Return of the King - with added detail

[gothwalk]

I've half an hour to go in work; we're knocking off at 16:00 today to go to the pub. I've cleared my queue for the third time this year, which is something pretty much unheard of around here. So I've nothing left to do workwise, and can do a post-by-email of thoughts about the film.


There were tears rolling down my face more than a few times. Pippin's song was major damage. Interspersed with the imagery of the Men of Gondor charging toward Osgiliath, it was really, really powerful stuff. For some reason, the expressions on the faces of the Rohirrim as they lined up for the charge into the great battle got me too. And the beacons, the damn beacons. Those were such images.

Speaking of images, the whole film was gorgeous. The shot, near the beginning, of Sam standing guard over Frodo in a broken bit of wall, that was fantastic. The mountains were characters in their own right. Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul were stunning - Minas Tirith is herinafter nominated the most beautiful city in fantasy. I want it. I don't know if I want pictures of it, a model of it, or to live in it - probably all three. The ring melting out on the magma. And the Dead. Oh, the Dead. So pretty. ¹

There were tiny images here and there, little details - the abrasions on Frodo's neck from the ring's chain. Touches of expression. Galadriel's grin. The White Tree on Aragorn's crown.

The characters... I didn't change my opinions on anyone, I think. I still don't like Arwen. Her part in all three films can be summarised as "rescue hobbit, whinge, whine, moan, leave, don't stick to decision, whinge, whinge at Daddy about sword, send Daddy to deliver sword to boyfriend". And even the rescuing Frodo bit wasn't her in the Book. Elrond wasn't, in my opinion, quite right - Hugo Weaving is just a little too square and blocky to be an elf, even a half-elf like Elrond. But his expression as Arwen stepped toward Aragorn at the end... that made up for one hell of a lot of blockiness. Frodo was a little too expressionless for my liking. Too
blank, too much made of Those Eyes.

¹I always like undead far too much. It's a DM thing, I think.



Alright, time to go to the pub. More later, no doubt.

Comments

[caturah.livejournal.com]

1I always like undead far too much. It's a DM thing, I think.

One would certainly believe so from the amount of times you've...not so much tried to kill your players off, as engineers situations for us to kill ourselves...

[wyvernfriend.livejournal.com]

He has to engineer those situations... I thought some of our party actively looked for them!

[utterlymundane.livejournal.com]

Spoilers below.

















Regarding Arwen, the extra involvement did pay off at the end of this
movie. If she'd just been a minor character in the first movie, then
it wouldn't have much of an impact when she's there; it'd just be Aragorn scoring with some elf chick.

[bastun-ie.livejournal.com]

For me, he was a little too... unfriendly. Yeah, there was the whole protecting Arwen from mortality thing going on, but my first intro to Elrond was in 'The Hobbit', where he was a much more sympatethic character.

The one character who stands out as being underused was Gimli. He just seemed to have much more to do, or be, in the books.

Mind you, it is well over a decade since I last read them...