Saw Return of the King yesterday....!!! And now am in Latin again, which is apparently the only place I ever have enough time to do this. Therefore. Return of the King is a most excellent movie, except for three minor problems (SPOILERS).
1) They totally eliminated all moral ambiguity. Denethor was just evil--no fallen hero idea at all--and Gollum was just evil--they left out my scene, the beautiful scene where he's almost hobbitish. He was just trying to get Frodo to hate Sam. It was dreadful.
2) Has anyone but me noticed Eomer's teeth? He's lovely in general, but he has particularly nice teeth, which you didn't see at all in this movie. Twice, maybe three times, and only for a second. He gave these determined, close-lipped smiles. Even when Aragorn was the king, and everyone was smiling at him as he walked down the rows of people, Eomer just grimaced in a glad-you're-king-pity-everyone's-still-dead kind of way.
3) tim. Yes, no one go see a touching movie with tim. It was like this:
Sam: I'm here, Mr. Frodo!
Frodo: *gasp gasp* Oh, Sam...
Jenny: *tears welling*
tim: Hee-hee-hee.
Alas. The evil people had the most gorgeous ships, though, which I covet almost more than a real pirate ship, because I could handle the LotR ships by myself, or with a couple of friends. Way better than the elven we're-going-off-to-the-Undying-Lands ships. Way, way better.
But fooey on Peter Jackson. He could have cut some battle footage, which was blurry and sick-making anyway (they catapulted people's heads! It was so gross!), and put back in the bit with Gandalf being better than Saruman, or the bit in the Houses of Healing where Eowyn gives up on Aragorn, or the bit (YES OR THIS BIT) where Gollum might have been saved if not for stupid Sam.
No, I love Sam. But Gollum is one of my favorite characters of all time, and that scene was one of my favorite in all of literature. I object. Strongly.
Jen |