HOLY CRAP, what a movie

[annathepiper]

I just got back from seeing Return of the King with solarbird. Everybody I have been seeing post about it, on Livejournal and on message boards, has been saying this movie is magnificent; they are right. I started crying about midway through the movie, and kept it up off and on pretty much until the credits rolled.

Right now my head is so very full that I'm not sure I've really truly absorbed everything I just saw yet. But let me hit the high points of the experience for me...

1. Tolkiengeeking with Dara all the way there, and much on the way back as well. :)

2. Seeing Gollum's origin story played out on camera as the opening salvo. Wasn't expecting that--but once it sank in what I was seeing, very well done indeed.

3. The looks on everyone's faces when they got to Isengard and found it had been taken down by a pack of extremely pissed-off Ents. Muahaha. ;)

4. The scene with Pippin wanting a look at the palantir. Nice going alerting the Enemy there, Pip! I don't think I remember this bit from the books, but like just about every change to the plotline that Jackson made, I certainly didn't mind it. And I jumped when Aragorn grabbed the flaming palantir out of Pippin's hands and got a brief smackdown because of it. Ow ow ow ow.

4a. Pippin finally being hit with the Maturity Stick as a result of this entire experience.

5. First shots of Minas Tirith. WOW. I mean, WOW.

6. janne posted about being moved by the lighting of the signal fires. Got me too!

7. The mustering of the Rohirrim to war. Theoden might have had some brief snarky attitude, but at least he came through when it counted!

8. I liked Arwen's vision of old Aragorn and their son--Eldarion! Which I know from having in fact skimmed around through my Tolkien reference text just prior to the movie. (Even though I am vaguely miffed that Tolkien only saw fit to cough up a name for the son, and all the rest of Arwen and Aragorn's children are merely described as 'a number of daughters'. Feh.)

9. Andúril! Andúril! Even if movie Aragorn gets his hands on the Sword That Was Reforged rather later in the plotline than he does in the books. :)

10. Eowyn getting all teary-eyed when Aragorn tells her he can't give her what she seeks. Sniffle. And the look of regretful sorrow on Aragorn's face, too.

11. "Have you learned nothing of the stubborness of dwarves?" Hehehehehe.

12. Denethor was suitably unsettling with the way he kept gnawing away at his food. And, I might add, a total asshole in telling Faramir to his face that "why yes, I wish YOU would have died instead of your brother."

13. Pippin has a surprisingly good singing voice! I wonder if Billy Boyd did that singing himself. And, I might add, that entire sequence was one of those bits that was almost painfully beautiful, with Pippin's singing on top of Faramir's doomed charge into Osgiliath, interspersed with Denethor being clearly more and more insane.

14. HOLY CRAP what an enormous army of orcs headed towards Minas Tirith. And we thought the force that besiged Helm's Deep was huge.

15. And the CATAPULTS flicking fuck-all enormous rocks into the city! YIP! And Gandalf rallying the men of Gondor and getting them to start flinging PARTS OF THEIR OWN ARCHITECTURE back at them.

16. The Army of Rohan showing up and the orcs all turning around and going "HOLY SHIT!"

17. THEN the Easterlings showing up with the HUGE OLIPHAUNTS! I gasped out loud at the sight of them. And there were what, TWENTY of those monsters?! And the looks on the faces of the Rohirrim when THEY got to go "HOLY SHIT". And Theoden looking shaken but managing to rally everybody and get them charging into battle with the creatures. Even if it did kind of remind me, looking back on it, of the Battle of Hoth in Empire Strikes Back and the Rebels in their snowspeeders having to deal with the Imperial Walkers. ;)

18. Then ARAGORN showing up. And stepping off that corsair ship with this "The King has Arrived and he is about to kick orcish ass" aura just rolling right off his frame. Legolas and Gimli flanking him. And the orcs all going "Wait, this isn't right.." but not really going "HOLY SHIT" until the Army of the Dead materializes behind them. ;D

19. Legolas! Legolas in battle! "50!" *PWANG!* "60!" *PWANG!*"

19a. Legolas climbing with lethal grace and beauty right up the side of that oliphaunt and taking out everybody on it and THEN taking the beast out himself. DAMN he's good!

