(no subject)
So I saw Return of the King at midnight last night, or technically this morning.
The short opinion is that it was a good flick, though rather long, and they did a pretty good job of adapting the books, though they could have done better. Now here's the long answer, with book and movie spoilers:
They got all the big events all right, with one notable exception that I will deal with later, but it was so sloppy on the details. A number of things didn't go quite the way they went in the book, and often I could see no reason for the change, either for clarity, brevity or practical movie-making considerations. One I had serious issue with was the made-up scene where Gollum throws the last lembas off a mountain and blames it on Sam. This is not in the book, takes up valuable time, and serves mainly to illustrate Frodo's rejection of Sam, which never happened in the book. There was a little tension between them towards the very end of the quest, but never did Frodo reject Sam's help and friendship. All this scene does is make Frodo a worse man (or hobbit) in the movie than he's supposed to be. I had problems with a number of similar inserted scenes that made the characters in the movie seem different from their literature counterparts. And the worst part of this is that when these character discrepancies occur, they invariably make the good guys seem less good and the bad guys seem less bad. In the second movie they fiddled with the plot a little and made Faramir seem like a bit of a jackass when he's all honor in the book. There's just no reason for this kind of thing. And they left out a number of bits, but the least excusable is leaving out the whole confrontation with Saruman after Isengard falls, and the whole section at the end about the cleansing of the Shire. In the movie, nothing ever happened to the Shire. That was a big deal; it said that evil affects everyone and nothing is safe. I was pretty pissed they skipped that entirely. On the bright side, Legolas was as sexy as ever, though he didn't have much in the way of lines, and some of the ones he did have were pretty dumb (i.e. "like a diversion!"). But he does do this really cool bit where he takes down a Mumak and everyone on it, and then slides down the trunk. Spiffiness. The Aragorn/Arwen thing was played up too much, like in the other ones, but the Aragorn/Eowyn relationship was handled nicely. Except that Eowyn and Faramir stand next to each other and smile at the end, there's no hint of their relationship. If I hadn't read the books I wouldn't have noticed. Still, that's a side plot and it makes sense to dump it for time constraints. There was this weird thing about Arwen's life somehow being tied up with the Ring and her being about to die at one point that made no sense and is definitely not in the book. They completely ruined the surprise about Dernhelm actually being Eowyn. In the book no one knows for three days. In the movie Merry and the audience find out in three seconds.
I think that was pretty thorough. I know I've been pretty critical, but they really did a great job adapting the books, in general, and that was by no means an easy task. The books are always better than the movies. But still, some of the changes they made don't make sense.
I did have a really good time last night. What else? I moved out of the dorms today and yesterday, and now it's time to move into my room (as soon as I get all the wrapping paper out) and do some Christmas shopping. Usually I have it all done by now, but this year the only one I've bought a present for is Wes. But it'll work out fine, I'm sure. Yay for Christmas.
The short opinion is that it was a good flick, though rather long, and they did a pretty good job of adapting the books, though they could have done better. Now here's the long answer, with book and movie spoilers:
They got all the big events all right, with one notable exception that I will deal with later, but it was so sloppy on the details. A number of things didn't go quite the way they went in the book, and often I could see no reason for the change, either for clarity, brevity or practical movie-making considerations. One I had serious issue with was the made-up scene where Gollum throws the last lembas off a mountain and blames it on Sam. This is not in the book, takes up valuable time, and serves mainly to illustrate Frodo's rejection of Sam, which never happened in the book. There was a little tension between them towards the very end of the quest, but never did Frodo reject Sam's help and friendship. All this scene does is make Frodo a worse man (or hobbit) in the movie than he's supposed to be. I had problems with a number of similar inserted scenes that made the characters in the movie seem different from their literature counterparts. And the worst part of this is that when these character discrepancies occur, they invariably make the good guys seem less good and the bad guys seem less bad. In the second movie they fiddled with the plot a little and made Faramir seem like a bit of a jackass when he's all honor in the book. There's just no reason for this kind of thing. And they left out a number of bits, but the least excusable is leaving out the whole confrontation with Saruman after Isengard falls, and the whole section at the end about the cleansing of the Shire. In the movie, nothing ever happened to the Shire. That was a big deal; it said that evil affects everyone and nothing is safe. I was pretty pissed they skipped that entirely. On the bright side, Legolas was as sexy as ever, though he didn't have much in the way of lines, and some of the ones he did have were pretty dumb (i.e. "like a diversion!"). But he does do this really cool bit where he takes down a Mumak and everyone on it, and then slides down the trunk. Spiffiness. The Aragorn/Arwen thing was played up too much, like in the other ones, but the Aragorn/Eowyn relationship was handled nicely. Except that Eowyn and Faramir stand next to each other and smile at the end, there's no hint of their relationship. If I hadn't read the books I wouldn't have noticed. Still, that's a side plot and it makes sense to dump it for time constraints. There was this weird thing about Arwen's life somehow being tied up with the Ring and her being about to die at one point that made no sense and is definitely not in the book. They completely ruined the surprise about Dernhelm actually being Eowyn. In the book no one knows for three days. In the movie Merry and the audience find out in three seconds.
I think that was pretty thorough. I know I've been pretty critical, but they really did a great job adapting the books, in general, and that was by no means an easy task. The books are always better than the movies. But still, some of the changes they made don't make sense.
I did have a really good time last night. What else? I moved out of the dorms today and yesterday, and now it's time to move into my room (as soon as I get all the wrapping paper out) and do some Christmas shopping. Usually I have it all done by now, but this year the only one I've bought a present for is Wes. But it'll work out fine, I'm sure. Yay for Christmas.