Mooters' RotK reviews

[Gerbil]

Not cities, but much much larger than regular eliphants - I can't remember where, but I think 5 to 10 times the size was meant.

Has anyone got any thoughts on the suicide charge? I read one review that claimed it was 'known as the best edited scene in film ever' which is such a bold and stupid quote I wondered what you guys thought?

8 days until I can see it :/

[hectorberlioz]

despite all those horrid arwen scenes, the absolute worst part of the movie is not a character change, it is not a dialogue change, it is the fact that there were way too many bad guys in the army of mordor.
it seems to me that mordor could have wiped out gondor with a snap of its fingers.
the oliphants were so unrealistically real, the trolls were idioticly huge(again, it seems like it wouldnt take much for mordor to destroy men, elves etc...in the flick of an eye) the nazgul seemed like they didnt do anything for all the power they supposedly possess.
and where the heck did rohan get so many soldiers? even eomer didnt bring that many men with him in TTT.
and i hate that ugly orc with the seriously deformed face.
ok, now to the other negative stuff....(dont worry i'll name the stuff i thought was good too)
arwen, once again we have boob flashing princess(i almost perfer xena-elf). everytime arwen came on screen, i groaned. same goes for elrond/agent smith/indian cheif.
the whole gollum making frodo hate sam was ridiculously unrealistic. not to mention it was over lembas.
denethor wasnt as bad as i thought he would be. but gandalf! he is such a jerk! he snobbily makes pippin get up afte pippin pledges his life to denethors...just doesnt seem like gandalf to me...
the dead army was so bad i had to look past it because i dont know how to criticise something like that...
and 'ride him buckoe' gollum was really bad. i am referring to gollums rodeo stunts on the cracks of doom when he is riding frodo.
legolas/tarzan was for the fan girls....
and frodo's stunt over the edge.... what did it do? nothing, thats why it should've been cut.
i remember one part that was so bad, that i felt tears in my eyes...
and there was only one part that actually was moving, and i felt tears in my eyes...of course now i cant remember either of those parts.

now for the goods.

shelobs lair was very well done, and so was the capture of frodo.
eowyn and merry had a good amount of screen time together, and overall their relationship was good.
pippin was excellant i think, i almost forgive him his past crimes...
faramir was good.

another thing that annoyed me was the fact that aragorn, gimli, legolas, gandalf, eomer etc...are reduced to action figures.
i hope you guys think i'm fair in judgement...

[Dúnedain]

Quote from Sam in The Two Towers:

But I've heard tales of the big folk down away in the Sunlands. Swertings we all 'em in our tales; and they ride on oliphaunts, 'tis said, when they fight. They puts houses and towers on the oliphauntses backs and all, and the oliphaunts throw rocks and trees at one another.

Then later on we see this:

Sam saw a vast shape crach out of the trees and come careering down the slope. Big as a house, much bigger than a house, it looked to him, a grey-clad moving hill...

...rocking the ground beneath their feet: his great legs like trees, enormouse sail-like ears spread out, long snout upraised like a huge serpent about to strike, his small red eyes raging. His upturned hornlike tusks were bond with bands of gold and dripping with blood. His trappings of scarlet and gold flapped about him in wild tatters. The ruins of what seemed a very war-tower lay upon his heaving back, smashed his furious passage through the woods; and high upon his neck still desperately clung a tiny figure - the body of a mighty warrier, a giant among the Swertings.

They are also described the same way in Return of the King...

[Dúnedain]

Originally posted by hectorberlioz
the whole gollum making frodo hate sam was ridiculously unrealistic. not to mention it was over lembas.

Uhhh no, the part that snapped Frodo was when Sam offered to carry the Ring for him, just as Gollum said he would and that he wanted it for himself, the lembas was a minor piece of it...

[hectorberlioz]

Dunadain's post
Uhhh no, the part that snapped Frodo was when Sam offered to carry the Ring for him, just as Gollum said he would and that he wanted it for himself, the lembas was a minor piece of it...

no, it was over lembas. that ring thing was only half of it. and that whole sequence was still unrealistic and in a way...corny.

btw, oliphaunts were supposed to be bigger than houses, not bigger than minas tirith.
(btw, i think the look of minas tirith was wonderful)

[Dúnedain]

Originally posted by hectorberlioz
btw, oliphaunts were supposed to be bigger than houses, not bigger than minas tirith.
(btw, i think the look of minas tirith was wonderful)

How can you say they are bigger than Minas Tirith? They were about half the height of the outter walls...

[hectorberlioz]

well they were definitely unrealisticly huge.

[Dúnedain]

Originally posted by hectorberlioz
well they were definitely unrealisticly huge.

lol, that's how Tolkien describes them...

