MasterKiller, this ROTK review is for you.

[Chang Style Novice]

Meanwhile, Rudy and Fredo and Golem are getting closer to the volcano, and Golem makes Fredo hate Rudy, and then tricks Fredo into a cave where there’s a giant spider and **** that was really scary because even in real life giant spiders are bad news.

Someone told me that all of the spider stuff actually happens in the second book in the series, and that they had to tweak some of the stuff that happens in the books to make the movies work. You know what? Good. Books suck. They used to be good back when people didn’t have movies and TV and dressed like Davey Crockett. People also used to ride horses and drink tea, but now we have cars and Sprite. Move the **** on. Peter Jackson did an amazing job adapting these books, and now the movies are so kick-ass that some people are going to go back and READ the books, which wouldn’t have happened if he’d just filmed the books exactly as they are. Happy now, smarty?

Let me give you an example of how NOT to make books into movies:

This summer a huge bucket of ****s came out called LEAGUE OF ADVENTURE GENTLEMEN. It was about how a bunch of characters from old-timey books got together and ****ed up bad guys. And NO ONE SAW IT. Why?

First, they picked a bunch of characters like Invisible Man and Mr. Hyde and Dracula-Woman and Huck Finn. These are all characters from books that were written five hundred years ago. Huck Finn was actually written before writing. These are the kind of books they make you read in summer school but you’re all like, “**** you, I’m going to play Sonic on my Sega” and you totally complete all the levels by August. So who the **** is going to go see a movie about characters and people they’ve never heard of (the movie acts like you’re supposed to know who these people are)? Like I said before, MOVIES are the new books, so how about this for a movie (I even thought of a good title):

__________________________________________________ _

TEAM 1970’S FOOT-TO-ASSERS

The movie opens: A cult killer tries to assassinate Chauncey Gardiner, the President of the United States. Before the brainwashed assassin dies he gasps the word, “Cyrus” and takes a poison pill.

Senator John “Bluto” Blutarsky forms a super-team to infiltrate New York and take down the “Cyrus” cult. This team is made up of “Bruce” (from ENTER THE DRAGON), “Dirty” Harry Callahan, a now-teenaged Regan MacNeill (who is a stone boner machine and also has devil powers), “Quint” from JAWS, who’s upper torso washed ashore after the shark attacked him, and who has now been made bionic by Oscar Goldman and OSI, and finally Beau “The Bandit” Durville, who’s driving his Trans Am.

They enter New York with the Bandit driving like a ****ing maniac, and Dirty Harry shooting people out the window and Regan making people’s heads explode and ****. Wow!

They get to the center of the Cyrus Cult headquarters in the middle of Central Park and confront Cyrus. He’s controlling his subjects with a glowing Chevy Malibu. Bruce goes totally Jackie Chan on everyone while Harry and the Bandit battle their way to the car. Quint dies bringing down all the cult killers, and they drive off with the Malibu. They also find out that Cyrus was trained by the Parallax Corporation.

Back at the White House, they get their next assignment. They must take down the Parallax Corporation, which is being run by Gregory Marmalarde. They are creating an Army of brainwashed super-killers at their facility at Crystal Lake. These new killers are indestructible and a step above the cult killers of Cyrus. For this phase of the mission they are joined by CIA agent Vincent J. Ricardo (from THE IN-LAWS) and off they go.

They blast their way into Parallax Headquarters, only to find their way blocked by the new generation of super-killers – hockey-mask wearing mother****ers who have all undergone the “Vorhees treatment”. Bruce and Regan take on the killers, while Harry and Vincent go for Marmalarde. That’s when he reveals his newest, greatest killer – New York taxi driver Travis Bickle, who’s undergone the “Vorhees treatment” and is a virtual arsenal of different guns, knives – all of which appear from his wrists, chest, even eyes. Bickle killed Marmalarde’s frat brother Douglas Neidermeyer in Vietnam. Harry dies fighting Bickle, but not before killing Marmalarde. Ricardo searches the Parallax files, only to find that Parallax is only a tiny part of a much bigger, much more evil power – the Thorne Corporation, run by Damien Thorne. He has a huge facility in the Nevada desert, near Area 51.

Their final mission is to deliver the Chevy Malibu to Area 51. The Chevy contains a weapon which can defeat Thorne’s final plan.

Thorne’s compound is patrolled and protected by driverless trucks from DUEL and a bunch of those devil limousines from THE CAR. Two teams are sent in – The Bandit, driving his Trans Am with Regan and Bruce, and another driver named “Kowalski”, who will drive the Malibu along with Ricardo.

