December 31, 2003

Re: Melkor
Danny

I understand your frustrations about the changes in the story, but still don't understand your complaints about lack of story.

Lots of time was spent on quiet moments before the battle. Pippin talks with Gandalf about hating to be on the edge of a battle. The scene I mentioned where Eowyn is helping Merry get armed for battle is a qiuet dialogue moment that is pure story. Theoden's moments with Eowyn telling her her expected duties, Aragorn's fairwell as he leaves for the paths of the dead, the nervous fear in the soldiers of Rohan, the soldiers asking Gandalf for reassurances before the battle starts; there was plenty of the breath before the plunge. I actually found it ironic that you said there was no "breath before the plunge" stuff when Gandalf actually uses that exact phrase in one of the quieter scenes. How about the time in Rohan when the people celebrate their victory and salute their dead countrymen? What about Arwyn's scenes? So you think that the Smeagol/Deagol scene to begin wasn't done to develop that character and build the story? The reunion of Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas was another great character moment even if the Isengard scene was unfortunately shortened by 7 minutes. If I were to post this fresh off another viewing of the movie, I could certainly post loads and loads of scenes that were great for story and character.

I too would have prefered to have seen the Gollum, Frodo and Sam scenes closer to the book. It would have been cool to have seen the last shred of decency and pitty in Smeagol's face and Sam's accusing Gollum of sneaking instead of what happened. Yes it would have been nice to have seen Denethor's death more like the book and find out he has a palantir, but again I can forgive that. I disagree that it was so disasterous, and also disagree that it was neccesaray in film to better pave the way for Aragorn to take the throne. The films were clear on that eventuality from early in Two Towers if not Fellowship. There are other things that I would have prefered to have seen like the book, but I wholeheartedly disagree that there is lack of story or character. As a film, I have to concede that as a film many of those changes were fabulous, though somewhat unfortunate on the perspective of my being a fan of the book. Like I said, I actually beleive that the characters are the strongest and most developed in this film of the three. I also don't beleive that just because a scene has action and spectacle doesn't mean it doesn't have story and character development. A huge part of a characters development is how they act and behave when things get dangerous. Eowyn's character is developed for example by her fighting the wraith. Sure there isn't tons of dialogue there, but there wasn't much in the book either. Even so, it develops her character nicely. She spoke of courage and then steps up and lives true to what she spoke of.

Even judging ROTK from the perspective of an avid fan of the books (which I consider myself to be), this film was amazingly well done. I don't understand how the complaint that there is no story or character can be made when there was a 20 minute ending that was strictly for the purpose of finishing off the story. Sure changes were made, and things were left out, but that is inevitable. The changes to story and character are actually much less in ROTK than Fellowship and especially Two Towers.

If I judge the films as films first and book adaptations second, I am even more complimentary of the film because it does have strong character moments and does have story. I do tend to be one who looks first as a fan of the book but even so I am amazed that they pulled it off as well as they did.

In my opinion, the film with the least character development is TTT. If there were to be a film with what you could call holywoodification it would be TTT. The warg scene was added in place of things that showed up in the extended and were fabulous for character. Faramir was mangled from a book fans point of view, Theoden is changed etc etc. However, I still think highly of that film but personally beleive that the extended version redeemed that movie in many many ways. Hopefully for you Melkor, the extended ROTK will redeem this one for you. I personally don't beleive it needs that nearly as much as Two Towers did.

Anyway, I gather that we are essentially going to have to agree to disagree. I listed several great story developing scenes in my first post about this, and reiterating them isn't going to do anything that didn't happen on a first mentioning. Anyway, I fail to see how you can't see the character development that was done, and is exactly why this movie is 3hrs 30min long rather than 2hrs long.