June 21, 2003

Pelennor Fields
Warg

G, and Manofwesternesse, I certainly hope they don't spend an hour of footage on the Pelennor fields and the black gate. There is too much story telling to do, along with the new characters that must be introduced. I'm affraid that ROTK will fall into the same trap that TTT did by trying so hard to pack it with action that they lose the characters and the plot entirely. If they devote 2 hours simply to war footage I won't even bother seeing the film. The "War" theme was much too overstated in the second film, and it got a bit redundant and annoying to be honest. I think the word "War" was spoken five times if I remember correctly. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that when two armies start fighting, it means war. Also I don't think I can handle much more of the "blair-witch" style camera movements during fight scenes, especially if they're going to be that long.

If ROTK is four hours long, then granted, PJ can do whatever he wants (he can do whatever he wants anyway), but I feel like there's far too much that needs to happen in film 3 to devote a bunch of time to "war." We got plenty of it in TTT; too much, in fact. Helm's Deep was only about fifteen pages long, yet became 40 minutes of film. I would have much rather seen "The Palantir" and the Huorns at Helm's Deep, and had more time devoted to the importance of why they are even in Rohan (I don't remember Gandalf even mentioning the quest of the Ring or the hobbits, or why they are going to Edoras). If so, it's way too brief; whereas in the book Gandalf spends a large amount of time explaining the state of affairs, and why they must do what they are about to do.

I also would have liked to see a little more of Saruman. As the film's established villain he needed to be more pronounced. His role in TTT was very similar to Darth Maul in Star Wars Episode 1. Simply not enough screen time. Had they taken out the warg ambush, Osgiliath, and maybe 20 minutes of "War" footage I think they would have made a much, MUCH better rendition of The Two Towers. But that is only my opinion.