December 27, 2003

The Big Disappointment
Melkor

Well I was there, opening night at 12:01 for the very first screening of ROTK. The anticipation was amazing, the theatre full, everyone waiting to see the last act. So after seeing it, what was the best part, why the new Harry Potter movie preview that’s what. It looks like it is bound to be good, and well ROTK was anything but.


I have waited almost a week before giving my review because I was interested in what other Tolkien fans, or well supposed Tolkien fans thought of it. Let me tell you that your reviews are almost as disappointing as the movie was. I expected that anyone who loved the books and the story they told would be offended by this butchering of the final act.

I was one of the first to praise FOTR and why not? It deserved every compliment it got. Of course there were changes from the book, there has to be and we are all over that. But the main thing was that it told a STORY. It was not some cheesy action film deprived of a plot. That brings us to TTT, some story lingered in it. There were times when the action slowed and story was implemented, sure it deviated from the book in ways I can never forgive but at least there was a trace of good old fashion story in it.

That of course leads to ROTK. And the big question, what happened? I know my expectations were too high, they always are. But that was terrible. The only dialogue was the heroic speeches before charges, which were very good. The rest of the time it was just Weta showing off their amazing special effects abilities. The film got so pathetic at times that I expected to see Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone come in guns blazing. What Jackson did was abandoned story in favour of boring repetitive battles that appeal to the morons with 10-second attention spans. That of course is the problem. The great thing about LOTR is the story that is told, Tolkien never gives up more than 10 pages describing battle scenes, because in the end they are not as interesting as the characters.

ROTK did have some good points, yes it did look amazing visually, everything was the way I thought it should be minus the fact it was always sunny, and minus the eye of Sauron and its crazy spotlight, what kind of junk is that? When the battle of Pelennor fields began and the orcs launched the heads of the Gondorian Soldiers over the walls, I held my breath hoping the movie would take a turn for the better, inside the mountain the dead looked fantastic no doubt.

In the end it failed miserably because it was nothing more than a fancy expensive display of special effects prowess and completely abandoned story, plus the dialogue sucked, Frodo sending Sam away was pointless and the dead on Pelennor fields was more ridiculous than anything I have ever seen

When the Hobbit is made let peter Jackson direct it. But for the love of god keep his wife or whatever she is and that other girl away from the script. After what they have done to ROTK I believe a monkey with a typewriter could have done a better job...