The amount of reviews in the last week or so for Return of the King is astonishing. All those bored journalists. However, if it’s reviews you crave (both with and without spoilers), head directly to Rotten Tomatoes, which has an absolute bucketload of them – even a few that are negative. And the tomato verdict? It’s fresh, apparently. Thanks to the dozens of people who have written in with review links! [More]
Month: December 2003
In contrast to the huge ticketing mess, Trilogy Tuesday seems to have come off successfully. Here is TORn Staffer Starlady’s official unofficial report from the Trilogy Tuesday event in Mobile, Alabama. Fans from all over the area came together for what was truly an amazing experience. This is my story of the Mobile event; if you were there and want to add anything (stories or photos – but please include captions if you send photos!), email me at starlady@theonering.net and we’ll add them to the report! [More]
There’s also a report from the Mobile Register. [More]
Here is my official unofficial report from the Trilogy Tuesday event in Mobile, Alabama! Fans from all over the area came together for what was truly an amazing experience. This is my story of the Mobile event; if you were there and want to add anything (stories, photos, etc), email me at starlady@theonering.net and we’ll add them to the report!
My day began at…
7:30 am. Despite my best efforts to stay up late in preparation for tonight’s festivities, I was so tired from driving all weekend (Pennsylvania to Alabama, woot!) that I wound up falling asleep at 10:30 pm and am now wide awake. Ah well… I’ll just have to caffeinate myself heavily to make it to ROTK. I imagine once it starts I won’t have any trouble staying awake!
8:30. I give up trying to go back to sleep and instead decide to put together a trivia contest for the show. Rummaging through my accumulated LOTR stuff (from conventions, oscar parties, etc) produces two WETA orc medallions (yes, they’re collectible, but they really don’t go with my décor), a couple of hundred TORn bookmarks, a few luggage tags, one Saruman and Wormtongue miniatures set from Games Workshop (see above about collectible, but not useful), three Two Towers creatures books, and a partridge in a pear tree. Just kidding… the last prize is an extra copy of The People’s Guide to J.R.R. Tolkien (don’t worry, I didn’t give away my autographed copy!). I make a dozen “Frodo Lives” buttons and add them to the pile, whose size leads me to two inescapable conclusions:
1. I have accumulated way too much LOTR stuff.
2. I need some hard trivia questions.
Off to TORn’s trivia contest (in Greenbooks) for the questions! Everything into a bag and I am ready to meet my line party for lunch.
11:30. I meet Heather, our line party leader, and her daughter Brittany, who impresses me with her encyclopedic knowledge of the films, at the restaurant. We are joined later by Clark and Stephanie, and the five of us geek out happily for an hour and a half (all wearing our TORn shirts go us!) until I get a phone call from my sister informing me that the theater is already seating, an hour and a half before FOTR starts!
Luckily, the restaurant is in the parking lot of the theater, and so we are able to get checked in and seated within about five minutes. The theater (well, probably actually New Line) has provided passes hung from lanyards, which are universally acclaimed as a Good Thing as they make it extremely easy to leave for bathroom and snack breaks. My sister Sarah and our friend Caitlin have saved me a great seat in the center of the second row of the stadium seats and we settle in for the long haul.
1:30 pm. The theater is already three-quarters full and the movie isn’t starting for another 45 minutes, so I decide it’s time for trivia! Heather comes down to help me and we manage to get rid of all the stuff in short order. The crowd is even geekier than I’d expected and there isn’t a single question that SOMEONE doesn’t know the answer to (though the classic “How many teeth does Gollum have?” does take several guesses).
The funniest moment, however, is when we ask “What actor plays Faramir?” and before I can call on one of the people with their hand raised, someone positively screams “DAVID WENHAM!” obviously a committed fan! We hand out all the big prizes and then pass out all the remaining bookmarks and buttons. Everyone seems to enjoy it, and as usual the mention of TORn elicits a huge cheer!
1:45. My fifteen minutes at the front of the theater have made me a fairly visible target for the reporter for the local newspaper, who wants to interview me for an article about Trilogy Tuesday. I successfully manage to pass him off to Heather (though he did corner me later, drat) and spend a few minutes getting to know my seat neighbors.
Wilson and Matthews (I swear these are their first names, I double checked) drove in from Birmingham, Alabama about three and a half hours away and Brad and Steve have come in from Rome, Georgia a six hour drive! Their markets (Birmingham and Atlanta) sold out too quickly for them to get tickets and so they made plans to drive down and join us instead! We commiserate about long drives and the lengths (literally!) we will go to for LOTR.