19b. "That still only counts as one!" :D

20. EOWYN! Applause burst out all over the theater when she took out the Witch-King's steed.

20a. "Fool! No man can slay me!" "I AM NO MAN!"

21. The sequence with Gollum turning Frodo against Sam isn't in the books... and while that felt a little shakily done for me, and while I expect that's the part that probably pissed off a lot of the Tolkien fans who are bigger purists than I, Dara opines and I rather agree with her that it does a good job of helping portray how vulnerable Frodo is getting to the Ring by then. Because IMO, if Frodo had been truly himself he'd never have sent Sam away.

22. Shelob. ACK. ACK ACK ACK ACK. Yeah, that whole sequence was suitably ACKworthy. Especially Frodo getting stung by her and wrapped up. Brrrrr.

23. That entire garrison of orcs taking each other out over one argument started between two of them?! I don't think that played out that way in the books... but *giggle*. Lucky for Sam, nonetheless.

23a. Sam kicking orcish ass on the stairs! "That's for the Shire!" "That's for Frodo!" "That's for my old gaffer!"

24. Aragorn rousing the entire army of Gondor and taking them to the Black Gate to divert Sauron. And HOLY CRAP he was pretty with the way he had his hair braided up in back with the little beads and stuff in it. *SWOON* *thud*

24a. The speech he gives to the army just as the orcs are about to pour out of the Black Gate.

24b. The troll knocking Aragorn down in battle and being about to kick his ass, and Legolas closing in to assist him, just before the Ring is cast into the fire.

25. "I can't carry it for you, Mister Frodo, but I can carry you!" *SNIFFLE*

26. Frodo's POOR NECK! All bloody and chafed! It took me a bit to clue in that the chain of the Ring was doing that to him!

27. The looks on everybody's faces when the Ring fell into the fire and Mount Doom started to respond.

27a. Merry and Pippin realizing that a) Frodo has done it, but b) there's no earthly way he can possibly get off the mountain as it's going batshit up there.

27b. Hell, even SAURON looked astonished when the tower began to fall. Which was pretty incredible a special effect, I might add. The Eye actually looked vaguely disturbed as the tower began to collapse, and my brain flashed up with "HOLY SHIT! The tower is falling, I've got to hang on--DAMMIT! I HAVE NO HANDS!" :D

28. "Rosie Cotton dancing. She had ribbons in her hair. If I'd have ever married somebody, it'd have been her!" *SNIFFLE*

28a. However, damn you cassieclaire, for making me instantly think as soon as Sam uttered that line, "Guess I'm gonna hafta marry you instead, Master Frodo." ;)

29. Aragorn crowned King in Minas Tirith! :D

29a. Aragorn and Arwen smooching! :D :D I was the only one who applauded that, but hey, helpless romantic sucker here. What can I say. :D

30. The look on the face of the old grouchy hobbit farmer as Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin all ride by on their return to the Shire and blithely wave at him as if there isn't a single thing unusual about them riding by. Hee!

31. I realize that the entire sequence with the liberation of the Shire has been left out of this movie--though I honestly can't say I'm sorry that it's not there. I always felt that Saruman and Grima going off and trying to take over the Shire... diminished Saruman, somehow. Made him too petty. It felt unworthy of him. Plus, it preserves the whole sense of innocence of the Shire, and I like that.

32. Frodo and Bilbo leaving the Grey Havens for Valinor. *SNIFFLE!*

33. Sam going back to Rosie and their children--and little Elanor, his eldest! Which I also noted, having skimmed around through the reference text before the movie!

I'm sure there's much, much more that will be rolling around in my head about this movie for weeks to come. Another viewing is called for without question, if not two!

And like I said up at the top of this post... this movie is MAGNIFICENT. I saw a bit of a review that talked about this closing chapter elevating Peter Jackson's work unquestionably to the status of Classic. I am behind that opinion one hundred percent.

WOW.

Comments

[emmacrew.livejournal.com]

I wonder if Billy Boyd did that singing himself.

Yes, he did, lovely wasn't it? *loves Pippin.*

Viggo did his own singy bit as well.

