watching fires getting lit, the music and scenery and overall feeling when the beacons were let made my heart beat faster, I mean it.

Battlescenes were brilliant, even legolas who did the coolest thing.

Can't wait for the EE DVD!

*wishing it was November 2004*

EDIT: question: what exactly happens with the scouring of the shire? (it's been a while, and when I got to the end of the book, frodo had tossed the ring into mount doom and there were more than a hundred pages left!! Don't get me wrong I love books and I love/hate endings, but when it's ended it's ended)

 

At every battle, every damn single battle, I felt like standing up and just clapping. I'm quite sure other people thought of the same thing.. right? *looks a psychatrist up*

 

I spent a good part of the movie just waiting for what they'd skipped. Luckily, just about everything was in I thought essential. There was a huge amount of battle, at least, which made this part wholly different from the first two movies. While FoTR was about adventure, and TT was about adventure and war, this was completely about war. Not that it wasn't familiar from the books. Just that it gives a completely different picture on the screen.

This wasn't the best movie of them all, as FoTR still had so much more powerful atmosphere in making all that magic and mythics come to life than any other movie I've ever even dreamed of. I'd rate it in the middle of the three.

 

The concept of time in the Battle of Minas Tirith(sp?) baffles me.

It's all good until the orcs wheel up that wolf battering ram. At this time it's still day. Then it cuts to Frodo, Sam, and Gollum, and when it gets back to the battle it's the middle of night and the wolf battering ram is still sitting there and then they finally start using it. So you mean to tell me the orcs rolled up the battering ram and sat there for at least six hours before ramming the door?

At this time the depressed steward drags Faramir to his little torch room and Pippin sees it.

Next thing you know Pippin finds Gandalf and tells him.

Gandalf and Pippin make it all the way back up Minas Tirith before the steward and his cronies can light a match, and low and behold, it's not even night anymore, now it's day again.

And to top it off, the burning steward makes it all the way down the long path and off the cliff despite being on fire and just getting a horse hoove to the head.

Um...OK.

Still a great battle, just has me wondering from time to time.

 

What bugged me about the movie is that golum is all wrong. In the book, the One Ring also darkens his flesh to the color of burnt wood. He is not pink!

Also, the Uruk-hai were created by Sauron, not Saruman.

 

Peter Jackson has come a long way from "Meet the Feebles". The whole trilogy of TLotR was completely breath-taking and I'm so glad I finally got to see the third part. The only bad thing about the last one is that it was the end. I want more. But there can't be any more because it just wouldn't be right to continue the story written by the master, Tolkien.

 

Saw it.

I was... disappointed. What is it with me and the third parts of awesome trilogies? I was SO let down with Revolutions and now, this...

It didn't suck. It jsut duid not have the... impact... I had with FotR and TTT... this time, I was much more pissed off at the inaccuracies, things left out, people left out....

*sigh*

Most of my favorite pparts were missing.... such as the Scuring of the Shire, Merry swearing fealty to THeoden, the Halls of Healing, Pippin being shown the ways of the Citadel.... *sigh*

The way the ending was mangled... it hurts. And damn it, Celeborn bloody well stayed in Middle-Earth until a later date!

*sigh*

II must now admit the truth. I am a Tolkien purist. hell, I was even grumbling about pronounciation! And the whole "paths of the dead" thing... Legolas was flicnhing! He should not have been doing that! And what about the grey company? Grrr!

I am hopeless. *sigh*

And not enough elves!

 

Rotku didn't like the undead. Rotku didn't like the undead. Never in the book where they seen, nor did they help out at the battle of What's-it-called fields (the name slipps my memory).

Other than the undead sence the movie was unbelivable. Aye, it did miss out a lot of things, and it could have been better, yes of course it couldn't compare to the books, but for a movie it was unmatchable.

 

Hey Death Rabbit, you dont happen to be for hire as jester do you? I´ve been looking for one to entertain me in my castle

Seriously dude, thanks for the laugh.


The movie sure was great, best of the three IMO. Cant wait til the extended version gets out.

 

Finally saw it yesterday. Awesome, especially the battle scenes. In any of the movies, I didn't really notice any of the deviations from the books since I read them about 25 years ago. Having said that, I thought the ending of the movie (after the final battle) dragged on a bit, although I realise that the book had even more content. All in all, though, one of the quickest 3+ hours I've spent.

 

Let's call this the Dearth of Decent Villains and the Dumbing Down of Dialogue. They're related.

In a film where your main bad guy is a glowing eye that doesn't move, you have to make the best of the secondary bad guys that sustain him. Leaving out the chastening of Saruman was just bad editing, IMHO...right on par with leaving out the Lothlorien gift-giving scene in favor of that ridiculous ten-minute crumbling-stairway bit with the dumbass dwarf-tossing jokes in Fellowship. I'm no stickler for textual fidelity, but there are items (the rope, the lembas, the elven cloaks--does anybody really believe Frodo and Sam can hide under ordinary cloaks right under the eyes of the bad guys and still not be seen?--Legolas' bow, etc) which are essential to the plotlines of the two subsequent films. Opening with the Gandalf/Saruman encounter would have been much more powerful, IMO. To leave out the demise of the one bad guy who actually moves and talks is poor storytelling, plain and simple. (And Christopher Lee agrees with me on this.)

On to my biggest pet peeve. The Lord of the Nazgul is one badass mofo. But in the film he's licked by a chick and a midget without any real explanation as to how they are able to accomplish this particularly difficult feat. And the dialogue...ridiculous. I sum it up thusly:

"Get outta my way, dude."
"I ain't no dude!"

When it ought to have gone a lot like it did in the book:

"Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion. Leave the dead in peace."
"Come not between the Nazgul and his prey, or he will slay thee in turn."
"Do what you will. I will hinder it, if I may."
"Hinder me? Dost thou not know the prophecy? No living man may hinder me!"
"But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Eowyn am I. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone! For living or dark undead, I will smite you if you touch him!"

Again, I don't insist that they stick to the dialogue in the book, but the Lord of the Nazgul is *the* bad guy par excellence in RotK, and he's dispatched almost as an afterthought.

The one bad guy I liked, the deformed orc...we don't even get to see him die. We just see him get nervous.

I would have liked to have seen the Mouth of Sauron, but fair enough, introducing another character that late in the game would have strained the plotline.

There are no worthy character villains in this trilogy. Just armies.

Two more comments: I didn't buy into Denethor's madness, not for a second. Either bad acting or poor writing/editing, but didn't believe it for a second.

And if you hadn't read the books, it strikes me that the army of the dead and the return of the eagles seemed awfully convenient.

"Say, there's no way we're gonna beat those nasty orcses with our paltry number of riders."
"Hold on a sec...something tells me that if I take this trail I'll happen across legions of unkillable undead who just might want to help us out!"

Poor editing, for the most part. The interminable endings could have been pared down to make a little more room for more essential elements of the story.

My two cents.

 

I think some of what you mentioned will be added in the Extended version, just as they did with your example of the gifts in Lothlorien. That part was added to the movie in the Extended edition. So maybe the parts you mentioned will be better worked out in the "full" movie.