December 17, 2003

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King Return of the King opened last night around the world. Over at MeFi they are talking about Elf Sex. Of Course TheOneRing.net has all the news and rumors you could want. Reviewers seems quite pleased and spin-offs abound. Anybody seen it yet?
posted by shotsy 20 years ago
  • I should have linked directly to the MetaFilter discussion. It is here. I am going to see it tonight and am looking forward to it. It looks great, and I hope it lives up to the hype.
  • I'm seeing it Monday. So I'll avoid this thread til then, then. Bye
  • lalalalalalalalala! I can't hear you!!
  • There are no spoilers in the links above (though possible links to spoiler reviews via Metacritic). As a courtesy, it would probably be appreciated if any posters who include spoiler details would clearly state this at the head of the post for the convenience of those who have yet to see it.
  • Anybody seen it yet? Which one, "Whore of the Rings," "Lords of the Ring" or "Lord of the G-Strings"?
  • I saw it last night at a special 10 o'clock show set up by and for a bunch of geeks. As it turns out Darth Vader really is Luke's father, and Leia's, too, see, 'cause they are twins. Han lives (and hooks up with Leia. Meow!) but Yoda dies. It was boss! (minor spoilers below) OK, OK. My BRIEF review of Return of the King is: 5 stars. Thumbs up. Etc. Really really good. But. The ending is somewhat diffuse, and there are places where needing to cram this much story into this little space forced some characters to act under questionable motivations. I suspect this effect is less pronounced if you don't know how these characters acted in the books, and I suspect it will be less pronounced in the eventual extended edition DVD's...
  • I just re-read my comment above and realized that I forgot to mention that IT IS REALLY REALLY REALLY INSANELY GOOD. As good as I hoped, but didn't believe, it could be. Hopeful, terrifying, sad, beautiful, action cotton-picking packed. By far the best of the trilogy. I wanted to see it again while I was still watching it.
  • Seeing it in three and a half hours. /giddy as school-boy
  • As a courtesy, it would probably be appreciated if any posters who include spoiler details would clearly state this at the head of the post for the convenience of those who have yet to see it. I believe there's a book of a similar name that gives quite a lot of the game away.
  • (Spoilers Below) I saw it last night and was pretty blown away. The lighting of the beacons was one of the most moving scenes I have watched in quite some time. Beautiful, simple and a testament to elegant design. I wasn't totally with the movie up to that point, but thereafter, I was in for good. Of course the battles were stunning, though the army of the dead was kind of a let down in that they are so briefly on screen. I want a pet Oliphant. The oliphant sequence was just fantastic battle shooting. Without language, we watch the good guys run the gamut of emotions as despair turns to strategic formulation to Legolas being the ulimate badass of the universe. Eowyn vs. The Witch King was great too. After Minas Tirith, I felt things moved too briskly, but given that 3.5 hours is a long-ass time as it is, I could understand doing so. The ring-bearer stuff was all good. Sean Astin was great, and it was nice to see him really shine. Pippin is my favorite hobbit, and he was great too. In summary, everything was awesome. A few things were less awesome than others.
  • I really can't talk about this movie without gushing. I won't even try. It's good, and if you don't see it then you'll have missed something that'll define movies for four or five years. It still only counts as one. Eeee!
  • I've spent a significant amount of the day on geek emails back and forth about the movie, so I'll just say: 60% genius, 20% good, 15% okay, 5% bad
  • Spoiler Alert The 45 minute love scene between Gimli the Dwarf and Gollum was my favorite part of the movie. Spoiler Alert 2 People in the movie kill each other with swords. I know this will shock many LOTR fans Actually, I found the minor sword fights more exciting than the big scene in Kill Bill. I did not believe for a minute that those 100 men couldn't kill Uma Thurman. I was thinking that after the first ten guys that got killed someone would be smart enough to shoot her. The difference with LOTR is that the odds are always against the Fellowship. Sauren isn't interested in fighting fair. He was wants to kill everyone off as fast as he can. It makes you appreciate the characters' heroism more.
  • I will say in defense of Kill Bill that 'reality' was never high on the agenda. The whole film is an exercise in hyperbolic excess. to complain that something was not realistic is useless as the films vocabulary has no use for the concept of realism. wouldn't it be cool if xml recognized off topic as a tag? dunno what that tag would do, maybe change the font color or something.
  • Eowyn vs. The Witch King was great too. WTF?
  • Tracicle: Are you WTFing because you saw the movie and thought E vs WK was garbage? Or because you haven't seen the movie or read the books and just had a lovely surprise spoiled for you? Just curious.
  • I just realised I'm a dumbass and confused the Witch King with the cursed dudes that Aragorn called to serve him after leaving Helm's Deep. (I did that in the book, too.)
  • Feared Leader, you are no dumbass. It is the fault of Tolkien and Peter Jackson for portraying these characters in such a confusing mannner. They will be hunted down and destroyed as enemies of the Filter.
  • Did I ever mention I'm blonde? No destruction necessary.
  • One thing that annoys me, going way back to the books is the similarity of character names. I feel your pain, trac because in conversation I will sometimes say Arwen rather than Eowyn etc. Either that or I halt midsentance to try and confirm which name I mean to speak. Oh well, such is my hard hard life.
  • ROTK EE spoilers. I hope they get Chomsky and Zinn to do another commentary. Sadly, there's no mention of the badgers.
  • Woo hoo! I can't wait to have a 10+ hour extended screening of all 3 movies.
  • Woo hoo! I can't wait to have a 10+ hour extended screening of all 3 movies. And over a year later, kwyjibo was still missing from MoFi. Kids, when it comes to LOTR, just say, "No." And don't try saying "no" in Elvish. That's bad.