Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
We were at the advent market on Karlsplatz before the movie; drank Glühwein, I found the cutest keychain for myself (a stylised leather mouse) and the obligatory horse-themed Christmas present for Ch. One guy selling those tiffany style hanging candle holders, multi coloured bowls, very beautiful, but unfortunately € 50.- upward. Still considering, though... One booth with very original hats, but none quite fit me and they were too expensive anyway.
And I so want to ride one of those Shire horses once in my life; they're just awsome.
LotR: RotK
I wonder what it must be like to watch the movies without having been a total fangirl over the books, albeit ten years ago. I’m really trying not to be overly pedantic about divergences from book canon, but occasionally those divergences to me were so jarring, so entirely out of character that they’re really hard to pass over. And to me they really made the movie extremly uneven in places...
I admit that part of the problem might be that I haven’t got much of a visual imagination when it comes to books, I tend to base my mental image of someone on their character and often enough have only the vaguest idea what they look like. Watching a movie I’m suddenly confronted with a visual image first and foremost and it’s hard to make it meet my expectations when they were very hazy to begin with.
The main fault of the whole movie-trilogy IMO is over-dramatisation where it isn’t needed at all. I seem to remember an interview with Trent Reznor about producing Marilyn Manson’s Antichrist Superstar, where he said that it was so much more effective to have quieter tracks between the more brutal ones, because otherwise the listener will just go numb after a point. For much the same reason Tolkien’s books are so effective because he slips quiet and often humorous scenes between the drama and action heavy passages.
A really good movie is about the ‘how’, IMO, not the ‘how much’. This story is powerful and dramatic enough by itself; there is really no need to insist on adding just a little extra something to every scene. Most of the time it doesn’t so much add to the effect, rather it distracts from the story.
Whatever happened to acting?
Now when Faramir and his company ride out to battle at his father’s command to regain Osgiliath, people throwing flowers before their horses, you got it all, the people’s love for him, the complicated family relationships, the conflicted loyalties, him knowingly riding to his almost certain death. Their attack inter-cut with the orcs preparing their defence, Pippin’s song and Denethor eating - only one arrow was fired but the impact of that scene was terrific, one of the most effective of the whole movie IMO.
There’s such a thing as overkill. It would have been enough if, like in book canon Gollum fell off the cliff gloating over the ring. No need IMO to have Frodo push him over in a struggle and only barely be rescued himself.
The palantir Pippin is looking into doesn’t have to burst into flames and Pippin doesn’t really have to roll on the floor, screaming. Again, acting?
Legolas is not an action hero. Couldn’t have Peter Jackson given him a character rather than gratuitous stunt scenes? I was extremely impressed with the battle elephants: like, hold-your-breath, chew-your-fingernails, can’t-look impressed. That was a horrific scene, after the almost victory over the orc host, emphasising the hopelessness of the situation and the bravery of the riders in spite of it. And then comes Legolas and single-handedly takes down one of them, in an entirely unrealistic action-movie fashion. It distracts from the deadly seriousness of the battle and only makes those killed and trampled before look, well, rather incompetent. It jerks you out of a realistic battle where people are dieing by the thousands into the realm of action movies where neither violence nor death really matter, because everyone knows it’s just special effects anyway. Theoden’s death scene after that went completely over my head and left me entirely untouched
Again, the beginning of the attack on Minas Tirith was stunning. When they threw the severed heads of the fallen soldiers of Faramir’s company into the city - horrific. Chilling. And then we see Gandalf hitting grieving and procrastinating Denethor over the head with his staff and taking over the defence of the city. Gandalf. Hitting. Denethor. With his staff. Twice more, until Denethor collapses on the ground. My first reaction was stunned disbelief; around me people were laughing and that was a laugh in the worst place possible. Didn’t they run this by some test audience?! It took me minutes to get over my inner voice screaming ’But Gandalf wouldn’t do that!’ and the next few minutes of battle were entirely lost on me.
Denethor’s suicide scene was even worse. Action hero!Gandalf riding right into the tomb, throwing Denethor on his pyre. Again I was tempted to ask, who is this person and what has he done with the real Gandalf; so OOC it’s extremely jarring. Denethor isn’t a pleasant character, but in the books he at least has a character - a proud man trapped between ambition and despair; a man who deserved better than the shoddy characterisation he got in the movie. Couldn’t they just have let him burn himself on his pyre with some sort of dignity at least? It is funny, not tragic when Gandalf says ‘Thus passes Denethor, son of Ecthelion’ and this is accompanied by the image of a burning Denethor running past him to throw himself off that cliff.
