Return of the King

[Jon P. Inghram]

Eh, it was... ok.













I'd place it in second place behind The Fellowship, with Two Towers in third. It was extra cool because I got to watch it ALONE in an entire theater, a slight technical SNAFU early this morning required that the movie at this particular theater be ran again before it could be shown to customers.

[bsdgeek]

I really, really wanted to continue my little tradition of going to the midnight premiere, but I couldn't make it. I'll probably be going tomorrow.

[Jammrock]

Originally posted by bsdgeek
I really, really wanted to continue my little tradition of going to the midnight premiere, but I couldn't make it. I'll probably be going tomorrow.

Same here, but I did get to see it at the last matinee today.

I thought RotK was the best of the three. Yeah, it was very abridged, and it swayed from the book in some key spots *coughSAMWISEcough*. But overall it was awesome. Like really awesome. The story never stops, never slows down, and barely lets you take a breath until 3 hours into the movie.

Very well done. Kudo's to Mr. Jackson.

Jammrock

[az]

I saw today on TV that the special extended edition (or maybe a specially extended special edition?) will be SIX hours long!? Imagine watching all three extended editions in one session!

AZ

[Podfrog]

why does everyone separate these movies into three distinct entities? just like the matrix, it's all one story, and a damn good one at that. prolly the best movie i have seen in quite some time.

[KvHagedorn]

Originally posted by Podfrog
why does everyone separate these movies into three distinct entities? just like the matrix, it's all one story, and a damn good one at that. prolly the best movie i have seen in quite some time.

It was done by the publisher way back when it was first published. They wanted to sell the book in chunks that were conventionally novel-sized. Tolkien had it divided into seven books originally, but that was too many short books for the publisher's taste. Now it seems every fantasy story is drawn into a set of novels like these. More money for author and publisher alike I suppose..

[Wombat]

Originally posted by Podfrog
why does everyone separate these movies into three distinct entities? just like the matrix, it's all one story, and a damn good one at that. prolly the best movie i have seen in quite some time.

First off, they're still three movies. They have serious divisions between the chapters, and getting an audience into and out of the story again is quite a challenge.

Second, I don't think comparing them to the Matrix helps your argument. The Matrix:Original seriously rocked. Reloaded had some good fights and action sequences. Revolutions sucked pretty hard, enough to bring the average rating of the entire trilogy down to "blah+"

[Gurm]

Actually he wrote is as a single narrative in 6 chapters, then briefly considered publishing it as 6 books with a separate leaflet of appendices, then decided the appendices would be an entire book unto themselves, but concurrently to all this ruminating, the publisher as you noted demanded that he publish them as three books.

"The Two Towers", in particular, was a title he was never particularly fond of. Does he mean Orthanc and Minas Morgul? Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul? Hmm? He himself wasn't really sure.

- Gurm

[moreau]

Not to brag, but I was invited by a friend to attend the Tuesday Marathon at a theater here in Michigan.

Best 12 and a half hours of my life. Well, ok, my wedding day and the birth of my children is better, as well as those 15 minutes of ... well, that would be too much information.


All joking aside, it was quite a great cinematic experience. The 3 movies really work very well as one coherent story. Just enough repetition to emphasize and remind with out being overly redundant.

I'm a huge fan of the books, I should point out, but I separate my enjoyment of book and movie from one another (something not all book fans can do, and for them I feel bad, since they are missing a truly outstanding movie experience). Actually, for all the changes and deletions, I have a hard time imagining a better job of writing a script from these books.

When I consider the technical and artistic creation that PJ has put together here, I have no problems mentioning it in the same breath as Gladiator and Dances With Wolves and many other epic stories that have been given the nod for Best Picture.

BTW, if you haven't already, you have to read this review of the RoTK.

http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=16641

Very funny

[Helevitia]

I finally saw the movie today. I left for the theater at around 9:35am and reached there at 9:50am. The first showing at 10:20am was sold out Luckily the second showing at 10:50am still had tickets. I had to wait an entire hour for the movie to start. I stayed busy with food, cell phone games, talking and general observation of the crowd. I noticed one guy saying that all of the shows up until 3:40pm were sold out. I'm thinking, I am so glad I got here early.

The movie was excellent. I found myself thinking, "come on man, you can make it!", and, "I hope he doesn't die", through the entire movie. I was one big white knuckle for 3 hours and 20 minutes. Man, that was the only draw back. 3h20m is to long for a movie. So, the hour of waiting, the 30 minutes of previews and the 3h20m movie brought me to 5 ****ing hours! My god! That's like working almost. I felt like I was sitting in traffic. You see, I've had the same commute for 10 years and sitting for 5 hours is not fun for me. I felt the same exhaustion when the movie was over as I do when I get home from work.

Was it better than the others? I don't know, tough to say. I can say for a fact that it was equally as good. I think if I had the movie at my house and I could watch it on my kick ass home theatre system, I'd probably choose it as the best of the three. I need to let it sink in for a while. I took out the last paragraph so I dont spoil the movie for anyone else, sorry!

Dave

[KRSESQ]

For God's sake, don't tell me how it ends!

Kevin

[Helevitia]

sorry, I should have put a warning(which I added). I didn't tell you how it ends, just something that happens in the end. OK, so I re-read it and there is a second part. If anyone wants me to remove it, I will. Actually, I'll just remove it.

Dave

[Jon P. Inghram]

What, you let people know that Gollum takes the ring and become Lord of Middle Earth? How could you have let that slip?!?

[leech]

Originally posted by Jon P. Inghram
What, you let people know that Gollum takes the ring and become Lord of Middle Earth? How could you have let that slip?!?

After he eats Frodo, right? And kicks that "Stupid Fat Hobbit" into the lava.

Leech

[Helevitia]

lol Leech