You missed one! <grin>

[murson.livejournal.com]

29b (or thereabouts): "You bow to no-one," followed by Aragorn and Arwen bowing to the hobbits - which of course means everyone else has to, too! :->

Personally, I always viewed Shelob as being a hell of a lot larger, but I can live with it... now, am I the only person that thought Sam coming in to face Shelob should have said "Get away from him, you BITCH!"? (With apologies to any "Aliens" fans reading!)

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

4: Actually, this was in the book. (I just reread it.)

5: That got me, too.

23: It happened this way in the books, too, although it was more clear that there had been constant rivalry between the two bands -- one was from Minas Morgul and the other from Barad Dur.

25: I sniffled then, too.

26: I thought that was a nice touch.

34: Fun review/commentary.

[wrog]

4. The scene with Pippin wanting a look at the palantir. Nice going alerting the Enemy there, Pip! I don't think I remember this bit from the books, but like just about every change to the plotline that Jackson made, I certainly didn't mind it. And I jumped when Aragorn grabbed the flaming palantir out of Pippin's hands and got a brief smackdown because of it. Ow ow ow ow.

It was in the book but different. When Pippin steals it away in the middle of the night, nobody notices until he cries out. And when Aragorn uses it later on (though there isn't actually a scene of this), he most definitely does not get smacked down.

That all I didn't mind. What annoyed me (slightly) was their leaving out the whole Voice of Saruman scene (where he tries one last time to convince Gandalf to join him, ... ending with "Your staff is broken"), especially since Christopher Lee and Ian McKellen would have done that so well.

5. First shots of Minas Tirith. WOW. I mean, WOW.

Yay CGI. Also yay completely faithful to the description in the book; it amazes me the number of times in this whole series where Jackson managed to recreate a scene almost EXACTLY matching the mental picture I got when I read the book the first time around (the Balin's Tomb in Moria scene was another instance of this).

6. janne posted about being moved by the lighting of the signal fires. Got me too!

ding!

12. Denethor was suitably unsettling with the way he kept gnawing away at his food. And, I might add, a total asshole in telling Faramir to his face that "why yes, I DO wish YOU would have died instead of your brother."

What really made this work for me was the actor playing Denethor and his resemblence to William Windom (who played Commodore Decker in the ST(TOS) planet-killer episode) right down to being able to project that same perfect aura of Total I-Am-Completely-Fucked Despair:

"I beamed them down to the third planet ..."
"But there is no third planet... "
"DON'T YOU THINK I KNOW THAT??!"

14. HOLY CRAP what an enormous army of orcs headed towards Minas Tirith. And we thought the force that besiged Helm's Deep was huge.

Yay CGI

17. THEN the Easterlings showing up with the HUGE OLIPHAUNTS! ....Imperial Walkers.

Yeah, it was all I could do to keep from blurting out, "We will have the shield generator down momentarily..."
Now I'm wondering if Jackson did this as a kind of deliberate homage.

23. That entire garrison of orcs taking each other out over one argument started between two of them?! I don't think that played out that way in the books...

I think it did play out that way, for the most part.

31. I realize that the entire sequence with the liberation of the Shire has been left out of this movie--though I honestly can't say I'm sorry that it's not there. I always felt that Saruman and Grima going off and trying to take over the Shire... diminished Saruman, somehow. Made him too petty. It felt unworthy of him.

Actually, that was whole point. The idea that he could think this kind of mischief to be worthwhile was an indication of just how far he had fallen.

Plus, it preserves the whole sense of innocence of the Shire, and I like that.

Except for the small matter that Tolkien considered it an integral part of the story; the whole point was that the war reached EVERYWHERE and nobody's innocence was preserved. Oh well. Given the pacing of the movie I can see how it would have been Really Hard to do right.

[wrog]

And yeah, if the Oscar folks find some way not to give this one Best Picture, well,...

... I don't think it would be overly geek-movie-centric of me to call it a probable sign of serious heads-up-assedness on the part of the Academy,

... though I guess it wouldn't be the first time for this sort of thing either.

[agrimony.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was all I could do to keep from blurting out, "We will have the shield generator down momentarily..."
Now I'm wondering if Jackson did this as a kind of deliberate homage.

