I've seen it!

[lobelia321]

The star of TTT is Richard Taylor!! (note icon) Because everything to do with costumes, sets and props was simply superb, and even better than in FotR. The geography of Middle Earth and the feel for place that you get in the books was also preserved marvellously.

BUT:

I was disappointed in many aspects. The main problem was, as far as I am feeling after seeing it for the first time a few hours ago, that (to me) the film lost its heart. I don't like to go on forever about how book doesn't match film because I realise that it can't (lest it want to be a boring step-by-step faithful tedium like Harry Potter). But what I had problems with wasn't simply 'where is Tom Bombadil?' and other minor quibbles but major faults that, to me, twist the meaning of Tolkien's story out of recognition and miss the spirit (never mind the letter) of the books.

Big problems:
- Frodo confronting the nazgu in Osgiliath.
This to me felt catastrophically wrong. Also Frodo fondling the ring. In the book, Frodo is weighed down by the ring's terrible burden and often feels the temptation to put it on but never, ever would he give the ring up to the nazgul. This does not fit in with the ethos and mythology of LotR.

- Faramir's lust for the ring.
This (although more forgivable than Frodo confronting the nazgul) flattened Faramir's character in such a way that they may as well have deleted him altogether. The whole nuanced good brother-bad brother dialectics of the book vanishes. All men are shown to be equally susceptible to the ring's power. But in Tolkien men have a choice. That is the whole point: we are able to choose good. This is what I mean by the film lacking the proper ethos.

- The plot.
The film seemed much less focused than FotR. And the ending fizzled out! This is a major crime, given the sensational cliffhanger ending of TTT, the book. Removing some of the Cirith Ungol dialogue to Osgiliath just seemed spurious.

Quibbles
- The ents look terrible, like Disney stick figures. They lack the gravitas of the oldest beings in Middle Earth. I have no idea how to make them better; they are phenomenally difficult but the ents are not good.

- Merry and Pippin get short shrift. I love the orc chase in the book. I love the way they grow and develop and how resourceful they are in getting themselves out of fixes. In the film, they escape the orcs more or less by chance and their characters barely develop from the first film.

- I love Legolas' and Gimli's friendship in the book. Where was it in the film? It's forever Aragorn and Legolas. But the whole point of Legolas /Gimli is that they overcome established interspecies animosities.

What I liked:
- The battles.
- The Rohirrim riding.
- The landscapes.
- The oliphaunts.
- The orcs, all of them.
- The Southrons.
- Gollum was done about as well as one can do Gollum. (But as far as I am concerned Smeagol is not pronounced Smeegl.)
- Theoden.
- The beginning.
- Gimli, Legolas and Aragorn running across the grasslands.

I'm just glad I'm not in the business of fps! :-) I certainly don't want to read any movieverse fps to do with TTT. But hey, roll on the actors. And I think I recognised those mystery men from the NZ TTT premiere in the orc scene where they tear up one of their own. *g*

I wrote this fresh off the press, without having looked at anyone else's opinion so I will now scroll back through my Friends list to discover what others thought.