Ring-a-ma-thing
I'm just writing this on my impressions of the movie, since I haven't read Return of the King yet.
- I really want to visit New Zealand. It's a special effect all on its own.
- This film may have the most realistic looking CGI work I've ever seen, and there's so much of it that they had countless opportunities to screw up. The only false looking bits were some of the scenes of Legolas fighting the oliphaunt. Otherwise, everything seems to have weight, texture, depth, and presence.
- The sound work adds to how real everything feels. Hoofbeats thunder against ground, steps taken in giant stone halls echo, and you can hear the workings of the catapults.
- Gollum's not as interesting once his two sides have decided to kill Frodo and Sam. With his conflict gone, he becomes one note.
- Frodo really annoyed me, even as I reminded myself that he wasn't able to sleep or eat, faced horrific physical challenges daily, and had that ring whispering to him and weighing him down. But how the sides of his neck look like raw meat by the end helps me.
- Traveling looks really hard and dirty.
- Legolas gets to state the obvious over and over again. Still, as my brother said, if they had 10 Legolases, they wouldn't need too many more fighters.
- I really came to love Pippin and Sam in this movie. Don't mess with Sam, people! He'll kill you if you try anything! Never underestimate little people. *g*
- Faramir's great too.
- I had tears in my eyes during the part where Faramir's suicidal charge was paired with Pippin's song and images of Denethor gobbling his meal. The waste, the injustice, Pippin's innocence doing a final nosedive after having been bent near breaking during Denethor's chastisement of Fararmir.... Plus, I'm so vulnerable to Celtic-styled music.
- The suicidal charge would have made so much less sense if I hadn't seen the extended edition of The Two Towers.
- I'm told that I'll be very annoyed by what the movie did to Denethor once I read the book.
- If Boromir weren't dead, Denethor insane and then dead, and Faramir accustomed to being second-best, I'd be even more annoyed by the hurrah-for-putting-the-true-heir-on-the-throne jazz. I know that I have to consider the culture being depicted and the idea of the sacred nature of oaths, but I'm very anti-royal, so any storyline revolving around putting the blood heir on the throne has to show me that the heir damn well deserves to rule by more than being somebody's child. Thus, I thoroughly understand Denethor's gripe about Gandalf angling to put Isildur's heir on the throne, especially since Isildur's line has been out of the picture forever. Aragorn is a heroic guy, but while he was playing with elves--don't get me started on elves living in their protected paradises again--and fighting battles very much elsewhere, the people of Gondor had to fight for their lives against the forces of darkness, and the Stewards had to keep Gondor going. This is a series full of heroic people, so his heroism doesn't count for as much. I can't see Aragorn feeling the love for Gondor, the land he'll come to rule, that Boromir expressed in Fellowship of the Ring. Poor Boromir, a good man and leader tempted by the ring, like every other single person who's been around it. He originally wanted the ring so he could save his people!
- I was all "Yeah!" when Gandalf decks Denethor and when Eowyn beheads the Witch King's dragon and later kills him.
- I'm conflicted over Eowyn. I appreciate that she can kick ass, but I would have preferred to see some of her attitudes supported by other examples in the Rohan. She has the hunger for battle glory that I would expect from people who seemed to be based off the culture depicted in Beowulf and she talks of fighting women, yet otherwise it looks like she has to hide her ability to fight and she's the only woman there. Thus, she's saying one thing while the movie depicts another, which makes her look spoiled when she goes off to war. Yeah, Eowyn, Theoden had good reason to want to keep his successor safe.
- That said, I cried as he was dying and she was trying to hold him to life.
- I loved the battle scenes in general.
- Friends had to tell me later that Eowyn and Faramir had hooked up at the end of the movie. I didn't get it from what I saw.
- The hobbits are so very gay. When teenage boys in the audience are saying, "Kiss him!" as Sam's tenderly and desperately holding Frodo's paralyzed web-cocooned body, you know it's blatant. I spend so much time wearing slash-colored glasses that sometimes I think I'm seeing things that aren't there, but here it's so there. Plus, Frodo seems to die a little every time Sam mentions the busty female love of his life. It almost looks like he decides to sail away that moment in the tavern when Sam approaches his ladylove. You also have the orgiastic let's-all-leap-into-Frodo's-bed scene at the end, with one guy entering the room after the other, and the most melting look reserved for Sam. And Pippin saying that he'll take care of Merry. And....
- I thought Shelob was great, creepy and dangerous and actually spider-like. A friend who's a spider aficionado disagreed completely and sneered over the idea of it having a stinger.
- Frodo and Sam look like hell throughout, getting ever worse: filthy, exhausted, burnt, bloody. As it should be.
- Frodo hanging on to the ledge one-handed didn't work, 'cause c'mon!
- The four hobbits coming back to the Shire as strangers and watching everything with that quiet, bemused look was nicely done. Sam, being Sam, makes an effort and reintegrates. Wonder how Merry and Pippin did at that? We know, of course, that Frodo was never the same again. But he wasn't as hobbit-like as the others even from the beginning anyway.
- The ending is 15 minutes too long. The movie ends. And then it ends. And then it ends. And then it ends....
