March 6, 2004

Three Year Wait
Thorongil

When I heard that a movie was being made from the LOTR books, I was excited. The first things I thought about were the Balrog, the Ents destroying Isengard, Gandalf breaking Saruman's staff, and so on. But the parts I looked forward to the most wre in ROTK; Aragorn challenging Sauron with the Palantir, the counterattack from the city to save the out companies, the Witch King challenging Gandalf, the cloud breaking, Denathor dying with the Palantir, the Gondorians marching out of the gate, Aragorn unferling the Banner of the Kings, and the last battle at Cormallen. (whew)

When I saw the Fellowship, I would get to see most of these. The TT made me nervous, but I was sure Peter would come through. Another year of waiting........ and then we get... this. All the best scenes changed (I have no problem with PJ changing scenes, but he better make dang sure it's improving the movie.) All the best scenes changed, and we get a movie that is special effects driven, the only thing that gives it good plot is the Tolkien things left in, a movie where none of the characters make sense, where the plot can't stand up for itself, and so on. I expected some of the scenes would be changed, but not for no good reason. We have been waiting three long years for these scenes, and now we will never get to see them.