And you know this…how, exactly? Were you an oliphant researcher in Gondor in another life?
Regarding the Nazgul’s neck: we never see what’s under all those robes. It’s implied in the book that it’s entirely possible that it’s just some sort of wraith or magic, in which case cutting power or Eowyn’s arms would be irrelevant.
I posted this in the talkback thread, but only one other poster bit.
Anyone else underwhelmed by the portrayal of Sauron as a huge firey cat’s eye who borrowed the It’s a Wonderful Life bridgekeeper’s most powerful flashlight in the worldTM.
Especially hokey when it was jiggling back and forth as Barad Dur collapsed.
Fine to have that as the image Sauron sends out via palantir, but did anyone else read the books and actually imagine a big old disembodied eye perched atop the dark tower, visible throughout Mordor?
Then you missed it. There was a struggle, there was a bite, there was dancing, and then there was Frodo glaring and finally charging at Gollum and pushing him off the ledge.
I dunno, Munch.
Tho I would qualify it as kinda pushy-like, I think after Frodo charged at Gollum, they grappled for a little while before they both fell. It isn’t as tho F just blindsided G and launched him into the abyss. But F definitely did charge at G after G bit off the ring.
When they set up the scene, I was afraid they would have F simply push G in. But the way they set it up, I got the impression F wanted to get the ring back for himself. Which would make pushing G in useless. I guess the struggle was better IMO than the simple heroic shove I feared.
My preference would have been for a G happy dance, followed by a pratfall dive… Call me a traditionalist. Or would that be a strict constructionist…? Yeah, that’s it. Me and my buddies Clarence and Antonin…
I preferred to call him “Searchlight Sauron”.
There is a bit on the Encyclopedia of Arda Moviegoer’s guide to FotR about the portrayal of Sauron in the films:
One of the oddest changes from the book is that Sauron doesn’t have a body; Saruman tells Gandalf that he isn’t yet able to ‘take physical form’. It’s hard to see how this could be true - what use would the Ring be to Sauron, if he didn’t have a finger to wear it on? The book makes it very clear that he does have a physical form - ‘He has only four [fingers] on the Black Hand, but they are enough’, says Gollum in The Two Towers, and this is confirmed explicitly by Tolkien among his letters. Actually, this does seem to be a misinterpretation rather than a deliberate change, because Peter Jackson has himself described Sauron in at least one interview as being a no more than a floating eyeball.
Gorsnak: It seems we bacisally agree that stuff got left out of the movie that would have explained things better.
Shade: My issue with the strength of Eowyn’s arm wasn’t with killing the Witch King, but his very large mount. Someone else said she actually struck several blows before the head came off, which makes more sense, but you can’t see it that well because of the editing.
I was going to chime in and mention that I see her hack at least twice before it came off. I saw that it didn’t come off the first time and I smiled, because that was far more realistic.
Mr. Cranky’s Rating:
Two Cannonballs (Consistently annoying)
Snip:
Don’t take offense. He’s Britian’s straight, internet version of Rex Reed & shreds just about every film he’s seen.
Whoops my bad. Never mind.
Watch the movie again. They fall while struggling for the ring.
Just came back from my second viewing.
- Eowyn takes 2 whacks to behead the fell beast.
- Frodo and Gollum are struggling after Gollum gets the ring. Both fall–no pushing was involved.
There were parts of the movie that left me feeling “Eh” but there were also parts that I greatly enjoyed, and parts that made me cry.
I think that in general the last film in the trilogy was almost guaranteed to have “Eh” moments because:
- You have already seen how the director deals with certain types of situations, so lots of things don’t feel as new as they would had they happened in a previous movie.
This is largely inevitable.
- It is the end, so instead of being judged together with the excitement of knowing that another movie is yet to come, it is judged knowing that there will be no more, and thus whatever you get is all you get.
Personally, I think that some of the things I didn’t like (that weird puffy orc, for example) wouldn’t have really bothered me if it wasn’t the last movie, and thus the last chance to see something really well done.
- The storylines get split up more than ever in the last book, and that makes it much harder to film. Many would even consider it unfilmable.
Yes, the cuts were jarring, and I often wished I was watching some other storyline. But considering the difficultly involved, PJ outdid my expectations.
There were some things that were just really bad choices:
The army of the dead are now invincible ghosts who sweep through the orcs like they are nothing. Terrible change from the books, perhaps the worst change in the trilogy.
The ghost army kind of trivializes the entire battle - and the battle is a huge part of the movie.
I saw the movie with someone who had not read the books, and he kept asking “Why didn’t Aragorn just have the ghosts kill Sauron’s whole army, and then release them?”
Denethor is crazy with no explanation, and Gandalf throws him into the fire and makes no attempt to save him.
Hopefully this will be partially fixed in the EE by showing Sauron taking away all of Denethor’s hope. The absence of that storyline was glaring.
The battle was good in parts, but overall less successful than that in TT.
