January 1, 2004

My Disappointment at RotK
Josh

I wanted to like it. Really I did.
I've been a big fan of the books since before the movies came out. But Return of the King, was arguably the low point in the trilogy for me.

First off, it was entertaining, I'll give it that. And there were parts about it that I truly enjoyed and loved. But I found many things I disliked about it. I'm sure some of these will surely be remedied by the Extended Edition. But then again some won't.

The main one that comes to mind for me is Aragorn's rangers from the north. They were without a doubt among my favorite characters in the movie. My absolute favorites being Elladan and Elrohir, who arrive with them. Seeing this cut out was a major blow to me. Furthermore, to see it replaced with what I held to be a cheesy substitute (the Army of the Dead) disappointed me more.

Then Elrond's arrival, he comes, drops off the sword, and leaves. Come on now, what is he a delivery service?

While there certainly was character development, it wasn't as much as in the books, and I found the fictional heroes much less developed than in the book. Understandably however since it would take longer. On that point I thought the ending, whose heart was in the right place, tried to do too much, and the only endings I was satisfied with were Aragorn's coronation, and Sam's return home, other than that, it lightly touched the rest.

I know this was long and I'm sorry about it, but I needed to get my thoughts out. There were alot of other parts I was disappointed with, as well as things I liked, but that's all from me.

For now.