[Tessar]

Oh. My. God.


That was, without a doubt, the best movie I have EVER SEEN!!!!


This one TOTALLY blows the other two out of the water... I mean this was THE movie!!!!


YAAAAAAAY!!!!!!

[Gerbil]

Originally posted by hectorberlioz
well they were definitely unrealisticly huge.

That's the oddest quote I've heard when being applied to a fictitious creation....

[Arandir]

On the whole, I enjoyed the movie (as I have the preceding ones). It was visually stunning in almost every respect. I didn't expect the movies to follow the book in every detail, and while I thought some of the digressions in TTT were a bit too much, they were less glaring in ROTK. I missed the confrontation at Isengard, however, and smell inserted scenes for the expanded DVD (after all, with Orthanc intact, just how did the palantir wind up in the water?). The Scouring of the Shire was also missed, since it shows both the growth of the four Hobbits and the effects of the sorely missed absence of the heretofore unthanked Rangers. But as several have commented, the length of ending of the movie has caused some disquiet (not for me, however). A fully realized Scouring of the Shire sequence probably would have added a good fifteen minutes to the run time. I could list all the little moments they captured well, as well as the ones they missed. But when I want to relieve the latter, I'll just reread the books and hear the voices of the characters and see their faces in my mind. At the risk of my post running as long as the film, I'll end this here.

[Bridgette]

I loved it!!! I think it was absolutly brilliant! Sure, it had its faults but most movies do. But now I've got nothing left to look forward to....

[eowyngirl14]

saw it last nigth at 12:05 with 4 of my friends.

okayi have to tell a funny story first. we stopped at Starbucks on the way and a PartyCity across the street started smoking randomly and then 2 firetrucks showed up and soem cops. so while we were waiting for them to stop blockign the road my friend Nick went to this online 8ball thing on his phone and asked it if i was gunna die before i saw Rotk. it said yes, in the dead of winter the worst will happen. (its a little smarter than your average 8ball) so we asked it 3 more times to be surea nd it said the exact same thing, but then we asked it if my friend Laura would marry Legolas, and it said no- sucks for u. (lol) and i was sure the PartyCity was gunna blow up and id die!!!

ya anyways- so ROTK was awesoem! my favorite movie. although some of the affects were a little off like when frodo runs into mt. doom he is mobing quiker than his feet so he is kinda like gliding or something. and i think there was too much comic reliefe. we didnt need all that reliefe. the left out a lot but didnt change anything which i liked. whenever they showed the eye my friend would say 'peek a boo' really loudly which was annoying.

sam was perfect! i love his charecter. i cried so much which is a good sign in my opinion. when frodo told him to go home i started like bawling. it was really sad! i dontremember denethor jumping off the tower but that shot of him as a flaming ball plummetting towards the ground was awesome.

[b.banner]

in my opinion it wasnt a very good adaption of the book .but it wasnt avery bad movie i actually enjoyed it .

[Tuor of Gondolin]

I'd have to come down in the middle of estimations of ROTK.
That is, on an A to F grading I'd give
FOTR---A-
TTT-----C+
ROTK---B

Some were well done, Eowyn, Sam, the Grey Havens, the Eagles, and Theoden played up well except for one lapse, but.....

1) the green slime Army of the Dead reminded me of Ghostbusters (Bill Murray would have done a better job getting through).
2) Gandalf (twice!!!) assaulting the Steward. After the first shot at Denethor the Guard would have skewered him. And it really demeaned Denethor's character. And Denethor's movie demise! I mean, really! (It was almost funny, Gandalf using the line from the book, while Denethor takes a dive (he got a 9.5 though).
3) Theoden still holding a hissing fit at Gondor for not helping him. (HELLO, Theoden, Gondor goes, guess who's next?).
4) The plot involving the lighting of the signal fires by Pippin against Denethor's wishes (AGH!!!!!).
5) Oh yes, and Gandalf reduced to using a sword instead of the confrontation outside the gates of Minas Tirith.
6) The Houses of Healing??? Apparently hobbits are really superhobbits, since Merry was at the Black Gate.

[Falagar]

A short note:
I think the movie was too hasty (as Treebeard would have said it): it rushed through the story and forgot some key elements on the way (like to explain how Aragorn suddenly was recogniced as king of Gondor and no-one even wondering where Denethor was, not building up the siege enough to make the attack really exciting and it forgot to describe what made Theoden change his mind about helping Gondor).

[azalea]

I developed the flu last night, but went to see it today anyway since I already had my ticket. I'm sure I'll enjoy it more next viewing since I am very sick and was uncomfortable during the movie. (Plus the theater was crowded and someone kept sparking up, which irritated my throat. Idiots, getting stoned in the theater, at RotK no less! ) I'll have more to say when I'm feeling better.