I think this was partly because it was lighter during this battle, and because the battle took place in a much bigger area, making it seem more sparsely populated and less intimate.
I was unconvinced of the might and danger of Sauron’s army, and the battle sometimes seemed more like a spectacle (A few big trolls, a few oliphaunts, as if in a parade) than an actual battle.
CGI was overused, and the ghost army detracted from the battle.
I thought the Sam/Frodo/Gollum storyline was done very well, and the changes were fine. The double-personality thing suffered by having been done before, and Gollum on the invisible Frodo looked funny, but overall very well done.
And I happen to like the big majestic shots, like all the torches being lit.
Like some others have said, there is an amazing movie in RoTK.
If I could make my own personal “mixtape” of the movie, cutting out some lines (Theoden complaining about Gondor not coming to his aid, for example) and cutting some scenes (the ghost army sweeping through the orcs, I just don’t want to see that, and I’d get rid of some of the battle scenes that had bad CGI), and adding some scenes (hopefully the EE will provide them), I would love it and consider it the best of the three films.
In fact, now that I think of that, I really wonder if there is a way I could make such a thing…
I thought it was Eh. I pointed out several things in the other thread.
Most of all, two things:
-
The ending just went on entirely too long. I was not the only one in the theater to think so. Two girls in front of me said, “Oh, it’s really over? Good!” And two people left during the tavern scene. And as MeanJoe says, it tried too hard to be epic. Leading to my second criticism:
-
The dialogue. It was way too Shakespearean. Tolkien’s books were written in a way which made it fun even for children, i.e., he wrote what he wrote for a reason. (How can I explain what I’m trying to say???) that is, the film’s characters spoke too dramatically; I felt as though I were being manipulated emotionally, whereas with the books, the characters seem more real, and the dialogue seems like real Middle Earth conversations. There’s nothing so mysterious and ethereal about the mission - to destroy the Ring. But the film seems … what? … deliberately obfuscated in parts.
Anyway, to those who suggest that we who are criticizing are out of line, how is Peter Jackson supposed to improve his moviemaking (including a possible Hobbit) if he doesn’t get any feedback?
Another vote for “eh.” I have never read the books and frankly, I shouldn’t have needed to in order to understand all the questions that have been asked in this thread. To wit:
- Arwen had no purpose whatsoever that I could tell, in any of the movies.
- Denithor seemed crazy for no real reason.
- Faramir was a puss and a jerk (for the way he treated Gollum) and I didn’t really have any sympathy for him when he died.
- The entire battle seemed like a repeat of Helm’s Deep – a battle against incredible odds, and at the end a surprise cavalry rides over the hill to save the day.
- The end, talk about long and tedious.
Also, just to put in my two cents: Eowyn cut twice, and they both fell; Frodo caught himself.
The scene where Gollum finally gets the ring and is looking up at it was awesome, I was glad he finally got to hold it again, even though I knew it would be for the last time.
I preferred TT.
Only real grip was the trailer scene showing us Gandalf on horseback being confronted by a Nazgul on the walls of Minas Tirith. It’ll probably be in the EE but we were really hoping to see it on the day 
Yes, because that wouldn’t be like every ohter godamn movie ever made. And of course, it wouldn’t ruin the whole point of Gollum’s accidental death, which is: providence.
Er… this pretty much WAS like the books. The army of the dead were pretyt much invincible: in fact they didn’t even have to fight, because the orcs and men simply fled in terror at their approach. Which leads to one of the best lines about the enemy’s own weapons turned against them.
And the book itself doesn’t do a good job of explaining why Aragorn only asks them to clear just one territory of the servants of the enemy. I think the main problem with the movie is that the army istoo visible. It would be much scarier if they were mostly concealed in darkness, barely seen black shapes. seeing them ruins it.
And I really, really hate that the ring floats on the lava for an endless eternity before finally dissolving. Sheesh. Gollum falls, yells “Precious” and goes in. End of Story (of the ring).
It’s been a couple years since the last time I read the books, but I seem to remember that the army of the dead didn’t even fight at the main battle. In my memory, Aragorn showed up in ships with living warriors, already having released the dead.
Thus in the books they did not detract from the main battle, and make everyone else’s efforts seem pointless, as they did in the movie. And I know that the army of the dead in the books didn’t sweep through orcs and swarm over oliphaunts, killing them all easily. I still think that was likely the worst change in the whole trilogy.
I agree with you that they should have been barely seen black shapes. I’ve always thought of them as shadowlike.
Looking back on it, I think this is the main thing that won’t be fixed by the EE. The other major problem was Denethor, but presumably the EE will show Denethor’s palantir, and explain how Sauron stole all his hope.
As for the ending… I liked that it was long. I would have been dissapointed if it had ended abruptly after all that had happened. I liked the scene with the hobbits laughing about Sam, who was courageous enough to fight orcs and giant spiders, but got scared when trying to talk to a girl.