RotK: a successful adaptation?

[hectorberlioz]

i'm not that depressed at omitting the stuff they did. it was relieving actually.
and yes, the best adaptation is fotr. it has more 'book' in it. the changes were more forgivable(with the exception of xena-elf) in fotr.

[Evenstar1400]

I was really sad that the exluded the scouring of the shire. I mean, I knew it wasn't going to be there, but it was still depressing. Well, maybe it was better that it wasn't there, since I prolly woulda cried the entire time.

But why didn't Sam go home to bag end? That pissed me off.

[Finrod Felagund]

I think the main thing to think of is that if you were going to see an adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's books, you would be disappionted.'

But if you were going to see a film by Peter Jackson based on Tolkien's books...As a single film the trilogy may very well be the best movie ever made.

[Arathorn]

Originally posted by Finrod Felagund
I think the main thing to think of is that if you were going to see an adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's books, you would be disappionted.'

But if you were going to see a film by Peter Jackson based on Tolkien's books...As a single film the trilogy may very well be the best movie ever made.

It's half past 1 here and I have to agree with you, FF, on the first paragraph.

On the second, I'm not sure if I'd call the 3 combined as the best movie ever made. I think ROTK's pacing and continuity could have been done better compared to the first 2 movies. The intercutting just felt like it all happened in a few hrs; especially before Barad'dur fell. The hobbits seemed to have climbed Orodruin too quickly.

Anyway, I still enjoyed it and wouldn't mind viewing ROTK again countless times.

[Finrod Felagund]

Originally posted by Arathorn
On the second, I'm not sure if I'd call the 3 combined as the best movie ever made. I think ROTK's pacing and continuity could have been done better compared to the first 2 movies. The intercutting just felt like it all happened in a few hrs; especially before Barad'dur fell. The hobbits seemed to have climbed Orodruin too quickly.

Well I heard a film critic actually said that...and the pacing i think won't be quite so fast once the EE comes out.

[Arathorn]

Originally posted by Finrod Felagund
Well I heard a film critic actually said that...and the pacing i think won't be quite so fast once the EE comes out.

I think I just read that one too. I'm probably a bit as excited as you to see the EE version.

[Silmo]

So many little details were different or cut out in RoTK and it kinda pisses me off. It's understandable that they needed to shorten it, so i tried not to let it ruin the movie for me, but still there's that nagging voice in the back of my head that says "this movie is not quite right".

The first two movies were fairly similar to the books, except for the retarded part where Frodo goes to Osgiliath. I'm not saying RoTK was no good, In fact, It's one of the best movies ever made, but I just hope the extended edition makes up for a few of the scenes they cut.

[Falagar]

Originally posted by Finrod Felagund
Well I heard a film critic actually said that...and the pacing i think won't be quite so fast once the EE comes out.

But we don't judge a movie from what might come out in a year, now do we?

I'm looking foreward to EE, and hope it won't take a whole year before it's out.

[Eruviel Greenleaf]

Overall, I thought the Return of the King was a beautiful film, and a wonderful visual (etc) representation of what Tolkien wrote. The charge of the Rohirrim certainly did justice to the book's description, as did the image of Minas Tirith, and much of the entire movie. As a whole, it was great. And I think they did much, much better than with the Two Towers, which I wasn't so happy with in terms of adaptation.

First off, I thought the pacing was alright up until the end, when it felt a bit rushed--whereas in the book, it drags on. Perhaps in the EE DVD it will balance out? I certainly hope so, but we'll have to see. But before that, it was good. It worked well, especially considering how much of the book (I feel) had problems with the pacing.

Second, some of the omissions. . .I was greatly disappointed by the lack of the Houses of Healing. I know that in terms of Faramir and Eowyn being second tier characters, giving that much detail to their story wouldn't have worked, but they could have done something. I did not think it worked at all to leave Eowyn injured and alone on the battlefield, weeping over the corpse of her uncle, and the next time we see her she seems happy and content and with Faramir. I really missed that part, and look forward to (hopefully) seeing it the extended DVD. Furthermore, I did not like the way they downplayed the affect that stabbing the witchking had on Eowyn and Merry. And as for Saruman, I think they could have used that confrontation between him and Gandalf, because one cannot just simply forget about him. . .well, at least I couldn't. Again, we'll see in almost a year. . .And I really missed both the Witch King and Gandalf's confrontation, and the appearance of the Mouth of Sauron at the Black Gate.

