Wednesday, May 27, 2009

The Lord of the Rings

I've been plowing my way through the Lord of the Rings extended edition movies for the past few nights.  These are fantastic movies, but it is a major commitment to get through them in a reasonable amount of time.  It's been long enough since I've seen the movies that I'm not really sure which scenes were in the theatrical releases and which were added for the extended edition.  I guess it doesn't really matter.

A few random thoughts on the series...

1.  I really don't like Sean Bean as an actor and I'm glad that Boromir was killed off in the first movie.  I only wish Peter Jackson would have found a way to kil him off sooner.  Maybe he could have fallen off of a balcony at Rivendell or something.
2.  The seamless integration of normal-sized actors as hobbits continues to impress me.  There are only a few places where things don't look quite right and they don't distract from the movie at all.
3.  The portrayal of Gollum is very well done.  I found Gollum extremely tedious in the books.  My precious this and and my precious that.  In the movie he is an interesting character.
4.  When will evil overlords realize that orcs make terrible soldiers?  They always find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
5.  I'm not sure why Peter Jackson sent the contingent of elves to Helm's Deep.  It seemed completely unnecesary.
6.  I liked the end of Saruman and Wormtongue in the extended edition of Return of the King.

Enough for now.  (Yes, I realize this is all five years too late.  But I wasn't blogging then.)
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3 comments:

Peder said...

Did 'Return of the King' end better in the extended version? The theatrical one had so many false endings that it was annoying. Also, I agree about Boromir. You can never really trust former James Bond villains. You shouldn't even try.

Chris said...

We haven't made it to the end yet - it's 252 minutes long! Just finished the Battle Pelennor Fields and Sam has rescued Frodo from the Orcs.

Alfred T. Mahan said...

How someone can dislike the man who singlehandedly killed most of Napoleon's Spanish army is beyond me.

I dunno, Chris; my respect level for you has dropped somewhat.