2:00. A local gym has donated free daypasses to give out to audience members. Some of us have a good chuckle about what is either a brilliant marketing move (target the sedentary geek population) or an absolute waste of time (see above). After those make the rounds, the manager of the theater comes down to brief us on the schedule for the next twelve hours. The plan is: movie, food, movie, mingle, movie, get free stuff from New Line, go home.
2:15. The Fellowship of the Ring begins. Massive cheering at the “Lord of the Rings” title this is the great thing about seeing films like this on opening night, the audience really gets into it! I note several places when seeing it on the big screen really makes a difference; for example, I can actually see the midges in the Midgewater Marsh on my television, I sort of have to imagine they’re there (Ringers with humongous televisions can just ignore that bit).
6:00. FOTR ends and food arrives. Barbecue sandwiches, yum! A local radio station drops by to give out t-shirts and light-up ring necklaces and for a few hectic minutes, the theatre looks like Mardi Gras (a Mobile tradition) as everyone screams and yells for the free stuff.
6:30. The Two Towers begins. Cheering again at the LOTR title and at the end. This is my first time to see the Extended Edition; graduate school being what it is, I haven’t had a chance to buy it on DVD, so I ooh and ahh and gasp at all the appropriate moments, prompting chuckles from my neighbors who have obviously already worn out their DVD copies.
10:00. TTT ends and the theater decides to get in on the free stuff act by cleaning out the poster closet and giving away several dozen movie posters. I experience one of the happiest moments of my life when I discover that this theater sells espresso drinks I am a mocha addict and I really need the caffeine, as it is approaching my bedtime! While I am away securing the caffeiny goodness, the radio station guy comes back and gives a prize to the fan who traveled the longest distance my friends from Rome lose out to a fan from Finland!
I chat with several TORn fans in the lobby, including some I met at DragonCon… hi again guys! A representative from New Line (at least we assume that’s who she was) comes and reads a statement about the collectible giveaway at the end of the film, warning us to proceed in an orderly fashion to get our film frame… which seems a bit hasty, as Ringers are probably the best behaved fans in the world, but we nod politely anyway. Finally, after a few false starts to get the film focused and framed correctly…
11:00. The Return of the King begins. This isn’t a review, so no spoiler worries, but I will say that I cry like a little girl for the last twenty minutes of the film. Truly deserving of every accolade it receives. The biggest cheer of all when the credits begin to roll… what a journey for us all!
2:30. The final credits roll by and I only just now realize how tired I am. I wish my new friends a safe journey home, collect my film frame thingy from New Line, and drive home. Somewhere along the way I realize what an amazing experience it was, and how lucky I was to be able to take part in it.
Mad props to:
- Heather, for coordinating this and Wednesday night’s line party.
- Caitlin, for physically driving to the theatre and getting the tickets on October 9 when Fandango.com broke.
- Brad, Steve, Wilson, Matthews, and probably countless others for truly going the distance for LOTR.
- Everyone who brought pillows. You are smarter than me.
- The staff at the Wynnsong 16. You guys were absolutely amazing. A better-planned event one couldn’t hope for, and a more courteous and understanding staff one couldn’t even imagine.
- Sideshow Weta, for the nifty film frame collectibles.
- New Line, for your commitment to the fans.
- PJ and everyone involved in the films. There aren’t words, so I’ll just have to say: thank you.
“I’ve seen FX – I know what cool stuff looks like. I don’t care how pretty your christmas decorations are: if the tree is dead, the tree is dead. You can hang as many pretty baubles on it as you like, but that’s still a dead tree.” – Ben Wootten, Senior Designer, WETA Workshop.
This quote pithily encapsulates the greatest fear I had about Lord of the Rings – that it might turn into an action/FX fest without a depth of characterisation to make it more than junk food. [More] Minor Spoilers
You Cannot Always Be Torn In Two
Return of the King Reviewed
Press Screening
Embassy Theatre, Wellington
November 29, 2003
“I’ve seen FX – I know what cool stuff looks like. I don’t care how pretty your christmas decorations are: if the tree is dead, the tree is dead. You can hang as many pretty baubles on it as you like, but that’s still a dead tree.” – Ben Wootten, Senior Designer, WETA Workshop.
This quote pithily encapsulates the greatest fear I had about Lord of the Rings – that it might turn into an action/FX fest without a depth of characterisation to make it more than junk food.
Sure, junk food is tasty in its way, but what I most enjoy is a delicious meal prepared by a skilled cook. Cuisine rather than junk food – this was my secret hope for LoTR. And my secret fear.
