spoiler alerts: those in blue are light spoilers that would be interesting to focus and catch when you'll watch the movie. but those in red are best avoided unless you've read the books or know the general scenes and the storyline.
the marathon consisted of the extended versions of fotr and ttt. yup, it was a real bladder testing as i drowned a lot of espressos and managed not to miss a single scene for the bathroom until the intermission break.
peter jackson really made a very good finale for the trilogy and critics and fans are quite happy with rotk. personally, it was more efficiently placed and cinematically portrayed than ttt and retains (i'm quite relieved) a lot of the salt and flavor of fotr: the hard to revive feeling of seeing for the first time the tolkien literature thru the hard work of peter jackson.
now for my picky specifics. please bear in mind that i'm not a tolkien purist and for those that have read the books again and again and are more familiar with the intricate details of tolkien's works, please chime in.
one of the focused and hard to forget highlights of this film is the concentration on the development of the characters of each of the four hobbits. i was a bit disappointed for the film not to give a lot of sequences this time on arwen and aragorn's story. although it was covered quite okay, i was just surprised that the trailer made me thought there would be more to it (yup, sorry guys, just a few scenes of liv). also the lack of highlighting on aragorn's kingship over gondor as isuldor's heir (as the trailer also concentrates and as the title of the film).
even if legolas has lesser focus here unlike ttt, we are still rewarded with an extra doze of his character development specifically on his courage or fearlessness. two good scenes did it well: to kill one of the giant elephants by riding on it (a nice repetition for emphasis on his courage when he first rode on the cave troll at fotr) and another by shooting his arrow at the leader of the spirits of the dead (the men who broke their oath with king elendel, isuldor's father).
perhaps one of the best additions that peter jackson added to this film is further developing the character of smeagol/gollum by giving us the flashback of how he became gollum through the "precious". and this particular scene made for a brilliant intro to rotk, because basically, his character was supposed to be helping frodo and sam after aragorn goes looking for the spirits of the dead to help minas tirith.
another one that i would have wanted is to show more rangers (aragorn's pack). it was avoided in ttt as well. it would have given more solid company to the facing of the spirits of the dead in the cave.
also, about that scene, the short direct invitation of aragorn for the spirits seems a bit lacking. or perhaps aragorn is just a strong and forward king shouting "what say you?" to make a more convincing invitation to thousands of spirits surrounding and about to kill the three of them. it's just that i would have wanted one more short line to the "earning your honor back" for the viewers not to miss.
another minor detail that i would have like to be expanded is a moment of merry's fight on the battle.
when i watched the fotr, it was to me a near perfect film (apart from comparing it to the book) except for a flaw i can't ignore, legolas' cartoonish movements as he rode the cave troll. i think computer animists spend a lot of time and hard work on scenes like these and i guess this could be the best they could get on such a scene(?).
but i'm glad when legolas rode the giant elephant this time, the illusion of speed and the swift movements of the animal made it more helpful for the illusion to look better although it still has the cartoonish feel on the last seconds. i can't wait for the evolution of this kind of animations to be perfected in films to come (for me this is where "hulk" got hurt).
small detail, i didn't like the milky whitish of the web around frodo when sam found him. and the color and appearance was more realistic on the webs of the caves and when frodo still had a bit of it on his face after waking up lying captive of the orcs. if you'll say that's the way it looks when a spider heavily covers it's prey/food, then how come those covered in the cave don't look like the web on frodo.
on the book and the way gandalf acted about this spider monster of cirith ungol, i was imagining it to be more ferocious and scary than the way it was on the film (sam can even kick it's face with his bare feet). or maybe it's just me since i wasn't also that much caught up with the balrog's appearance at fotr. the weta's miniature model i think looked scarier as goes for the sketches and the paintings.
when sam and frodo were moving on the last meters to the flames of doom, it was kinda weird for viewers to see frodo very tired and helpless, yet when sam was fighting with gollum, frodo "dashes" towards the cave. perhaps if wood's acting would have given frodo still a bit of a stumble or tiredness here, it would have helped to the effect. or perhaps frodo got a bit of energy from the few moments of being carried by sam before gollum attacked(?).
now let's go into some of my praises. when they edited the first two films, i think the attention to detail poured in preparing for this whole trilogy was not really given justice. here in rotk, it was a bit more better. you can really feel more of the height of the hobbits through the brilliant scaling they've been doing, the majestic robe of gandalf, the close-ups of the armors, the small markings, the costumes, the ears of frodo
, the sound and feel of the horses et. al.
