Carpe Datum

Review of the King

Spoilers ahead. You have been warned.

All in all, I was very satisfied with the whole thing. There were some nits to pick, but there always will be. I don't remember the book well enough to really give it the working over it deserves (even though I last read them for about the 3rd or 4th time a couple of years ago before Fellowship came out), and I'm sure I'm forgetting some parts of the movie. Let me break it down into things I liked and things I question (there really wasn't anything to dislike, nothing important anyway).

Things I really, really liked:

- The dynamic between Frodo, Gollum and Sam on the way to Cirith Ungol. It was *very* easy to forget that Gollum was basically a CGI character. The whole sequence with Shelob was very true to the spirit of the book and very good.

- The relationship between Gandalf and Pippin. "Fool of a Took!"

- Legolas in combat outside Minas Tirith and Gimli's "That only counts as one" line.

- Eowyn and Merry vs. the Witch King of Angmar. This rang very true to the way it was done in the book (except one detail below) and was probably the one highlight I'd pick from a wide selection.

Things I questioned (not necessarily bad):

- I saw the giant question marks forming over the audience over the repeated references to Gandalf as "Mithrandir". I got it, but was that set up previously? I don't remember.

- Didn't Eowyn die in the book on the battlefield? No big deal, but I thought she did. I understand the whole happy ending desire and all, but I think it was better when she died after finally getting the glory in battle without having to hang around afterwards and watch Aragorn run off with Arwen.

- The end of the ring. The way I remember it, Gollum bit off the ring and danced around while Frodo was helpless, and ultimately Gollum slipped and fell. Also, wasn't Frodo visible when he wore the ring at the end? Maybe not, but anyway, I liked it better when it was just Gollum. It made Gandalf's earlier line in Fellowship, "The pity of Bilbo may yet save us all," more meaningful.

- The fires of Gondor sequence. I don't recall the details of this from the books, but I'm sure I wasn't the only one in the audience thinking, "Who has the crappy job of manning those 24/7?"

- The fadeouts. Frodo and Sam are on the side of Mount Doom, and there's like a three second fade out. I'm sure I wasn't the only one in the movie half-thinking, "Wait, that's not the end, is it?" Why such a long fade-out before the scene with the eagles showing up? And why so many other fade-outs between there and the true end?

I don't really have a problem with the omission of "The Cleansing of the Shire" in which the hobbits return and have to roust out Saruman and Wormtongue from their homeland. I understand why it was in the books, and I understand why it was left out of the movie. I also don't really have a problem with the major cutting of the adventures of Frodo and Sam within Mordor (though it made it seem somewhat forced when Gollum suddenly reappeared on the side of Mount Doom). It was weird to see everything happening simultaneously as it did when I am so used to the book's treatment in which the stories are each fully told in turn.

Like every other fan, I definitely am looking forward to the "director's cut" of this one to see what was left out. I imagine around next Thanksgiving weekend, we'll be spending a good 12+ hours watching all three extended versions on DVD. I hope the last one is even longer. I just didn't want it to end.

I would also like to add that the previews prior to ROTK were the lamest set of previews before a major movie event that I think I've ever seen. Crap, the Spidey vs Doc Ock trailer was probably the best preview, and that's pretty sad. Most of the others just made me want to wince, although the time travel "Butterfly Effect" movie looks like a neat concept. I wanted to see some damn-I-can't-wait-for-that previews, and there weren't any.

Posted by Observer at December 21, 2003 07:31 AM