WARNING: LOTR SPOILER
Haven't seen it yet??? ::::ABORT:::::




Finally saw Lord of the Rings: Return of the Kings with Karen. The movie lines were rediculous, and we had to wait about an hour to sit down, but it was so worth it.

The movie, the trillogy, and LOTR in general = w00t

David, I distinctly heard two "Willhelm" screams, one as the Nazgul picked up a warrior from Minas Tirith and dropped him from several hundred feet, the other as a tattooed fellow riding the elephant-beast pitched overboard after being hit by one of Legolas's arrows.

Basically, I loved the movie. Unlike the previous movies, this one didn't seem like 2 hours of Legolas arrowing everybody (not that there's a whole lot wrong in that......). It really seemed like there was depth and story to each main character (Arwen, Aragorn, Merry, Pippin, Frodo, Sam, Gollum/Smeagol, Gandalf, Legolas/Gimli and several others). Seeing 10,000 or so orcs surrounding Minias Tirith was pretty frickin' sweet. The orcs managed to make a pretty cool combination battering ram/flamethrower- a giant metal dragon. Peter Jackson (the director) really has a good grip on inserting humor at the appropriate times (c'mon, you all know you laughed in The Two Towers when Smeagol/Gollum was fighting with himself). Re-occuring scenes/lines helped connect the trillogy- "stupid fat hobbit" and "fool of a Took" come readily to mind. Also, you have to love Hobbit drinking songs, it reallly doesn't get much better than that.

At one point, I told Karen that it was all too "convenient" that the undead warriors that bound their allegiance to the true king (Aragorn) walked through the walls to defeat the Mordor enemies. I then realized, hey, you gotta play to your strengths, right?

There were a few parts I didn't like. Some of the camera work/CGI /effects didn't quite work out as well as the first two movies. At one point, as Frodo and Sam rest aside the melting Mt. Doom, it looks like a National Geographic clip of a show on volcanoes with Frodo and Sam digitially superimposed over it (you can almost hear the voiceover: "magma is formed when a volcano erupts......"). Also, the symbolism in color was just gratuitous. I can see making the orcs black, and the main city/main wizard white, but c'mon, geez, Gandalf glowed like he was on fire. I expected Shelob the spider to be a LOT bigger, but I guess it worked out ok. Also- note to Viggo- dude, grow out the stubble, it's your saving grace (he looks all weird clean shaven).

One thing the movie was lacking in was the "scenes of Arwen" department. Sorry folks, I just can't get enough of Liv Tyler. I think she's absolutely gorgeous.

Overall, I can't wait for the Special Edition 5 disc DVD to come out so I can pour over every second of bonus features.