Or, perhaps, the inspiration for that scene in Star Wars comes from having read Tolkien in the first place? :) Pure speculation on my part, but I can see how it could be.

[annathepiper]

Oh, Aragorn singing didn't surprise me since I had seen him doing that bit of singing in the extended version of Fellowship (though it was good to see him sing again--though also I half-wish everyone else would have sung as well... because there's just something about voices in mass harmony that would have been quite shiversome for me at the crowning scene :) ). But I think Pippin singing actually grabbed me more than Aragorn singing... he has a higher, purer, sweeter voice.

I'm also trying to remember if we heard Billy Boyd singing at all in Master and Commander--a good deal of singing in that flick. Guess I'm going to have to see it again to check. ;)

(Though now I must also add that it was strange to go see M&C and see a tall blond Billy Boyd and then go see RotK and see a short brown-haired barefoot one!)

[annathepiper]

Awwww! :) Yes, that movie was far and away a tear-worthy experience... I think I cried harder for it than I did for Fellowship. Which is just and appropriate!

Definitely going to see this flick again soon but don't know when yet!

Re: You missed one! <grin>

[annathepiper]

OH YES, the bit with everyone bowing to the hobbits. I should definitely have included that because it totally made me go "Awwwwww!"

Hee. Dara noted in my reference book while we were eating lunch that it said that after the War of the Ring, due to their contribution to the events at hand, the other races started including the hobbits in their songs and stories--a courtesy which apparently went largely unreturned by the hobbits. *giggle*

I didn't get Aliens vibes off of Sam's rescue, at least not consciously, but looking back on it I can definitely see some similar things at least in terms of what creeped me out. Like the absolute silence of Shelob's movements when she was sneaking up on Frodo for that last attack! Brrrrr!

[solarbird]

Yeah, it was all I could do to keep from blurting out, "We will have the shield generator down momentarily..."
When Legolas started jumping up one's left front leg, I immediately thought, "Time for a light-sabre disemboweling by Luke!"

[solarbird]

They won't. But they'll award a special oscar for cinematic achievement, to the whole trilogy, I bet.

[annathepiper]

#4 - Yeah, I went back and looked at the book last night as well and found the chapter where Pippin looks at the palantir--actually at the end of Two Towers rather than at the beginning of Return of the King.

#23 - Duly noted about the orcs! That part's hazier to me; what I remembered was Sam and Frodo sneaking into Mordor dressed like orcs. Very LITTLE orcs. ^_^

#34 - Thank you!

[annathepiper]

I will be MOST MIFFED if it doesn't get Best Picture!

I'm with gamera_spinning too--I saw his post on my Friends list the other day about how he is ardently in favor of Sean Astin getting Best Supporting Actor, too.

[annathepiper]

They should do this too!

[annathepiper]

Maybe, though I've never heard tell of Lucas having wanted to pay homage to Tolkien... I dunno. If it were JMS and Babylon 5 I'd totally buy it, but I'm less sure about Lucas. :)

[annathepiper]

It was in the book but different. When Pippin steals it away in the middle of the night, nobody notices until he cries out. And when Aragorn uses it later on (though there isn't actually a scene of this), he most definitely does not get smacked down.

Yeah, like I mentioned to holyoutlaw, I found the scene where Pippin peeks at the palantir at the tail end of Two Towers last night. :)

That all I didn't mind. What annoyed me (slightly) was their leaving out the whole Voice of Saruman scene (where he tries one last time to convince Gandalf to join him, ... ending with "Your staff is broken"), especially since Christopher Lee and Ian McKellen would have done that so well.

Might be in the extended edition! There's a whole lot of stuff I wish they hadn't left out of the third movie, but if they'd included everything the damned thing would have been nine hours long. ;D It'll be really interesting to see what's on the DVD.

Actually, that was whole point. The idea that he could think this kind of mischief to be worthwhile was an indication of just how far he had fallen.

Yeah, I grok that; I remember that, I believe, from my reading. It's one of the instances, though, where the story as told just didn't quite work for me. When I re-read the whole trilogy just after first seeing Fellowship I remember thinking that while seeing Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin sweep in and kick all the bad guys out of the Shire was rather heroic of them, still... having it be Saruman and Grima that they booted out just felt... wrong.

