My review has been posted (and another essay)

[Michael Martinez]

Actually, it went live yesterday morning, but I was just too tired yesterday to tell people about it.

So, look for Returning to the Ring at my MERP.COM topic.

Here is an excerpt:

Six years ago I read an online rumor that someone was working on a "Lord of the Rings" movie. Since then, I've found myself jostling for sanity along with hundreds, even thousands of other writers who have all been swept up in the LoTR craze. And now here I am again, writing the obligatory review.

Writing is never easy when it's an obligation. When so many people expect you to say something, it's almost inevitable that you're going to choke. That's only human nature. And expectation has played such a large part in the post J.R.R. Tolkien world of Tolkien commentary and interpretation that even Peter Jackson's films have been deluged with complaints about perceived failures.

There was a time when people felt lucky to be alive while someone was filming a live-action LoTR adaptation. And there was a time when most online Tolkien fans reacted negatively to the idea of anyone adapting the most popular fiction book of the 20th century to the big screen. For that matter, there was a time when the two camps argued incessantly over the merits of attempting to adapt the book to film.

Expectations have abounded through the years. They have encrusted Tolkien and LoTR discussions with layers of regret, anger, and apprehension. As the release of Peter Jackson's "The Return of the King" approached, I increasingly heard more people pile on expectations for this movie than for the first two combined. "It's GOT to win the Oscar!" "It's got to be better than 'The Two Towers'!" "It's got to be more faithful!" And the expectations become more refined as you ask about them.

But they really don't make sense. For example, why should a movie no one had seen win an Oscar (for Best Film)? What if it turned out to be a really bad movie? Of course, expectations insist that it will be a GREAT movie. But that's not the point. The point is, what if it is a really bad movie?

Read the full article here

Also, be sure to check out my previous essay, posted a couple of weeks ago. That one was called Waiting for a king like you.

[hectorberlioz]

great review Michael Martinez!
you didnt leave much out, but i could tell you were trying not to go to much into detail.
you're a good and fair critic.

[Lizra]

Hey! I'm looking forward to reading it as soon as I see the movie!

[Tuor of Gondolin]

A fair review, and one which puts its Oscar deserving merits in perspective, but doesn't discuss the, for me, most egregrious movie "adaptation", the twisting of Denethor's and Gandalf's interaction. Gandalf stayed true to the task of the Istari because he advised and counselled and did not seek to dominate or coerce opponents of Sauron. Yet in the movie Gandalf several times assaults Denethor and abets in Denethor's (ridiculous) "death by high-dive." And there is none of the subtlety of Denethor's psychological collapse in the book.Plus the actual striking scene of Denethor's death holding the palantir is lost. The movie version seems more like murder then despairing suicide
"like the pagan kings of old."

[Michael Martinez]

The changes in character are clear to those people who have read the books, and therefore I felt like I would be rehashing issues that have already been well-threshed (or are being well-threshed) in a thousand discussion groups around the world.

I also wanted to avoid nit-picking a lot of things that I felt would be quickly noticed (such as how Frodo got his Hobbit shirt back after leaving the tower of Cirith Ungol).