All rightie, the other evening there was an eminently enjoyable conversation about the LOTR movies containing focused "Return of the King"-bashing. I quietly puzzled to myself, and maybe a little out loud, about why when I get to the third part of that trilogy, I am not similarly so repelled I have to hit the "stop" 'button and go do something else.
I speculated that it's because I'm probably watching it as I'm winding up a marathon run of the whole series and by that point, I'm so sucked in that the excruciating badness floats right past me.
Alternatively, or maybe additionally, I never started into the whole textbook lore of Middle Earth until long after the movies came out, incongruous as that might sound (I imagine I would seem rather a stereotypical LOTR geek from way back when - I mean, I seem to >myself< that I would be, but it just didn't happen that way somehow.). And even then, I might have gone my whole life without reading the books except for I started doing faire and learned quickly that I'd catch a lot more references and jokes if I had bookish knowledge, so off I went to read them up. Anyway, this all goes to the point that I don't approach the movies, even now after having read the books several times, holding the books as a kind of standard.
And finally, I at least like to think I'm coming, in my appreciation of film as an art form, to keep my evaluation of film separate from that of books upon which films are based, so that (I aspire) I can enjoy the film as a thing on its own terms, even (or in spite of) where the film diverges from a book that I like very much.
Okay, all those caveats aside, to return to "Return of the King." This exercise started as the creation of a list of my favorite bad parts, and I took to starting this film first, so that I wouldn't be lulled into a sense of complacency by the first two in the trilogy. And I've got little in the way of expectations because I haven't read the books in a rather long time now.
First note of surprise: Soon after starting, I had to start a second list = things I really >like< about "Return of the King." I just can't help it, dammit, but there is to my mind some pretty awesome shit in this film and I think that might help me be a little more forgiving about places where the dialogue or action or storyline gets vapid. And I'll start with those good things.
1. Gollum. Andy Serkis friggin' rocks it.
2. Shelob. I'm not even arachnophobic, but yeggghhh!
3. Merry isn't stupid enough to mistake Eowyn for a small man. Applause for that small bit of storyline change.
4. Mind-blowing "big-atures"
5. Trebuchets
6. David Wenham as Faramir. Putting aside how he was directed to channel the character or whatever, that man's a cool drink of water. Yowsa.
7. Denathor's cracking up. I know it can come across as a little over-the-top, but I look at it thusly: the character losing his mind is effectively the frigging king, situated in a such a way as to enable his looniness, not contain it. Why shouldn't such a fellow be over the top? I'm happy to be taken there and I enjoy the theatrics, and it makes it all the more satisfying when Gandalf clubs him with his staff later.
8. Although there isn't as much singing as is in the books - and that's a good thing! - there >is< singing (and this positive evaluation holds for the entire series). Not so much that it even remotely threatens to turn the movies into a musical. But on one hand I like the hint of the idea that singing was something >done< in the course of everyday life, and not just something listened to. On another hand, sort of film-ically speaking, I like the approach of having music embedded in in the performance, and not only in a disembodied soundtrack playing over top of the movie.
9. The message of how love and friendship can enable a person to find the courage to stand up in the face of danger is rather moving, and here of course the film is consistent with the books.
10. Eowyn's kicking serious ass in the Minis Tirith battle scene.
11. Gandalf's talk with Pippin about death is also touching, to me.
12. That the dotty-sounding woman (in the book) in the House of Healing was left out. Honestly, JRR, you test a girl's patience sometimes.
13. The "mouth" of Sauron.
14. The reluctance and struggle Aragorn-in-the-film went through before he was ready to take up being king. I somehow always felt it a bit off-putting in the books how Aragorn was always running around from book 1 going "I am Aragorn son of whoever, heir to the throne of Gondor" or whatever. I like how the movie portrayed the character with more humility.
15. Although at about point #13 I was distracted by the arrival of beer and banjo, if memory serves correctly the film departed from the book in how Gollum met his demise at the end. I'm too lazy to go dig out my book and check, but I >think< in the book Gollum slipped during his celebratory dance after getting the ring and fell, whereas in the film Gollum fell following a struggle with Frodo for the ring. I think I have some vague memory of reading the book and thinking "that's it? after all the scheming and planning and struggling, he slips and falls: the end?" - like JRR just kinda gave up. If this is all on-base, then I think the film's working of Gollum's fall is more believable. And if memory serves me wrongly, then just forget point #15!
Now, all these points I like being made, I'll turn to the parts that make me scratch my head:
1. Arwyn's turning mortal. Sorry, it's just not explained very well in the storyline of the film. It seems to be all tied up with her staying there in Middle Earth, but why should that be? Obviously other elves stayed - her dad, the elves who worked to remake the sword - were they all facing a death sentence? Or is mortality something one can simply choose, sort of like Tabitha wrinkling her nose and then: ta dah!? And if that's the case, then why can't a person simply choose back the other way later? But no, then it seems tied up with the growth of evilness in Mordor - as Sauron's power grows, Arwyn's hold on life lessens. Well, which one is it?
Note: I >know< there's an explanation in the literature, but that's not my point. I think: would it have changed any of the dramatic tension to not have Arwyn having to choose between love+mortality versus staying with her own people+immortality? And good god, what is it - recalling my thoughts about a genre of country songs that pair the pursuit of love with imminent death - that choosing the course of love commits a person to pursuing a course towards death, too? Is this some kind of weird guy thing? Honestly! In short, to my mind the tension could have been maintained just fine by leaving the whole mortality issue for Arwyn out.
Okay, I'll leave that alone now.
2. The beacons between Gondor and Rohan. Maybe the movie-makers simply had so much cool footage of mountain tops it was a shame not to use it, so they plugged most of it in here. But I can't get out of my head that Gandalf told Pippin it was a 3-day ride between the two realms, where that interspace was apparently massively populated by stratospherically-high mountains. Every time I watch that music-swelling beacon-lighting bit, I can't help but think it seems that the two realms must be on opposite sides of the globe.
3. Where did the people of Minis Tirith get all the flowers to toss at the men riding off to battle? It doesn't look exactly spring-ish, and Minis Tirith looks to be entirely composed of stone without a hint of green.
4. That Frodo seems, apropos of nothing, to be able to speak elvish (when he hold up the light of Elendil (?) to scare off Shelob). Without that bit of information given to me in the books, I'd think in terms of the movie alone that Frodo had gone aphasic.
5. Denathor's managing to run all aflame for so long before falling to his death.
6. That while Eowyn looks to be an eminently kick-ass-can-do woman, at apparently a single glance abandons her crush on Aragorn and falls for Faramir. I think they left that bit out of the theatrical version, and that's a good thing.
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