- Was I the only person who got the impression from the final ending piece that now that Frodo is gone Sam can begin to actually live his life?
- I really want to visit New Zealand. It's a special effect all on its own.
- This film may have the most realistic looking CGI work I've ever seen, and there's so much of it that they had countless opportunities to screw up. The only false looking bits were some of the scenes of Legolas fighting the oliphaunt. Otherwise, everything seems to have weight, texture, depth, and presence.
- The sound work adds to how real everything feels. Hoofbeats thunder against ground, steps taken in giant stone halls echo, and you can hear the workings of the catapults.
- Gollum's not as interesting once his two sides have decided to kill Frodo and Sam. With his conflict gone, he becomes one note.
- Frodo really annoyed me, even as I reminded myself that he wasn't able to sleep or eat, faced horrific physical challenges daily, and had that ring whispering to him and weighing him down. But how the sides of his neck look like raw meat by the end helps me.
- Traveling looks really hard and dirty.
- Legolas gets to state the obvious over and over again. Still, as my brother said, if they had 10 Legolases, they wouldn't need too many more fighters.
- I really came to love Pippin and Sam in this movie. Don't mess with Sam, people! He'll kill you if you try anything! Never underestimate little people. *g*
- Faramir's great too.
- I had tears in my eyes during the part where Faramir's suicidal charge was paired with Pippin's song and images of Denethor gobbling his meal. The waste, the injustice, Pippin's innocence doing a final nosedive after having been bent near breaking during Denethor's chastisement of Fararmir.... Plus, I'm so vulnerable to Celtic-styled music.
- The suicidal charge would have made so much less sense if I hadn't seen the extended edition of The Two Towers.
- I'm told that I'll be very annoyed by what the movie did to Denethor once I read the book.
- If Boromir weren't dead, Denethor insane and then dead, and Faramir accustomed to being second-best, I'd be even more annoyed by the hurrah-for-putting-the-true-heir-on-the-throne jazz. I know that I have to consider the culture being depicted and the idea of the sacred nature of oaths, but I'm very anti-royal, so any storyline revolving around putting the blood heir on the throne has to show me that the heir damn well deserves to rule by more than being somebody's child. Thus, I thoroughly understand Denethor's gripe about Gandalf angling to put Isildur's heir on the throne, especially since Isildur's line has been out of the picture forever. Aragorn is a heroic guy, but while he was playing with elves--don't get me started on elves living in their protected paradises again--and fighting battles very much elsewhere, the people of Gondor had to fight for their lives against the forces of darkness, and the Stewards had to keep Gondor going. This is a series full of heroic people, so his heroism doesn't count for as much. I can't see Aragorn feeling the love for Gondor, the land he'll come to rule, that Boromir expressed in Fellowship of the Ring. Poor Boromir, a good man and leader tempted by the ring, like every other single person who's been around it. He originally wanted the ring so he could save his people!
- I was all "Yeah!" when Gandalf decks Denethor and when Eowyn beheads the Witch King's dragon and later kills him.
- I'm conflicted over Eowyn. I appreciate that she can kick ass, but I would have preferred to see some of her attitudes supported by other examples in the Rohan. She has the hunger for battle glory that I would expect from people who seemed to be based off the culture depicted in Beowulf and she talks of fighting women, yet otherwise it looks like she has to hide her ability to fight and she's the only woman there. Thus, she's saying one thing while the movie depicts another, which makes her look spoiled when she goes off to war. Yeah, Eowyn, Theoden had good reason to want to keep his successor safe.
- That said, I cried as he was dying and she was trying to hold him to life.
- I loved the battle scenes in general.
- Friends had to tell me later that Eowyn and Faramir had hooked up at the end of the movie. I didn't get it from what I saw.
- The hobbits are so very gay. When teenage boys in the audience are saying, "Kiss him!" as Sam's tenderly and desperately holding Frodo's paralyzed web-cocooned body, you know it's blatant. I spend so much time wearing slash-colored glasses that sometimes I think I'm seeing things that aren't there, but here it's so there. Plus, Frodo seems to die a little every time Sam mentions the busty female love of his life. It almost looks like he decides to sail away that moment in the tavern when Sam approaches his ladylove. You also have the orgiastic let's-all-leap-into-Frodo's-bed scene at the end, with one guy entering the room after the other, and the most melting look reserved for Sam. And Pippin saying that he'll take care of Merry. And....
- I thought Shelob was great, creepy and dangerous and actually spider-like. A friend who's a spider aficionado disagreed completely and sneered over the idea of it having a stinger.
- Frodo and Sam look like hell throughout, getting ever worse: filthy, exhausted, burnt, bloody. As it should be.
- Frodo hanging on to the ledge one-handed didn't work, 'cause c'mon!
- The four hobbits coming back to the Shire as strangers and watching everything with that quiet, bemused look was nicely done. Sam, being Sam, makes an effort and reintegrates. Wonder how Merry and Pippin did at that? We know, of course, that Frodo was never the same again. But he wasn't as hobbit-like as the others even from the beginning anyway.
- The ending is 15 minutes too long. The movie ends. And then it ends. And then it ends. And then it ends....
- Was I the only person who got the impression from the final ending piece that now that Frodo is gone Sam can begin to actually live his life?