> My wife and I attended Trilogy Tuesday at the local theatre (unlike some
> other venues, tickets were only $20 for the entire trilogy, and there was
> still space....). Starting at 4pm, we watched the director's cuts of the
> first two movies, and the RotK at midnight.
Seeing the extended editions on the big screen _in English (d'oh!)_ turned out to be a pretty hard job for me, involving going to another city (!!), but I succeeded in seeing FOTR EE one week, T2T EE the week after, and finally ROTK much closer to home.
Strangely, during the two EE journeys, I had a high feeling of good expectation for FOTR, but _not_ for T2T ...
And I even felt a little nervous about ROTK ...
I think that ROTK EE is one of the most memorable films I've ever seen, but I cannot be so enthusiastic about either T2T EE or ROTK (short version).
I really liked the short version of T2T, and definitely feel that most of the extra scenes in the EE are pure flab. The Pippin and Merry stuff is nice, but the much heralded Boromir & Faramir & Denethor flashback is IMO an unmitigated disaster ! Why weaken Sean Astin's brilliant portrayal of Boromir in FOTR ?! Why weaken the parable of Boromir's attempt to seize the Ring by showing that he was actually on a mission from his father to do so ????!!!
The purpose seems to be to strengthen the character of Faramir, but there should be little point in doing so, Faramir having much screen time in ROTK anyway, not to mention that the Boromir > Faramir structure of the trilogy is thereby ruined, as it simply adds (in the movies) to a sense of bewildering confusion because of the profusiuon of characters, and the Breaking of the Fellowship. This focus on Faramir is simply a mistake, and it's good that it was cut out of the short version of the film, IMHO.
Miranda Otto as Eowyn : BLECCH !!
The "Eowyn cooks dinner for Aragorn" scene
is pathetic IMO. Talk about flab ! That's what the guy
has in his bowl ...
Fangorn Forest much cooler in this version though ...
I guess I'd probably prefer a semi-extended version, containing the useful plot stuff, but without any of the extraneous stuff ... :-/
I actually _dislike_ ROTK in its short version, but I'm warily hopeful that the EE will be far better. There is definitely a sense that large meaty portions of plot are being kept in the deep DVD freeze ...
The reforging of Anduril subplot, on reflection, is a truly useless addition, but I guess that PJ & Friends wanted to show why the Dead Men should follow him. Pity, IMO, that he and his researchers missed obscure Tolkien factoid n° 18,206 : the Dead Men of Dunharrow obey the rightful King, because he wears the _ring_ of his forebears ... showing Aragorn being obeyed because of his magic ring might, perhaps, been more resonant and meaningful than the hordes of the undead obeying the weilder of ye anciente magicke phalique symboll ...
It can have escaped few people's notice that, while Viggo has the Ranger down pat, his King is a little feeble ...
Contrary to some, I think that the Arwen scenes actually work reasonably well, which makes her almost total absence in ROTK all the more bewildering ! So much set-up, for so little pay back ?!
The Denethor I can live with, but again I think that much of the parable is lost ...
The thing that I _really_ dislike about ROTK, though, is the sheer patheticness of the bad guys ...
I mean seriously : NO Christopher Lee, Sauron is a great big glowing basketball, the Nazgūl are generic bad guys with creepy voices in black, the Lord of the Nazgūl simply isn't given the treatment the character deserved ...
... who can care about why Aragorn and Co are fighting when you can't give a damn who they're fighting against !!??
I liked the orc general, though : but why in hell don't we get to enjoy his (no doubt) grisly end ??
My biggest overall complaint is that PJ jettisoned the core meanings and metaphors of the trilogy, in favour of portraying everybody who's after the Ring as being affected by it similarly as Heroin junkies are to the drug. Bilbo's, Galadriel's, Gandalf's, Aragorn's (in the film version) rejections of the Ring are clearly _moral_ choices, as is Frodo's final attempt to become the Lord of the Rings himself ; this final attempt is instead portrayed as an abandonment to weakness (which is a potent weakening of Frodo, and therefore the whole trilogy). Frodo's failure at the final step has nothing to do with weakness, everything with strength. When he claims the Ring, the foundations of Barad-Dur tremble ; and I am sure that had the Nazgūl presented themselves to Frodo, he could have commanded them. That's just one interpretation, of course, but PJ's version precludes any interpretation other than his own, which seriously weakens the end of the film.
> And Mordor seems to be a lot smaller than I thought
Yeah ... not crazy about this, but I can live with it ...
The War seems to boil down to a struggle against the bad guys in the next valley ...
jeers,
Julian
--
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"Hmmm, I've heard of other powers.
Can you tell me about ...
... Real Life ?"
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