Many of the changes I did not mind, or even appreciated. I thought it worked to have Frodo tell Sam to go home. It seemed that in the Two Towers Gollum was made much more of a sympathetic character, so it worked to make him more and more corrupt and despisable in this one. Also, it would not have worked well to introduce many new characters, so I can see why they didn't have the Grey Company, for example--though I did not think Elrond should have come himself. I don't know who would have worked better though, so oh well. Having the army of the dead do more in the movie was fine, if only because it was just so amazingly cool to watch them swarm over the water and attack. . .

Some other things that really, really bothered me. . .tactics of the "good guys." First, we see Faramir and his men not shooting at the boats that are coming across the river--instead, they wait until the boats have landed and half of them have unloaded before attacking. While this gives them the advantage of surprise, it also leave a lot more orcs to deal with and orcs behind them to STAB THEM IN THE BACK!!! ERgh, right, calming down. . .anyway, I thought this was simply ridiculous and only made Faramir look really really stupid and bad. And then at Minas Tirith, when Sauron's armies assemble, before the Rohirrim show up (again, the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, when they do! And perfect timing!), they WAIT for the ENEMY to start lobbing rocks at them before they do anything! What's with that? I mean, they've got this whole hostile army there, attacking them, and they can't do anything until the enemy has broken enough masonry for them to lob back at them? Did they not at the very least have archers that could have been shooting? It again just makes the armies of Gondor look really incredibly stupid--an impression of them I did not get at all from reading the book.

And while the Rohirrim's charge was gorgeous, I thought Pelennor and the battle at the Black Gate could have used more of the drama that's in the book. Ah, well. . .

And there's probably loads more I could say, but rather I shall wait until a. I've gotten some sleep and b. I've seen it again.

[obscenename]

It's repeated often in these threads that FOTR was truest to the books. I can't agree with that. There are major omissions and changes in all of the movies, but FOTR was cut and mangled to the point where I thought it was the worst of the 3. Someone do the analysis scene by scene, chapter by chapter and let the rest of us know, statistically speaking.

[jellyfishannah]

I definitely agree with your review, Eruviel, except on a few things...

BUt about the masonry...these chunks of stone were huge!!! Ok. The bad guys had trolls to load their flinging-rock-thingys...but what about the good guys? How did they manage that in so little time? How did they manage it at all?!

Originally posted by Falagar
I'm looking foreward to EE, and hope it won't take a whole year before it's out.

I can hardly wait for it, either. But if they are taking all that time to edit and perfect it to my heart's content, then by all means! Take your time!

[Sween]

I loved it apatrt from a few things. Denenthor was crap, PJ obsession with battle build up he states in a comentry he thinks its as import as the battle itself and the god awful ending (not the grey havens they were quite good) but the 20 minutes or so before that of cheasy smiles

[jellyfishannah]

And the "slow motion romping on the bed" as one entmooter said. So stupid. I didn't know whether to laugh out loud or throw up then and there. The way everyone comes in and just stands around watching them(and Gimli claps?)... So ridiculous..

[Arathorn]

yeah, the slow mo romping on the bed looked like a rerun of rivendell. sam even gave frodo that "hahah, i saw you naked in mordor" look.

[Elvellyn]

As disappointed as I was to hear that the Scouring hadn't been filmed, when I was actually watching the movie I didn't mind so much. Everything still felt very final and happy, and that's the point.

As for Sam and Frodo's clothes: I left to go to the bathroom then... guess I didn't miss as much as I thought.

[Khamûl]

Overall, I'd say it is a successful adaptation of the book. I can see the reasoning behind most of the changes made. I was disappointed that the Scouring of the Shire wouldn't be in the movie, but now that I've seen the finished product, I don't really mind. The scouring would have involved building up to another climax after you've just reached a point of resolution with the Ring being destroyed and Aragorn's coronation and such. It works without the Scouring. Besides, other parts would have had to have been cut to make the movie watchable to the general public in theaters.

