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12/22/2003: my (belated) comments on the Return of the King movie
Like most other people I loved the movie as a whole, and first I have to say that personally I didn't find the battle scenes too long. I like the battle scenes, especially the Mumakil. And like in the first two movies I'm happy with the visuals I now have to augment my mental imagery. (Sadly I'm lacking in visual imagination when reading books, on the whole my mental images are not detailed, I've always figured that this was one reason why I like reading comics so much.)
What I feared after watching the second movie, i.e. that the third part would omit the Dúnedain completely, turned out to be the case, and though I can see why it was chosen not to make the cast even larger, I still miss them, and Halbarad in particular. And purely in movie continuity, I didn't get what happened to the Elves who came from the North in the second part. Okay, Haldir died, but they can't be all dead, and surely they wouldn't go back North in the middle of the war? Especially when in the movie (as far as I recall) none of the Northern battles were mentioned, so to me it didn't seem like it was implied that they left to defend Lothlorien or Mirkwood. I found that very strange. Also that as a consequence of the absent Dúnedain Elrond came South rather than Elladan and Elrohir aiding Aragorn as their brother was something I regretted, but then I guess everybody is going to miss their favorite minor characters. Still the implications are different when Elrond himself goes.
Another thing I found unfortunate was that when Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli walked the Paths of the Dead, we were shown how their horses were spooked and ran away, but we didn't see (as far as I could tell) that they came back and were calmed eventually, so are we to assume they walked the whole way to the Anduin? The ghost army itself really worked for me though, they looked great and scary, and I liked the scene with the summon as well. I understand why in the movie they were let to fight on the Pellinor Fields instead of bringing in the forces of Lebennin and others from the South with the ships (with the dead having been released from their oath back at Pelargir), and I didn't mind that change, except for that this made it look as if Gondor was rather small, with the focus almost completely on Minas Tirith and the (abandoned) Osgiliath. The sense that it is a real realm with provinces and such was missing for me, more than with Rohan for example. OTOH we got to see the dead army fight instead of being only told of it by Legolas, so that was an advantage in a way, certainly in a film.
Earlier I found it a bit odd that it was Pippin (on Gandalf's orders) lit the first signal fire. I mean it emphasized Denethor's madness, but in the book he still had had enough sense to light the beacons at least. However the signal fire sequence itself with one beacon after another becoming alight was great.
I liked Shelob, and most of that sequence, except I think the part how Sam got Frodo's sword and the ring, was hard to follow. Lots of the scenes between Sam, Frodo and Gollum were great though. And often heartwrenching. I hope in the extended version we'll see the scene how Frodo's mithril shirt is shown to Aragorn and his small army, but even without that their desperate attempt to confront Mordor's army was really powerful.
I was prepared that the Scouring of the Shire was left out and on its own the ending worked well for me. It still felt complete and like the book with the scene at the Grey Havens and Sam coming home to Rosie. The passage at the Grey Havens chokes me up every time I read it in the book, and the scene in the film was almost as effective.
In a less pleasant development, I think I have to scrap my plans to squeeze in a second ROTK viewing before Christmas. I wanted to go tomorrow in the early afternoon, but I'm pretty sure I'm getting sick. This afternoon my throat and tonsils started to hurt and now I have occasional chills with shivering. As of yet I don't have a fever nor do I feel really ill, but I'm afraid that might change overnight. I'm hoping that my measures of taking extra vitamin C, drinking Ayurvedic herbal tea blends, and having eaten homemade vegetable soup for dinner will help my immune system enough so that at least I won't be seriously sick through the holidays. Why does one get always ill at the most inconvenient times?