As for the movie, I did enjoy it, but I still think it felt too rushed. I don't know how this could have been avoided though, aside from doing another movie. It was so long, that I now appreciate why there was no scouring. I had no prob w/ the endings, but I agree that there could have been more dialog (and that goes for the whole movie). I still like FotR the best, and I think (besides the fact that it is my favorite book of the three) it's because in Fellowship he had to establish the characters, which forced there to be a lot of dialog, whereas by this time, he is focusing mainly on the events, not the characters. I felt this was a weakness, as I didn't feel as intimate with any of the characters (besides Sam and Pippin -- they both had some great scenes), and this is important to me (ie, I would have substituted some battle scenes with Houses of Healing and the like, because it is in those scenes that the viewer can interact with the character). Shelob was great. There were several times when I said a line to myself that a character was supposed to say at certain points, then they did say it! I was pleasantly surprised that so many of the good lines were included. ("you can't go walking in Mordor in naught but your skin" -- I loved it!)
I didn't like a couple of things that were done, such as Gandalf attacking Denethor, and even pushing him into the fire! I think keeping that scene just a little truer to the book (including more dialog) would have been better. Denethor should have gotten more lines from the book or adapted from the book to establish his character a little more.
Same with Faramir, and even the others. It was like PJ had gone to a lot of trouble in the first two movies to establish these characters and give them depth and relationship with one another, but made the events the focus of this movie to the detrement of the characters and their relationships. There were plenty of good lines and interactions, but more would have been better. And of course I realize the time factor, but I would have just cut down the time spent on some of the fighting.
I loved the Smeagol/ Deagol sequence, but I felt that instead of the whole "Sam turns back" thing, they could have just kept it true to the book and it would have been just as visually effective. There was so much more verbal interaction between Sam and Frodo that could have been used, like in Cirith Ungol, and I missed Sam's song there. Also, the destruction of the ring scene was pretty good, but I didn't like Frodo going back in at Gollum, then falling over the edge (although I predicted that would happen as a "foil" to his pulling Sam out of the water in FotR). Plus Gollum being engulfed by the magma was a little too graphic for my tastes.
Nonetheless, it was overall a fantastic movie, my main complaint being that it wasn't done the way I'd have done it. I'll be seeing it again next week, and I know I'll enjoy it more then.

[macmico]

excellent movie im impressed

i left with that shivery feeling all down my back and still have it so i dont want to get into the why's and the where-fors ill leave that till tomorrow

very good adaptation apart from the obvious ??????

did you see legolas and eowyn for that matter kick some mumakil ass.

and who noticed glorfindel???????

[claudia silver]

And why didn't Shadowfax get to go on the boat to the Undying Lands?

Minor quibble I know but very sad especially if you are Shadowfax

[obscenename]

First, the good far outweigh the bad. The best of the three
<B>Highlights</B>
All of the battle scenes
Theoden's exhortation and Eowyn/Dernhelm eventually joining in the shouting before the charge
Any scene with Miranda Otto
Theoden repeating his line from TT when he sees Eowyn "I know your face. Eowyn"
Shelob and Cirith Ungol
Aragorn sighing before turning to speak to the people of Gondor
Gimli as comedian toned way down
The beacons
Aragorn kneeling before the hobbits
The hobbits being amazed that the Shire hadn't changed a bit while at the Green Dragon
Many other little things

<B>Lowlights</B>
Arwen
Slow motion romping on the bed (way over the top)
Why are the dead green?
Too much crying
Too much whispering
Too much original screenplay
Supposedly dead-tired hobbits traveling for days without food or water
No mention of the killing of the Witch King at all
Closeup of hairy feet. We got it from the first movie. They had hairy feet
Falling over and then hanging on to the cliff? Sure it was a parallel to Gandalf's plight in FOTR but it was too trite. That happens to Wiley Coyote.
The Lidless Eye as a searchlight
Arwen

<B>Some Lights I was disappointed not to see that may not make the EE</B>
Gandalf facing down the Witch King at the gate
Mouth of Sauron
Someone remarking on the size of Merry and Pippin
Some explanation of what Galadriel and Celeborn did to help, if anything
Aragorn and Theoden arguing about taking the Paths of the Dead
Aragorn looking in the palantir
More conversation with Treebeard
Gimli and Legolas enjoying some rest in Isengard with Merry and Pippin

I loved the movie even though I cringed at some of the dialogue and everytime Arwen was on the screen. I'll see it a few more times and then start salivating over the EE 11 months from now.