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I forgot how awesome Gandalf is.
Quickly:
- Fellowship (Best Adapatation, Least annoyances, Strong emotional connection)
- King (Most Spectacle, Deepest emotion, poorest time track)
- Towers (Best Villainy, Most Beautigul set (Edoras), Worst deviations from character)
Note about King…Minas Tirith was for all intents and purposes, real! Wowzer!
I also notice that folks who have read and love the book tend to think poorly of TTT. Those who went to see the movies without being big Tolkien fans like TTT more.
Yeah, I have noticed that, too. I really like TTT and I have never read the books before. Did it deviate the most from the original book? Some people I know have said that PJ put way more emphasis on Helm’s Deep than in the novel, so if that’s true, I can see how some might be disappointed that the last 45 -60 minutes are primarily battle-oriented.
keep in mind that the first… oh, forty minutes of the ROTK movie are actually from the book The Two Towers. Including everything up to Shelob (TTT the book ends on a cliffhanger with the reader thinking Frodo is dead) plus everything up to Pippin & the Palantir (ROTK the book begins wth Pippin being bounced along on Shadowfax).
TTT the movie had the greatest deviation from the books, with entire plot elements (Aragorn over the cliff, almost everything about Arwen & Elrond, Elves at Helm’s Deep, Faramir brings Frodo to Osgiliath) introduced.
It also worked from the weakest source material, IMHO.
I tried to start this thread early Thursday morning, after I got back from the midnight screening of ROTK. But the board crashed while I was composing. Here’s mine, assuming each is viewed as a stand-alone film:
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ROTK. Even with the highest of expectations, seeing this was like when I heard the Halleleujia(sp?) Chorus from Handel’s Messiah for the first time. It has the very best of TTT and FOTR, and delivers something even better. Theoden’s line from Star Wars made me wince. But that’s a technical issue, along with one or two others that I can easily ignore. Can’t wait a whole year for the EE DVD…
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FOTR. I think my favorite part of all three films is the first half of FOTR. It’s just… so… cozy. I think the film does start to run out of gas after Gandalf’s showdown with the balrog.
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TTT is just okay. I understand all of the problems with making the middle of one long movie work as a stand-alone piece, and this is the reason behind most of the departures from the book: the movie wouldn’t have worked as a self-contained unit. Interestingly, on the TTT DVD EE commentary, Fran Walsh(?) essentially apologizes for Faramir… she explained that their solution to the Faramir problem probably wasn’t the best. But other than that, I think PJ and co did the best they could with making the fulcrum of a long movie work as a short(er) film.
One thing I did remember thinking while seeing TTT, and ROTK, was that the three films are very different. I wonder how that will play out when I’m watching it as it should be, as a single film that runs from dusk to dawn…
I fully agree with these statements. So :
1)FOTR
2)TTT
3ROTK
Hated Fellowship. Will never see the other two. How do you rank them in this situation?
Well, in your case, I would recommend not making pointless posts in threads such as this.
As for me (I have not read the books):
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ROTK: Granted, I’m still in shock from watching it, but I have never felt so emotionally close to movie characters in my life. I could feel Frodo’s pain in that trek up Mt. Doom, and I had a lump in my throat and hands gripped to the seat for every second of Pellenor Fields. Not merely my favoritie in the trilogy — it just might be the best movie I’ve ever seen.
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TTT: I think this is where LOTR became epic for me. Before then, I wasn’t fully aware of how epic a struggle this trilogy depicts. Plus, in a general cinematic sense, this was the first live-action movie ever to have a convincing, award-worthy performance from a CGI character. That is a landmark achievement and will go in the film history books.
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FOTR: Not cause it’s bad in any way, but I was just getting to know all these people at this point, and at this point I just hadn’t fully grasped what I was getting myself into yet. But it’s the perfect intro chapter in that it just keeps you begging for more.
Pretty much in order of release;
FOTR So brilliantly brought us into the world of Middle Earth and there was a deep sense of unease and loss at the end. I’d read the trilogy many times before but still I kept thinking, how are they going to complete their quest?
TTT A very close second for me, seeing the scope of Middle Earth, realising more the immensity of the quest ahead of the Fellowship. The siege of Helm’s Deep is an awesome battle scene to me, in its immensity and its fine detail.
ROTK The fact that this was the end (and the end was chopped so short) and there were a few little things missing. I don’t think mention was made of Denethor and his Palantir, it would have been good to see more of what happened to all the characters like Faramir. The Pelennor Fields battle was too large to me in a way, dramatic yes but in a different way to Helm’s Deep, it was hard for me to get into it as much.
But this isn’t Star Wars we’re talking about, the direction of the films was so consistent, for obvious reasons that its hard to decide by nitpicking any of them too much. Its pretty much down to what parts of the story you liked most.
You rank yourself as unfortunate for not appreciating incredible filmmaking and you move on.