OT: Return of the King (Spoilers likely)

For those who have seen Return of the King. How did you like the representation?

For those who have not seen it and do not wish to be surprised, please don't read

We all know the innaccuracies, but for what it was worth; do you think it was a good interpretation?

What parts did you loathe?

[Teraswaerto]

ROTK is definately best of the theatrical releases, though FotR Extended is still better. The major thing I didn't like was the appalling way Denethor was depicted, other lessers things include Sauron's spotlight-eye, Arwen's totally pointless "disease", the Paths of the Dead army showing up at Pelennor, the Witch King's reduced role & not giving him his "Houses of lamentation" line. I'm sure there's a hundred other little things if I really dwell on it, but overall it was still a great movie.

[apoger]

I loved it.

Didn't mind the issues with Denethor, as it was one of the sacrifices that need to be made when moving a story from book to film.

The army of the dead being moved to Pelennor was also obviously done for reasons of time constraints, however I think that it could have been done better. By making the undead near invincible it drains power from the sacrifices of the other combatants. The undead should have put the "good guys" just over the top rather than acting like a super smart bomb.

Still, considering that this was such a complex endeavor, I think the film representation was admirable.

Um... I loved it.

[Karacan]

Great movie, great interpretation of the book... not an adaption, though, because too much was changed to fit hollywood's demands.

I can't wait for the extended Version, which rumours have a full hour longer than the one shown.

[Gandalf Parker]

Mine were mostly from the first movie. I would have liked to see more of the Shire. And I would have liked to have heard some of the songs in their entirety. Especially "the road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began"

Interesting that the Shire "Hobbit Home" is now considered a strong design for the future. Tons of advantages in the design.

[PvK]

I thought it was extremely well-done, especially Minas Tirith, and much of the main battle.

I watched Two Towers extended on DVD before seeing a midnight (plus preview time...) showing of ROTK, though, which may explain why I was starting to want to kill Hobbits by the end. Seemed like there was about 10 minutes of extra looking-at-cute-Hobbits-doing-nothing footage at the end. The omission of the conflict in the Shire made this pretty gratuitous except for die-hard Hobbit-lovers, at least at my point of fatigue at that point.

As for criticisms, I closely agree with apoger:

Originally posted by apoger:
... The army of the dead being moved to Pelennor was also obviously done for reasons of time constraints, however I think that it could have been done better. By making the undead near invincible it drains power from the sacrifices of the other combatants. The undead should have put the "good guys" just over the top rather than acting like a super smart bomb.
...

and would add that was my main criticism of much of the action scenes throughout the film trilogy is along the same lines. Some of it I thought was just completely superb, and so good that I'm content to overlook the weak parts as a whole. However there are other parts that are overdone, silly, nonsensical, fake-o, or have major scale and/or physics errors in time, space, speed, or number of fighters. The hordes of orcs seems to conveniently change in number by orders of magnitude sometimes, (usually depending on whether they are supposed to be winning or losing), in ways that I don't think are really necessary, and that diminish the otherwise-wonderful effect that exists at other times.

PvK