ROTK:EE Thoughts

[ellarien]

I watched the whole thing last night, and on the whole I'm pretty happy about it. Most of the glaring lacunae in the theatrical version were filled in, with the notable exception of the Scouring of the Shire. I now like this one almost as much as Fellowship, and considerably more than TT even in the extended edition. There were a couple of added things I could have done without, though. All this is strictly personal opinion.

The Good:
The 'Voice of Saruman' scene. It seemed a little unnecessary to have Saruman right on top of Orthanc rather than on the balcony, but on the whole this was a satisfying wrap-up to the dangling Saruman thread, and at least he got knifed by the right person, even if was at the wrong time and place! On the other hand, what was he wittering about with that 'something festering in the heart of Middle Earth' line? That (like the Longbottom Leaf at Isengard) ought to be foreshadowing for the Scouring, and obviously isn't. I still wish they'd shaved off, say, a minute from each major battle scene, in order to show this in the theatrical version.

The Mouth of Sauron. (Though was it really necessary to have Aragorn swipe his head off?) One thing that made me go 'Waitaminute' a couple of hours later; only the mithril-shirt got handed over, so how did Frodo get his elf-cloak back?

The stone King and his flowery crown -- perfect.

Aragorn comforting Eowyn after the party at Meduseld -- non-canonical but sweet. Makes me wonder, though: Numenor gets referred to a few times but never explained, and Eowyn's dream isn't specifically tied into that. I can't remember how much explanation there is about Numenor in the books proper, but I thought there was at least a bit.

Frodo and Sam getting caught up in an orc convoy.

Aragorn healing Eowyn, and Faramir and Eowyn getting together. Very brief, but those two little scenes do help fill in the hole where the Houses of Healing sequences ought to be.

Aragorn calls Sauron on the Palantir. Wrong time, wrong place, and he doesn't seem to suffer any noticeable ill-effects, but it's there.


Bad:
Gimli and Legolas in a drinking contest.
The avalanche of green skulls in the Paths of the Dead. I can see how, having filmed that, they'd want to put it in the extended version, but why film it in the first place? On the other hand, it was nice to see the vanquishing of the corsairs.


Still missing:
The Scouring.
Ghan-Buri-Ghan.
Denethor's palantir -- and indeed much in the way of motivation for him at all.

Random thoughts:

Many people have complained about the compressed spatial scale that's especially noticeable in ROTK, with Mordor looking to be about ten miles across and fifteen from Minas Tirith. I'm not sure that's so bad, really. How else could film convey the menace of Mount Doom as perceived from Minas Tirith? In the text, a sentence will do it, without worrying about relative scale.

I still want to know where Aragorn parked his horse at the Black Gates!

Not unique to the EE, but don't the Eagles turn up too early at the Battle of the Black Gate?

I have a theory: in Jackson's Middle Earth, orcs and other creatures of the Enemy are actually made of some kind of animated fungus. That would explain their rapid deterioration when exposed to air, and also the remarkable lack of gore when they're dismembered.

I haven't watched any of the appendices yet, or listened to the commentaries. I don't think I want to, just yet; I'm not quite ready to look behind the curtain.