WARNING: Long post ahead, and the first paragraph is ridiculously long, so I’ll use a bunch of random pics to break it up a bit (so I apologize to all the dial-up users out there)…
I saw Return of the King on Friday, and I’ll risk being cheesy and tell you that it is nothing short of amazing. I finally caught on to the enthusiasm that everyone else has had for the past three years. Don’t get me wrong. I liked the first two very, very much, but I always felt as if there was something that everyone else had caught onto that I was missing. I finally get it. Some may just say “Better late than never” and get on with it, but I think I know why it took me so long. LOTR is made for the big screen. While that is one of the things I like best about the series, it also means that it loses some of its power and grand scope when it’s put on video or DVD, and that is probably why it took so long for me to catch onto the true brilliance of the series (For the record, I have not read any of the books, nor do I plan to-I just have way too many books to read already-so I am judging the movies on their own). Granted, I did see Fellowship of the Ring at a movie theater. However, Marisa and I got there late and missed the first ten minutes or so, when Galadriel is giving the prologue narration. The first shot I saw was of Bilbo finding the ring, so I didn’t get to see all the background information. As a result, I was extremely confused throughout the entire movie. I kept having to ask Marisa who everyone was, why they were doing this or that, what the significance of various things were, etc, and I was still confused. I did like it well enough that I rooted for it at the Oscars that year, though (although I wasn’t too terribly upset when A Beautiful Mind won instead). I got a little bit straightened out when I borrowed someone’s DVD almost a year later and was able to watch the first ten minutes. However, I started watching it at about 2:30 am, so my brain wasn’t quite in its most alert state, so I was still more than a little confused. It really wasn’t until I bought the video about six months ago that I actually began to understand most of what was going on (I think I did a post about it, in fact), and I began liking it more. However, I was watching it on a little thirteen-inch television screen (and on video, not DVD), which is a far cry from a huge movie screen. I didn’t see Two Towers until this past October (although I did root for it in last year’s Oscar race), but I liked it enough that I bought the DVD the following day. However, I was once again watching it on a television screen (at least it was on DVD). With Return of the King, I was finally able to see it in its full grandeur and understand it at the same time (well, I understand about 95% at least). The cinematography and visual effects are breathtaking (as well as the pacing of the movie, which was excellent), and for the first time, I was able to follow the plot emotionally as well as critically.
One of my favorite sequences was when Pippin was singing in the great hall in Gondor, and the shots that accompanied it (I won’t go into detail in case someone hasn’t seen it and doesn’t want me to spoil it. BTW, I don't think the above pic is from that scene, but I couldn't find a decent image of it). The flow of the action coupled with Pippin’s hauntingly beautiful voice (Who knew he could sing so well?) gives such a poetic feel to that sequence that even I felt its full power (and within the last two or three years, I’ve begun thinking like a director when I watch movies, so it’s become increasingly rare for me to view a scene like that). Another sequence I especially liked was the long pan over the mountains when the beacons are being lit. I can’t tell you why I like that (I’m not sure myself). I just do. I can also finally see how character-driven the story is, and I think I figured out a good amount of symbolism for not having read the book. Although I don’t really have a favorite character, Aragorn is still my favorite member of the Fellowship, although Sam is a close second, with Merry and Pippin not far behind. I’ve never understood why everyone likes Gollum so much, and I still don’t (I find him somewhat irritating at times, actually). If I do have a chief complaint, though, it’s from an editing standpoint, and it’s that the multiple fades at the end really weren’t necessary. I agree with what a bunch of people are saying in that it disrupts the flow of the movie a little bit. It’s not the epilogues I object to (I think they’re quite essential, in fact), but I think they would’ve worked better as straight cuts.
Nevertheless, LOTR has now been propelled into my top 10 (whereas it had been in the top 15 before, although I don’t have precise definitions of what my 10 or 15 favorite movies are), and I will be highly upset if Return of the King does not receive the Best Picture Oscar this year. Critics are still giving it favorable odds, though, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I wish it was doing better in the acting nominations. I don’t think anybody’s gotten an acting nomination yet (whether Golden Globe, SAG, BAFTA, etc), and that’ll hurt their chances of getting Oscar nominations. I was pleasantly surprised to see that most critics think if any LOTR actor is nominated, it’ll be Sean Astin (He deserves it, though. I was just surprised that the critics weren’t thinking about Elijah Wood or Viggo Mortensen, who both turned in wonderful performances as well). Anyways, if I were paying any attention to writing movie reviews on my Geocities site, I would give this movie 5/5, definitely.
Well, to make a long story longer, I’ll go on. I saw Return of the King with my parents, neither of whom had seen the first two movies (the only LOTR experience they had is that my dad read The Hobbit in high school, but that didn’t help much). We got to the theater with about fifteen minutes left before the movie started. As soon as we sat down, my mom turned to me and asked me to tell her what happened in the first two movies (like I’m going to give an effective summary of two 3-hour-long movies in ten minutes). However, I think that caused me to realize that I understood more than I thought I did. Then she thought I had already seen Return of the King. I still had to explain things to her throughout the movie (and then she’d turn and explain things to my dad), but I wasn’t really annoyed by it. She was a little shaky with names, though. She kept referring to Frodo as “that cute little Hobbit” (Geez, first Laura and now my mom). She also kept remarking about how “Irish” the film seemed (at one point when Sam was talking about the Shire, my mom said she expected him to start singing “Danny Boy”). Then both of my parents refused to believe that Orlando Bloom played Legolas. They were adamant that he was Eomer (who is played by Karl Urban, I think). I kept telling them that was NOT Orlando Bloom, but they wouldn’t listen until the end credits (where the actor’s name is accompanied by a sketch of the character). Then they just passed it off as, “Well, he looks like Orlando Bloom.” Just to re-iterate:
This is Orlando Bloom (though I'm still not quite sure why a bunch of girls go nuts for him)...
This is NOT Orlando Bloom.
Despite that, I can’t complain about seeing it with my parents. I do have two legitimate complaints: 1) There was a small hole in the middle of the screen that kept getting on my nerves, and 2) There was a group behind us that seemed to think Gimli was the most hilarious character ever to grace the screen. Whenever Gimli did or said something that was supposed to be funny, this group would go into hysterical fits of laughter. Geez, those moments were funny, but not THAT funny.
Well, I wanted to talk about my classes, but this post is waaaaaaaaaaay too long already, so I think I’ll wait and talk about that in a couple days.
as if you didn't know already 
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