Saturday, December 18, 2004

Mmmmmm. Longbottom Leaf.

Just finished a showing of Return of the King at Katie's parent's house. Heavens bless a 46-inch flatscreen TV set. It was sweet to watch. I don't have too many comprehensive thoughts about the movie, but I thought I'd do a quick counterpoint to Keidra's post.

The Good:
Saruman's demise. Well handled and it also showed Grima as oddly enough, sort of sympathetic. You could tell that he was a man of Rohan once, before evil seduced him.

Yay! Faramir! I liked the bonding between him and Pippin, the scenes between Faramir and Denethor were also wonderful, adding depth to the conflict between the father and son. Unlike Keidra, I didn't mind the Eowyn/Faramir hookup. When you're in the intensity of war, you do weird things like hook up with random noblemen/noblewomen.

More of Eowyn kicking ass and Merry's bloodlust was also cool. Eomer finding Eowyn on the battlefield was also wonderful and heartbreaking at the same time. Great acting.

Mouth of Sauron was a badly needed scene that should've been in the theatrical release. Nice to see it in this.

The Bad:
Didn't like Gandalf coughing throughout his conversation with Pippin (aka truth.com). It was distracting and not needed. Yes, we know smoking pipeweed is bad, but that's not going to stop me from desiring the longbottom leaf.

Gimli continues to be the comedic relief. Frankly, a dwarf shouldn't lose a drinking contest to an elf, but that's just the D&D nerd in me.

Didn't need the skulls pouring into the City of the Dead. That was just a little too early Peter Jackson style for me.

The cheesetastic:
The Boromir hallucination. It so cheesy and the only reason I can think of it is for the "Bean Stalkers" (to quote Fran and Phillipa). Maybe it'd be cooler with better execution, but it was just plain cheesy.

All in all, good stuff. I can't wait for Christmas (yay! pressies!)

3 comments:

K. said...

Hey, Glad we are in agreement about most of the movie. It's much darker than the theatrical edit, and I would have gladly lost some of the Sam/Frodo scenes for a couple of those Denethor scenes. I actually like Eowyn and Faramir as a couple. I just don't get why shippers jizz all over the place for their "romance" when it was such a small part of the story. There are plenty of other relationships with just as much depth that shippers ignore because they aren't romantic.

The Boromir wasn't cheesy to me, but it was like WTF? Like we didn't already know that Denethor was a.)mad b.)cruel to Faramir. But it was certainly a pleasant surprise to see Sean Bean lookin' verrrry nice.

K. said...

OK, I was thinking about it while watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force why Eowyn and Faramir's out of the blue hookup always kinda bothered me. Now Movie!Faramir is a much better catch than Book!Faramir, who's good hearted, but dull as dishwater. And they are a gorgeous couple. But it always seemed like she was settling for the next man that came along because the man she really wanted didn't want her. The shout-out to their eventual romance was cool in the theatrical edition, but the in the EE it once again seemed like Faramir was her romance safety net. Eowyn's so fierce and headstrong, and as the only major chick character, she deserved more "well, I'll marry you cause you're interested in me"

Viv said...

Yeah, the hookup seems out of the blue, I won't deny that. But I guess, knowing what happened in the books, it's nice to have it acknowledged in the film with a scene or two -- even if Tolkein did a "handwave, handwave now thery're hooked up" thing.

I'd like to think (me being a modern girl and all) that it was just the beginning. There would be a few royal dates of killing orcs and goblins and then the engagement and marriage. Also, in the book, doesn't Eowyn say she's giving up fighting to be a healer? It's a nice compliment to a guy who's always been more bookish than a soldier. And Faramir as rebound man: Well, you could do worse. There's always Grima.

Other stuff I realized I liked as I was about to fall asleep: Houses of Healing montage was very nice. I liked how Eomer was sitting by his sister with that sad puppy expression on his face. Never noticed the tree blooming before until Gandalfs speech. Nice touch.

And Gondor's not a bunch of pussies like I originally thought. The loss of a good leader messed that country up hardcore.