other scenes that viewers would love is the way the spider spins its webs covering frodo. another is sam's fight with this monster spider (yes, the fat sam halfling you know).
the battle outside minas tirith is for me portrayed better than the night battle at helm's deep. in the book, you can feel the rush of horses down the orcs like a fierce wave on this battle scene. and this was portrayed in the film splendidly.
another big plus here is giving more clarity to faramir's character this time compared to ttt where that important scene, with his father and brother boromir, wasn't included in the theatrical version. on how he is only reaching for the praise and acceptance of his father.
another that i'm very happy with is the more close-up scenes of the naz-gul and it's armor (my favorite character). one can easily imagine by looking at it blackness in the helmet that it's a spirit and cannot be killed by a sword. it's a bit disappointing that it can be, yes even in the book. it's also good that they had eowyn kill it face to face instead of from the back. although i think it would have been better if they didn't make it like a balloon withering when it was stabbed. there's also a nice humor to it when eowyn stated a "gender boundary breaker" sentence before stabbing it. the books being a known "boy's book of dragons and goblins", peter jackson placed a bit of spice in it as well in subtle snips on the female characters (even placing a bit of emotional focus on eowyn's melancholy when she found out that she cannot "find" aragorn's heart).
another thumbs up here for peter jackson (and i know guys would also like) is the unexpected laugh of arwen when she was in the arms of aragorn. try to look for this.
i always thought that the book shows sam taking the ring when he found frodo (that he thought dead) wrapped in the web but the movie twists it forward to a mesmerized frodo who thought the orcs took it with his clothes. i think it was pretty good for the viewers.
also giving a bit of mercy to frodo's failure on the wraithing process by letting him push gollum instead of gollum stumbling.
another thing to admire is the acting of wood on the final scenes where the viewers may think that he still carries the guilt and pain of personally failing the wraithing process in his eyes and eyebrows until he lets go and smiles on the ship.
oh, another acting marvel here is ian mckellen (gandalf).
when watching rotk, i can't help but wonder if this is the uncut version itself cause there are a lot of scenes that i believe it's editors and peter jackson would have left out. a few examples are the numerous endings that the film could do with. but jackson left them all in.
now i would like to say a few things about the score since i'm a very big fan of it's previous soundtracks.
the most beautiful and heaviest scene to me here is the time when faramir charges the orcs with a few of his men while his father eats at the table. this was aided strongly by the song of pippin. this is my most favorite scene on rotk. very very heavy.
i haven't gotten the soundtrack yet to this film (avoiding the limited album version and waiting for the "extra music" disc) and i felt that the score, heard with the movie, kinda lacks new themes. i was hoping to hear more passages of the theme that was played on the extended ttt scene where boromir makes a speech to the people at gondor before talking to his brother faramir. but maybe the melodies must have escaped me. it's good to still hear the nice theme of rohan (can be found in ¡®the king of the golden hall¡¯ track) on some scenes.
i also would have preferred if howard shore placed more vocals and choir to more scenes like he did on fotr.
one example is on the death of king theoden. it would have given more weight to the sad scene if a choral score was played.
finally, i think the final song was "okay" or mediocre for it to be a finaltrack to the trilogy. i personally believe that nothing is as beautiful as the song "may it be" (final song on fotr: specifically the boys' solo and chorus) to be a final track.
rotk will gain a lot of respects on the awards to come. i feel it to be more ahead of 'the last samurai' and 'master and commander' on the awards race due to the spreading of honors on every category: visual effects, cinematography, editing, sound, costume and make-up, music score et. al. if this film is gonna catch the best screenplay nods on the earlier awards, it will be a heavy contender at the golden globes and academy. those who saw the appendices on the extended dvd edition, you know the hard work, dedication and painstaking effort for these films and what it deserves.
now with the spread of the popularity of the lotr trilogy, could jrr tolkien's work be accepted as a fine piece of anglo saxon mythology or just some other book you'll find along other hundreds of fantasy paperbacks?.
"is it just, as some of the critics have claimed, a glorified comic book adventure story, or is it, as some of its devoted readers insist, a great work of literature, worthy to be read along side the likes of tolstoy and dickens?" -from the disc "jrr tolkien:master of the ring"