Except for the small matter that Tolkien considered it an integral part of the story; the whole point was that the war reached EVERYWHERE and nobody's innocence was preserved. Oh well. Given the pacing of the movie I can see how it would have been Really Hard to do right.

Oh yeah, I totally grok Tolkien's point here as well--I think maybe this just might be an artifact of me being a different kind of romantic than he was. Or maybe my living in a world that's less innocent than the world he lived in. I like the notion of a corner of Middle-Earth staying innocent. :)

But yeah... I'm with you about the pacing of the film. If you're going to blow up the Death Star you don't want to spend forty-five more minutes with MORE MOVIE. ;) Especially if you're already at 3 hours 30 minutes!

Though again, it'll be interesting to see whether the liberation of the Shire gets into the DVD. I didn't see anything necessarily in the final scenes that counts that out. The only possible problem I might see is that as I recall Gandalf actually let Saruman GO in Two Towers, and at the beginning of the movie we hear it said he's locked away in Isengard. So we'd need some sort of earlier scene stuck in where either Gandalf does let him go or Saruman escapes.

[gerimaple.livejournal.com]

Though again, it'll be interesting to see whether the liberation of the Shire gets into the DVD.

It won't. that's the only part of the book Peter Jackson didn't like, so it was never even shot.

[wrog]

I didn't get the same vibe from this scene that I did from Balin's tomb, the initial tour of Minas Tirith, or the half dozen other scenes where Jackson followed Tolkien's detailed visual prescriptions pretty much to the letter.

Now it's fair to say that, at 12 years of age, I probably had more of a tendency to skim battle scenes in my impatience to find out what happens and thus didn't pick up on the full descriptions of the oliphaunts.

But, that initial shot of the half dozen or so walkers lined up on the horizon, slowly advancing, is so similar to the corresponding frame from Empire. Taking that in combination with the Legolas-take-down scene --- which I'll admit wasn't completely a shot-for-shot remake of the Luke-vs-walker contest --- and I really have to wonder. I figure this is not a case where there are only so many ways to depict something and they're inevitably going to end up looking similar.

And yes, Lucas could easily have been stealing, too, but, even 20 years later, I have no idea where it might have been from.

[annathepiper]

Ah okay... well, like I said in another comment, I can't say I'll miss it all that much. :) Do you know why he didn't like that particular part?

[annathepiper]

Heh! mamishka was commenting to me about how when she was a kid she was skimming all the battle scenes because she wanted to know what happened to Frodo and Sam--and now it was the other way around for her. ;D

I think I wound up skimming all the Frodo and Sam parts waiting to get back to Aragorn, myself!

[starfallz.livejournal.com]

#1 I'm STILL Tolkein geeking. :D

#4 Been said already, but yea, happened in the book.

#5 Totally. I had never quite conceived what it looked like before.

#6 Oh man yes!

#12 Just read over the section in the book and exact in wording almost there. Denethor you ass! Of course Faramir was an ass who redeems himself in the movie instead of being noble. Arg.

#13 It is on the soundtrack too, I think.... which I hope to buy tomorrow. You know they have different covers for all the characters? Can't find a 1 with Legolas at Best Buy. XD That's ok, I want Gandalf.

#17 I was waiting for him to wrap a rope around the legs to bring it down. XD

#20 YES YES YES!

#21 This part bothered me.

#23a *squee!*

#27b XD XD XD

#30 All in their foreign finery too!

#32 I was outright crying at this point. T_T

#33 Elanor was played by Sean Astin's real life daughter too. :)

AND THE EAGLES KICKED ASS!!!! You forgot that point. Very important.

Thanks for the fun review. :) I hope to see it again another 2 times at the least in the theatre. :)

[princessheacock.livejournal.com]

"Sam going back to Rosie and their children--and little Elanor, his eldest! Which I also noted, having skimmed around through the reference text before the movie!"

Sam is my favorite. So I'm glad he's the one that gets the girl. Why is Elanor significant?

