i've seen rotk11
Dec. 22nd, 2003 10:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lobelia321So no more spoilers, more's the pity.
I've seen it once.
What I did not like:
1) Too long. We came out cranky and faint and with blood sugar levels way down, despite having brought along a picknick bag and oodles of Kaetzchen. Bollywood is often 4 hours long but Bollywood it ain't. Also: B'w has an intermission!
2) "Go home, Sam!"
I vomited quietly into my Kaetzchenbag at this point.
Actually, t'h and I stared at each other and made vomit faces.
3) Relentlessly swelling music all the time. No Alexander Nevsky moment at all.
4) Arwen's love child. In fact, the whole ridiculous Arwen "Do I, don't I" subplot, and Agent Elrond's I'm-a-dark-lord-except-I'm-not secret mission to Aragorn.
5) Too many tears on screen. This left no room for my own tears. If the entire cast is weeping, what is left for me to do? I felt cheated of my Whiskas moments!! (But see below.)
6) Gollum. I have come to the conclusion that Andy Serkis is not the world's best actor, and it just takes longer to notice than it does, say, with Mr Bloom, because he's veiled by pixels.
7) Shelob.
What a waste of an arthropod!
What I did like:
1) Charge of the Rohirrim.
One of my two weepster moments. Made my hair stand on end and was the one moment when (in t'hs words), PJ approached the epic quality of Tolkien. Theoden clattering along the spears, "Death!" -- what a moment!! The absolute highlight.
2) The lighting of the beacons. (*waves at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
natasha1805 Wonderful, grand, beautiful.
3) The orcs on Pelennor Field. Doing their Kiwi haka and just all of them. I could have looked at them for hours.
4) And especially Total Recall orc with the porridge face. Woohey! Anyone know the actor?????
5) Denethor!! My favourite character in film 3. He was everything I knew he would be. And the only one whose acting was at all memorable.
6) Close-ups of orcish props. The fighting machines and the nuts and bolts of them!
7) Fly-through-the-air shots from the pov of projectiles. Loved those.
8) Not another flaming steward crushing some hapless Gondorean to death. A nice touch.
9) Minas Tirith!! Oh, Richard Taylor, you and your bigatures! Breathtaking.
10) Gargoyle with tongue outside Minas Morgul.
What I found interesting and/or amusing:
1) Pippin's Eurovision Song Contest pseudo-celtic chant. T'h made more vomiting faces but I found it, in its cheesiness, strangely close to Tolkien's own dreadful doggerel (which, mercifully, PJ mostly axed).
2) The reduction of Legolas's screentime to 5 percent. Was the furrowing of the brow finally too much even for PJ and co??
3) No Scouring of the Shire.
Well, I can see why they left it out but actively to change the ending to Untouched Shire, I think, left plot lines unfurled (althoughnatasha1805 disagrees). Saruman? Wormtongue? Spirited away. It also, of course, means that Lobelia Sackville-Baggins doesn't get her crowning moment. I don't know -- it left me unfulfilled.
4) The army of the dead. Quite interestingly done.
5) Inserting Christianity into Tolkien. The one thing about LotR (book) is that it is so relentlessly anti- or non-religious. But PJ inserted an afterlife! (Gandalf's description of "heaven" to Pippin.)
6) Racial stereotypes neatly preserved those of Tolkien, heh. Goodies: white. Baddies: Maori, black, Asiatic, deformed. Heh.
7) Well, I guess they couldn't put the Barrowdowns blade in to explain how Merry managed to kill the Witch King but still...
The movie did make me re-read the Cirith Ungol chapter (the *real* Cirith Ungol, forever my favourite part of the book 4 evah + evah), and it did make me (or rather t'h, who snatched t'book from my hands) read out loud the killing of the Witch King scene. And the Charge of the Rohirrim.
I've seen it once.
What I did not like:
1) Too long. We came out cranky and faint and with blood sugar levels way down, despite having brought along a picknick bag and oodles of Kaetzchen. Bollywood is often 4 hours long but Bollywood it ain't. Also: B'w has an intermission!
2) "Go home, Sam!"
I vomited quietly into my Kaetzchenbag at this point.
Actually, t'h and I stared at each other and made vomit faces.
3) Relentlessly swelling music all the time. No Alexander Nevsky moment at all.
4) Arwen's love child. In fact, the whole ridiculous Arwen "Do I, don't I" subplot, and Agent Elrond's I'm-a-dark-lord-except-I'm-not secret mission to Aragorn.
5) Too many tears on screen. This left no room for my own tears. If the entire cast is weeping, what is left for me to do? I felt cheated of my Whiskas moments!! (But see below.)
6) Gollum. I have come to the conclusion that Andy Serkis is not the world's best actor, and it just takes longer to notice than it does, say, with Mr Bloom, because he's veiled by pixels.
7) Shelob.
What a waste of an arthropod!
What I did like:
1) Charge of the Rohirrim.
One of my two weepster moments. Made my hair stand on end and was the one moment when (in t'hs words), PJ approached the epic quality of Tolkien. Theoden clattering along the spears, "Death!" -- what a moment!! The absolute highlight.
2) The lighting of the beacons. (*waves at
natasha1805 Wonderful, grand, beautiful.3) The orcs on Pelennor Field. Doing their Kiwi haka and just all of them. I could have looked at them for hours.
4) And especially Total Recall orc with the porridge face. Woohey! Anyone know the actor?????
5) Denethor!! My favourite character in film 3. He was everything I knew he would be. And the only one whose acting was at all memorable.
6) Close-ups of orcish props. The fighting machines and the nuts and bolts of them!
7) Fly-through-the-air shots from the pov of projectiles. Loved those.
8) Not another flaming steward crushing some hapless Gondorean to death. A nice touch.
9) Minas Tirith!! Oh, Richard Taylor, you and your bigatures! Breathtaking.
10) Gargoyle with tongue outside Minas Morgul.
What I found interesting and/or amusing:
1) Pippin's Eurovision Song Contest pseudo-celtic chant. T'h made more vomiting faces but I found it, in its cheesiness, strangely close to Tolkien's own dreadful doggerel (which, mercifully, PJ mostly axed).
2) The reduction of Legolas's screentime to 5 percent. Was the furrowing of the brow finally too much even for PJ and co??
3) No Scouring of the Shire.
Well, I can see why they left it out but actively to change the ending to Untouched Shire, I think, left plot lines unfurled (although
natasha1805 disagrees). Saruman? Wormtongue? Spirited away. It also, of course, means that Lobelia Sackville-Baggins doesn't get her crowning moment. I don't know -- it left me unfulfilled.4) The army of the dead. Quite interestingly done.
5) Inserting Christianity into Tolkien. The one thing about LotR (book) is that it is so relentlessly anti- or non-religious. But PJ inserted an afterlife! (Gandalf's description of "heaven" to Pippin.)
6) Racial stereotypes neatly preserved those of Tolkien, heh. Goodies: white. Baddies: Maori, black, Asiatic, deformed. Heh.
7) Well, I guess they couldn't put the Barrowdowns blade in to explain how Merry managed to kill the Witch King but still...
The movie did make me re-read the Cirith Ungol chapter (the *real* Cirith Ungol, forever my favourite part of the book 4 evah + evah), and it did make me (or rather t'h, who snatched t'book from my hands) read out loud the killing of the Witch King scene. And the Charge of the Rohirrim.