Of course Denethor’s character doesn’t make much sense at all without acknowledging the palantir as a corrupting influence.
Aragon: :: sigh :: Where to begin even. Aragon used to be my favourite character in the books, I loved his development from ranger to king, the way you got more and more glimpses of his power, his pride as he fulfils his destiny. I’m not sure if it’s his fault but to me Viggo Mortensen always fell short of that in the movies, right until the end. He was never the king I imagined Aragon to be.
Of course the way they moved the plot around doesn’t help, either. First of all, I wish they’d just firmly stuck to Elrond’s original (book-verse) condition that Aragon must become king of Gondor before he is allowed to marry Arwen. This uncertainty and eternal pseudo-suspense wavering - does or doesn’t she leave - adds nothing to the plot but removes a major driving force from Aragon’s character.
By making Elrond himself come to give Aragon the sword (a sword, I can’t help adding, that in book canon he was supposed to have since he originally left Rivendell) and more or less a kick in the ass about what he’s supposed to do, rather than just the rangers coming to bring Elrond’s advice and the royal banner made by Arwen, takes away much of the autonomy of Aragon’s character. Most of his internal struggle and development are lost.
Every time Aragon has a blurry vision of Arwen I have this urge to smack either of them over the head with a heavily bound edition of LotR.
And I could have lived without seeing them kiss, too. It seemed, I don’t know, very much OOC for Aragon to kiss Arwen (and vice versa) like that before her father and the whole court of Gondor.
The whole Frodo - Sam - Gollum triangle was badly over-done IMO and there were quite a few people laughing during the Sam-Frodo scenes (they can’t all have been slash fic writers?!). But then, to be honest I can’t even tell how much of this was book canon, because in re-readings I tended to skip the Frodo/Sam parts of the quest, they struck me as over-emotional even then. That little drama over the lembas and Frodo telling Sam to return home and ending up alone in Shelob’s lair I can’t recall at all and it has this over-dramatised movie-verse feel to me… need to check.
On a random note…
* Still very pleased with Rohan and the Rohirim, even if obviously inspired by Celtic and Viking cultures. Convincing culture, good costumes.
* Minas Tirith was very impressive too, not only the town, but also the people and soldiers - captured very well the sense of ancient pride Tolkien ascribes to them. I’d really have liked to see more of the court of Gondor, though, the council of the allied princes - that it was only Gandalf, Aragon, Eomer, Gimli and Legolas who took the decision to attack Mordor seemed a bit wrong.
* Rivendell was still horribly tacky. So is the elfish jewellery.
* The line of beacon fires being lit was a great, shivery moment.
* I realise that there was no way they could have put the remainder of Saruman’s plot arc and the ‘Scourging of the Shire’ into the movie, and am not even complaining much about it being left out. What I miss more are the House of Healing scenes and Faramir and Eowyn getting together. Those are some great and very character defining moment for Aragon, too.
* They lost themselves a great, great movie moment by making it obvious from the start that it was Ewoyn who took Merry along. Stupid.
* Slash is an evil, evil thing. Especially when the makers of a movie become aware of it, apparently. So we had to endure this quite horrible ‘How I wanted to marry Rosie Cotton’ speech on Mount Doom before Frodo can embrace Sam, as a reminder that they are not gay. Look. Not gay.
This said, those hobbits are very, very slashy indeed, except that to me hobbit slash, with a very few exceptions is just... eeww. Most especially with the mental image of the LotR cast. Sorry.
* @ Orlando: Even if are supposed to be an elf, you can still have more than one facial expression. Also, you may gush over Viggo all you want in interviews, but don’t look at Aragon like you wish it were you rather than Arwen all the time. ‘Tis somewhat annoying to the non-‘shipper.
* Why do I have to compare every pre-battle speech to the St. Crispin’s day speech from Henry V and look at Aragon and think Kenneth Brannagh did it better?
* Gotta love my sister. When Sam pathetically declared how he couldn’t carry the ring for Frodo, but could carry Frodo and hoists him upon his shoulders, she was like, ’Und, wirft er jetzt den ganzen Frodo in den Vulkan?’ Mind you, she enjoyed the movie.
* There were a lot of priests in the cinema. Young, cute priests, two Asian young, cute priests. Very weird.