Eruviel: A few comments about Gondor's army tactics. Yes, Faramir was dumb for waiting for the orcs to land. I think I would have had archers with fire arrows aiming for those wooden boats. But about the siege: there's only so much you can do. In the books, Tolkien says that the armies of Mordor encamped outside of bowshot range. Interesting point about them having to wait until enough masonry was broken before they had anything to throw back.

[Nurvingiel]

Originally posted by Eruviel Greenleaf
Some other things that really, really bothered me. . .tactics of the "good guys." First, we see Faramir and his men not shooting at the boats that are coming across the river--instead, they wait until the boats have landed and half of them have unloaded before attacking. While this gives them the advantage of surprise, it also leave a lot more orcs to deal with and orcs behind them to STAB THEM IN THE BACK!!! ERgh, right, calming down. . .anyway, I thought this was simply ridiculous and only made Faramir look really really stupid and bad. And then at Minas Tirith, when Sauron's armies assemble, before the Rohirrim show up (again, the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, when they do! And perfect timing!), they WAIT for the ENEMY to start lobbing rocks at them before they do anything! What's with that? I mean, they've got this whole hostile army there, attacking them, and they can't do anything until the enemy has broken enough masonry for them to lob back at them? Did they not at the very least have archers that could have been shooting? It again just makes the armies of Gondor look really incredibly stupid--an impression of them I did not get at all from reading the book.

I agree. I also wondered at that battle, why did they not unload hundreds of arrows into the orcs boats when they were completely vulnerable? The disadvantage of revealing their presence early would have been vastly outweighed by the advantage of shooting at many close packed, easy targets - slaying many.

My worst criticism of the portrayal of Gondor was definitely Denethor. What was the point in portraying him as an amazingly stupid, inexcusably rude, boorish leader? I wondered, why was this complete git accepted as the Steward of Gondor?

At least in the book Denethor was noble, though he had lost hope and was inexcusably rude to Faramir. His death was also much more noble in the book - I felt the flaming death leap off the cliff was completely pointless and overly hyped up.

Even worse was the fact that Gandalf himself reared Shadowfax and pushed him onto the pyre! That was worse than Gandalf lambasting him with his staff, which I also thought was appalling.

In the book, Denethor lept on a fueled but unlit pyre, grabbed a torch, and lit it himself before Gandalf could stop him. He died, symbolically holding his Palantir.

The Palantir explained Denethor's fall from grace, and its omission made it seem as though he had always been a nutcase. At least book-Denethor was an intelligent nutcase. Though he had given up hope, he had the presence of mind to light the beacons his very own self. (Though it buggered up the plot, I liked Pippin's scene where he lights the first beacon. Watching the beacons light all the way to Gondor was also a very cool scene. Denethor may not be clever enough to order the beacon lit, but at least he keeps a small, well-stocked garrison at Gondor's warning beacons. Hm... is that an inconsistency?)

Denethor, and the surrounding story arc, was definitely the worst part of the entire movie. I cringed every time his slobbering face came on screen. It may be possible that John Noble is actually a good actor, but with the terrible script he was given, we'll never know.

[Drgnslyer]

I agree, Denethor was overdone, and useless as far as i'm concerned...

The charge of the Rohirim was phenominal and brought a tear *or even two* to my eyes, as well as Aragorn's speech at the black gate. The Undead army was something I was deeply looking forward to, and personally I dont' think that I was dissapointed. Sure, the green mist was a little much to look at during the battle, they could have made it a little more flat rather than bright, but the detail in their faces was enough *in my books* to make up for jackson's eventual cheesyness.

I dont' know what kind of crack jackson was thinking with the whole frodo-sam thing, and i'd be curious to see where his sources are, because that just blew...:P

The spotlight/eye was a bit overdone too....but it gave the impression of the eye being focused on one thing at a time...

All in all though, we're lucky to have such an amazing movie all in all, a great finish to the series.

[Dúnedain]

Originally posted by Drgnslyer
I dont' know what kind of crack jackson was thinking with the whole frodo-sam thing, and i'd be curious to see where his sources are, because that just blew...:P

What do you mean?

[Nurvingiel]

Most likely, Drgnslyer is referring to Frodo sending Sam away. Since that was an odd and strange change to Tolkien's plot, and also the least sensible thing Jackson did to their plotline, especially considering the rest of their story arc was brilliantly done.