Looks like we ARE going to see the movie next Tuesday... We'll see how things go

[kent.livejournal.com]

There were a few bits of dialogue (so I have no idea if they were in the original books or not) that echoes lines in Star Wars, but nothing blatant like "I have a bad feeling about this." I specifically remember "What does your heart tell you?" (originally Ma Skywalker to Anakin, now Aragorn to Gandalf?). But there was another one where I thought, "Man, that has to be some kind of homage!" My one example in this comment is pretty sketchy. I wish I could remember the one that I'm thinking of.

[wrog]

Why is Elanor significant?

because it's her line (the Fairbairns of the Towers) that becomes the Wardens of the Westmarch, and keepers of the Red Book (originally Bilbo's and Frodo's diaries but with much other random stuff added to it over the years) that eventually becomes one of Tolkien's most important "sources" for the War of the Ring.

and then we have interesting practical joke #32, which would be to plant a copy of the Red Book somewhere in one of the Oxford rare books collections...

[wrog]

well, buh.

[wrog]

It'll be really interesting to see what's on the DVD.

Actually I doubt there's going to be a huge amount of extra stuff on the DVD this time. While I can think of plenty of book-stuff that was left out (Sam+Frodo getting drafted into the orc army, courtship of Faramir+Eowyn, etc...), I can't really think of much they could put back that wouldn't likewise destroy the pacing of the movie.

And unlike with the first two movies, given PJ's now-established track record, this one was enough of a sure thing with the theatre chains that they wouldn't be objecting to showing a 3.5+ hour movie the way they usually would.

... meaning there's a good chance that what we saw is the extended edition.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

FYI: Jackson's initial cut of this film was 4:30. The theatrical release was 3:20.

In short, he cut out over an hour of stuff.

That doesn't mean it will all go back in, but from recent comments by the filmmakers, the final scene with Saruman and the Houses of Healing are two scenes that *will* go back in.

From my point of view as a relative Tolkien purist, and from the point of view of pacing, I can think of other bits that could fit in, too.

[annathepiper]

Elanor mostly just stood out for me because I remembered seeing her mentioned by name in my reference text. She was called "Elanor the Fair" since she had blonde hair. :) wrog better addressed the history of her branch of the family, though!

And yay on you getting to see the movie!

[annathepiper]

Heh, yes, that'd be amusing. I did like the nice touch of that red book cover on the volume we see Frodo writing in at the end of the movie! :)

[annathepiper]

Yeah, the "what does your heart tell you?" line stood out for me, too. It was just a trifle weird for me. :)

[annathepiper]

Having just watched the extended Two Towers, I really appreciate all the extra Faramir mileage that's in there. It makes what we see in the theatrical version of the movie make a lot more sense and it also makes Jackson's portrayal of Faramir less "asshole who redeems himself". It's Denethor who clearly comes out the asshole in the extended mix!

I'm charmed that Elanor was Sean Astin's kid! :)

And yes, yes, the Eagles were magnificent as well and I should absolutely have mentioned them!

[annathepiper]

I want the Houses of Healing bits! I always was a sucker for Faramir when I read the trilogy as a kid. :) And I liked the bits between him and Eowyn. I was glad to see at least a shot of them together at the crowning in the theatrical release!

[joxn.livejournal.com]

I don't know how I imagined the mass of rock jutting up like the prow of a ship (a poor from-memory paraphrase of Tolkien's description of Minas Tirith), but the movie got it stunningly right. When I saw it, I knew it was right.

Now, if we could only do something about the giant lighthouse-like eye on the radio tower. Geeze. What a failure of imagination. And from The Hobbit we know the Necromancer had a body.

[annathepiper]

Sauron had a body? I don't remember that at all, but then it's been ages since I read through The Hobbit--and my reference text does talk about Sauron most often appearing as a great Eye during the Third Age.

[flashfire.livejournal.com]

Dude..er, dudette...I think you just about summed up all of my biggest "Wow" moments, too!

[annathepiper]

There's a humongous pile of WOW all over that movie, indeed. :D

And I'm still really giggling over today's PVPOnline strip on this very topic (12/27/03 in the Archives, for anyone who reads this comment after today!). Hee!