Giant Green Rabbit
Posts: 1107
Joined: 13/2/2006
From: Cloud Cuckoo Land
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I thought ROTK was the weakest of the trilogy by some distance. Its been a decade since I read them but I remember feeling the same way about the books; the first was the best, the second was good, the third was OK. I think however the problems with the third act as such, are exacerbated in the cinematic adaptation.
For me FOTR works so well because the story is well written, the characters given space to breathe, the tension allowed time to develop. This means that when the punches come, they have some weight behind them; when the wraiths attack the hobbits at the watchtower, Moria, the final battle; all these are preceded by character development, a sense of foreboding. ROTK is too grandiose, especially with respect to the Aragorn/Theoden/Gandalf thread. The music is too grand too often, the visuals too keen to ape what's come before it, the events too supposedly important...and without the contrast of more intimate encounters, the big events lose their ability to attract attention, let alone their power and awe. I have to confess I've never sat through the extended cut fully; I tried a couple of times but got bored on both occasions; for me the quieter intimate moments come as a relief, but there isn't enough of that. Nor is there enough time and space to build tension.
You could argue that's the nature of the book; the characters in that particular thread are increasingly swamped by the sheer scale of the storyline, but whereas even TTT managed to hold the personal stories together and build tension very well towards Helm's Deep, the writers struggled to achieve the same with ROTK. Perhaps greater narrative adaptation was required and some of the events in the book should have simply been ignored. I agree with whoever said they were disappointed with the simplicity of someone like Denethor; characters such as he can make the tale more interesting, but he doesn't have the screen-time or the space (with so much else going on) to be written as much more than a cardboard cut-out. The end result is a film that feels emotionally by-numbers: When a scene is meant to be emotional, how do we know; because the music is so grand, the visuals cut dramatically....but the substance isn't there. so its reduced to the worst kind of melodrama.
Other problems are inherent to the book; Gandalf the White for example just isn't anywhere near as compelling a character as his former Grey self, Aragorn is less interesting the more certain he is of his role. Having seen the film twice I genuinely can't remember what happens to Legolas, Gimli, Merry and Pippin, except for recalling them used for 'humour', which isn't something PJ necessarily excels at - again they are swamped by events as much as they are in the book.
So far from being a classic, in my eyes ROTK is a very flawed film; weaker I'd suggest than ROTJ in relation to the rest of the original Star Wars trilogy. If I wanted to watch any of the LOTR films again it would be the first, that sucks you in and builds its strands patiently and meticulously, so when the spectacle arrives, it's backed up by substance. Few films are as big as ROTK whilst feeling as empty.
< Message edited by Giant Green Rabbit -- 3/10/2010 11:59:38 AM >
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