In fact, I went into the press screening of Return of the King more concerned that I might not like it, than expecting that I would enjoy it.
Nevertheless, I wanted to give the film every opportunity to shine – both individually and as an arc of three films with its siblings – Towers and Fellowship.
But I felt no certainty that it would. The thing is, I didn’t like Towers that much – I felt it suffered from junk food syndrome, elevating action at the expense of character. And when I first saw Fellowship, all the textual deviations prevented me from really enjoying what was going on. In the end, I feel Fellowship is a good film, but I’d never liked a Rings film on a first showing.
So there was more than a bit of trepidation within me when I wandered up to the Embassy Theatre in Wellington on November 29. I didn’t want it to suck, but there was always a chance that might be the case.
By the by, the refurbished Embassy is absolutely gorgeous. If you’re ever in Wellington, you must check it out. The seats are wondrously conmfortable. Roomy, large … and leather!
As the 200-300 Australian and New Zealand press take their seats, the lights start to go down. There is warm applause as the New Line logo flashes up on the huge screen … and we begin …
About three and a half hours later, I emerge feeling pleasantly surprised.
Now, this may feel like faint praise – it is not.
I never expected to like and enjoy Return of the King on the first viewing. I expected to feel far more conflicted when I walked out into the fading sunlight on Courtney Place. Yet that was not the case. As I walked out I was … at peace.
Why?
The answer is very simple – Return of the King is largely character driven. And the performances, dialogue and emotional impact is sufficient that – for me – it outweighs the deviations from the text.
And indeed, despite the deviations, it still feels largely true to the “spirit” of Tolkien. Of course, a term such as “spirit” is easily written, much harder to nail down definitely. But what I mean is that themematically it reveals many of the same lessons about power, death, corruption, forgiveness, loss and redemption that I believe lie at the centre of what Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings conveys to the reader.
And there are some major deviations – both sins of commission and sins of ommission. Not a lot, but some of these instances will have people (both “purists” and not-so-purists) jumping up and down for weeks.
But I discovered at the end of the film that these deviations didn’t matter so much in the balance of things.
Return of the King flows smoothly from scene to scene. Yet it rarely feels rushed – a remarkable effort in distilling so much into such a compact space. Yet, just as importantly, it doesn’t drag. There aren’t lengthy self-indulgent battle scenes, and virtually all the major and minor characters get plenty of screentime. (Eomer and Faramir are perhaps the two exceptions – they both get cyphered substantially)
What’s more, it is a great ensemble performance. To me, Towers felt like it was overshadowed by the power of Andy Serkis’ performance as Smeagol/Gollum. Return of the King, on the other hand, does not belong to any single actress or actor. I think this is a good thing – it’s how it should be when you have so many strong characters in a script.
And although this may cost it awards, in truth Astin and McKellen are just as impressive as Mortensen and Wood. Noble really is Denethor (albeit it an abridged version that plays up the madness and despair at the expense of his inner nobility) and Hill and Otto are also quite wonderful.
I think some dramatic tension is lost after the climax at Mount Doom – several of the press people observed that there seemed to be several endings. It is a noticeable thing, though of less concern and confusion to one who has read Lord of the Rings. But I don’t know how I would have done it differently.
Regardless, the ending is as poignant as anyone could wish for, and I doubt that anyone will complain on that account.
Frodo says near the end: “Sam, you cannot always be torn in two …”. This was my moment of clarity; the point where I realised that just like Sam, the viewer has a choice.
Will you accept the idiosyncracies in Jackson’s vision? Will you accept the differences in his filmic adaptation/interpretation of the text?
I’ve stopped wanting the film to be the book. I am at peace. I liked Jackson’s Lord of the Rings for what it is, rather than mourning it for what it is not. In this sense, my journey has been as long as Frodo’s, and just as painful as well. It’s not been completed without loss, confusion and annoyance.
But what of you?
I don’t know your answer. That’s your choice to make. But do go. you’ll be delighted in parts, disturbed and confronted in others.
And like me, you might also emerge at the end feeling “pleasantly surprised”.
For the third year in a row, we are proud to offer you a chance to voice your opinion for the latest installment of the Lord of the RIngs trilogy, The Return of the King. Please simply follow the link and type in your review of the film. We will approve the review and you can send the URL to all your friends and family. Among broad questions concerning directing and acting, we also get into specifics, so beware of Spoilers! (Ie, don’t fill in a review until you have seen the movie!!!) Also, we are going to be working around the clock to approve your reviews as they come in, so please be patient with the dedicated efforts of the TORn staff. Happy ROTK day! [Ringer Reviews]