As has now become a ritual, with the release of the third installment of The Lord of the Rings expanded DVD's, I was sure to spend a ridiculous number of hours watching the film itself along with the commentaries and special features.
Having learned with FOTR to not watch any commentaries other than the writer/director one, I had established a routine. The other commentaries were mostly annoying , and the still photos require a level of interest even I don't have.
Tingling with excitement at the prospect of 40 minutes of additional footage for ROTK, I looked forward to settling down and watching what had been added back to more closely follow the intent of the original story. What I got was mostly stupid stuff.
Saruman's death - better to have left it out despite the whining of Christopher Lee
The avalanche of skulls - stupidest thing they did in the whole movie - by far (not the worst thing - just the stupidest)
The end of The Mouth of Sauron - blech.
The good stuff was more subtle though did include a couple extended scenes - The Houses of Healing for instance. Strange how Aragorn only healed Eowyn - he appears to be hedging his bets, Arwen-wise, the slut (Aragorn that is).
In general I was burned out and dispirited at the end of it, and hoped the watching through the commentary would help, but alas, it was less satisfying than the TT one, revealing little about their reasoning behind the choices they made. They appeared to be tired of the process.
So further dispirited, but home sick with little energy to much of anything else, I launched into the appendices. Very quickly I was caught up in the process of the film-making. Boy I love it. It makes me more respectful and awed of the job they did. It shows a level of care about the craft and the integrity to the vision I have never seen in another film. My spirit was renewed. Continuing through all the various mini-documentaries, I found myself quite emotionally involved as the people talked about their sadness at the prospect of the end of their journey. Maybe it was the Dayquil, but I found myself welling up at a number of occasions. It was great.
So, having gone through the 7 hours of the appendices, including the self-indulgent stuff at the end of disk 4, I still had time and so launched into the movie for perhaps the last time (for a while). I watched with pleasure through the entire 4+ hours, sitting through the credits all the way to the end and feeling at last that the journey was complete.
6 comments:
My feelings about how far short RotK fell of my expectations are well-documented. However, the watching (in recent days) all the "making of" features of TT has got me geared up for a renewed appreciation of the films. Perhaps it will be the same with RotK. I touched on this subject in an email to you this morning, from which I now pull a direct excerpt (rather than try to recreate):
I feel the same (back on TT here)--the watching of "the making of" makes me feel better about the movies. I'm pretty sure Tolkein would hate the movies, but I have to say I think he would really dig all the miniature-makers and the artists and all that. I think the sets and the props were really the stars of the show. You could spend the rest of your life just watching background detail (if you were insane).
On a side note-it is possible that, for me, these movies were absolutely perfect, from casting to directing, to all the behind the scenes stuff, with the exception of one thing: the writing. There are simply too many instances where it seems (especially in light of the meticulous, absolute care with which other people involved in the production approached their roles) that the writers took the path of least resistance, going for conclusions to scenes that wrapped things up in nice little packages, or went for the tried-&-true Hollywood laugh, rather than a more subtle approach. Again and again, the filmmakers and actors make reference to how scripts were rewritten and rewritten up to the last moment, and I will finally ask "WHY?" The planning for this project took years and years and the shooting alone took 14 months. How hard could it have been to have put the same amount of care & effort into telling the story of the breaking of the staff of Saruman as you did into the construction of the Tower of Barad-Dur? If they truly did do that, then it is really really a sad commentary on the state of scriptwriting. But what I think is more likely (and far more depressing) is that they fell into the same mode as 95% of films made in Hollywood, and simply thought the script to be far less important. Sad, either way.
Freak'in A! As much as I like any one movie, I could never sit through that much movie bullshit. Glad you took the journy, and I hope that you feel better. Did you have the flu or a cold? One day, however, I would like the industry to make a movie that covers ever part of a book. I don't care if it is two weeks or two hours long. Imagine a story told completely on film. I mean show them walk in real time. no jumping to when they get there. Adlib a bit. There could be some goofy crap that goes on through the journey or some great dialog. How about spending an entire weekend in the movie theatre? Shit man, they would have to have 20 different intermissions just to eat and poop. Just thinking out loud and typing quietly.
T-Clog is talking about a movie that takes years to complete.
From Bilbo's party to Frodo leaving is years as opposed to the minutes portrayed in the movie.
The whole adventure is 6 months and it's a couple more years until Bilbo and Frodo leave via the Gray Havens ("...4 years since Weathertop, Sam")
T-Clog is a glutton.
As far as the writing goes, I think you've hit on something, though in fairness to them, it is probably the hardest.
Tolkein's language (excluding the dialogue) was his craft. I'm not sure his dialogue was 'great' in the sense that it was particularly evocative or was something you could relate too in many cases, but it certainly worked.
They tried to incorporate as much as possible of the original dialogue, but having change the shape of the story, there was no chance of that succeeding.
I think they fell down more on the resolutions of scenes, knowing that they couldn't follow through with all the richness of the book, and sometimes failing to find a clever resolution that fit their narrative.
This topic, like the films themselves will likely have many endings so here's one.
Biggest failing of the movies - the destruction of Faramir.
Biggest success of the movies - even remotely capturing the wonder of the books, which I think they did as well as could be expected.
Inevitably, our expectations rose, and were not met, but it was not for lack of trying.
I'd call Faramir the biggest disappointing thing (as in person, place, or thing) in that his character was more mis-represented than any other character. I understand (after watching the "making of") WHY they chose to have him be the way he was. They didn't want to risk having this guy reject the ring outright-it would destroy all the build-up they had made about the power of the ring. But that explanation comes just mere hours after their biography of Tolkein showed how he did all these unconventional things in the writing of the book, asking readers to do things that supposedly no writer in his right mind would do, yet somehow they WORKED. Now, when the filmmakers had the same chance to give their audience some credit for their ability to understand a complex world with shades of grey, they don't take it. Boo on that.
On a more general note, for me the biggest failing was definitely the "Hollywood-ization" of the storytelling and scriptwriting, and it's not even close. This is pretty amazing, since I thought this problem was nearly absent in FotR, by the filmmakers' account the toughest of the three to turn into a compelling story, in that it was supposedly long on dialogue & (relatively) short on action. It definitely made the other two movies doubly disappointing.
The biggest success in the movies, I think, was their ability to bring the world, in all its richness and detail, alive onscreen in a way Tolkein did in his books. The sets & scenery could not have been any better. Some of the monsters, though--OOFTA! Cave trolls and wargs looks like they're right out of Sinbad and the 7 Seas!
Oofta?
Both the trolls and the wargs are improved in ROTK. No issue from me anymore.
Corsairs of Umbar were probably the worst (excluding the ridiculous skulls).
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