They battle their way through the devil trucks and demon limos until they penetrate Thorne’s headquarters. He’s got every character from every boring-ass indie film in the last twenty years strapped to posts in this huge chamber full of leather-y ALIEN eggs. The eggs are hatching and putting face huggers on the douche bags from WALKING AND TALKING and SEX, LIES AND VIDEOTAPES and CHASING AMY and everyone from every Henry Jaglom film ever made and killing them.

There’s nothing anyone can do – they have to stand and watch while all of these characters are slowly and horrible killed before our eyes, and they hatch into Aliens. That’s when “Kowalski” opens the trunk of the Malibu to reveal: ROY NEARY, JR. This is the half-human/half-alien offspring of Roy Neary from CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND and he starts going outer space whup-ass on the aliens along with Bruce Lee. The Bandit looks at the camera, winks, and smiles. (There can be a lot of shots during the closing credits of The Bandit cracking up).

Ricardo and Regan work their way to Thorne’s headquarters where there’s this huge demon battle between Regan MacNeill and Damien Thorne that will make the audience go, “We need new words for ‘HOLY ****ING ****’”.

__________________________________________________ _

See? Use characters from movies thirty years ago, instead of from books five hundred years ago. And by the way, that’s only using characters from 70’s films. I also have plans for an 80’s team of ass-kickers and a 90’s team. Everyone who was into movies from before 1969 is dead, and we’d actually better hurry with the 70’s thing, now that I think of it. Also, I totally copy-wrote this with the Writer’s Society, and I also know a 400 pound man who will man-rape anyone who makes this movie without me.

Okay, back to HOBBIT-MAN, although at this point it’s just wall-to-wall awesome. The Battle for the White Mountain City has trolls and elephants and catapults and a battering ram that looks like a dragon head on fire. Also, earlier Gandalf scares off the flying bats-things with his glowing staff. In the battle for the White Mountain City Gandalf just runs around giving orders. How about turning the bad guys into babies or something with his staff? But that would actually cut down on the ass-kicking so, actually, fine.

The I Don’t Want to Be The King Guy gets a bunch of ghost warriors to fight, and that’s just awesome when it happens, and also the elf chick with the bow takes down an elephant all by herself, and the Giant Midget keeps killing people with his axe.

Then when THAT battle’s over and you’re thinking, “Just air comes out when I spooge now” they stage a whole OTHER battle at Evil Town to distract the orks so Golem and Rudy and Fredo can get to the volcano. And I won’t reveal what happens in the volcano except to say it involves Fredo and Rudy getting right to the very edge, but at the last second Fredo turns evil and decides not to throw the ring in, and puts it on instead so he turns invisible, buy Iggy shows up and bites off Fredo’s finger and Iggy falls with the ring into the lava and Evil Town is completely destroyed. You will have to find out the rest for yourselves. I hate spoilers.

You can totally leave at this point but there’s an extra half hour of everyone relaxing and going home and being happy and I guess they put that in so you can realize your pants are choked with poop from all the battle scenes, so thanks.

There’s also an Annie Lennox song over the closing credits. ????? How about Led Zeppelin’s “Ramble On”, which is where they got the name Golem, or “Ain’t Talking ‘Bout Love” by Van Halen?

Peter Jackson has proved with these films that he is the man to bring A-TEAM to the screen. Five stars. Best movie of the next four years.

[dwid]

Sure, the movies look good (except for the cheesy Ent effects), but when you leave the theatre, what are you thinking? What is the message? What conversations can you have about it EXCEPT that it looked good and made your @ss hurt while watching it?

Film is a visual medium. If you don't like what you're looking at, I think it's highly unlikely that you'll pay attention long enough to appreciate the thematic content so you can have conversations about it later. The underlying themes in film are, to me, easiest to appreciate when they maintain subtlety. It's why the 2nd and 3rd Matrix films were increasingly irritating, they beat you over the head with the themes until it reached the point somewhere around midway through the 3rd film that the story no longer had any appreciable life apart from the subtext. Further, the subtext had become so muddled that even on that level, the story would have been better served by stopping after the first film.

Anyway, movies can be good for different reasons. I like the LOTR movies because they are visually beautiful and because they are accurate depictions of stories I already liked. I'm not looking for subtext. If I want a launchpad for interesting avenues of thought, I'll pick up a book.

[Ben Gash]

I thought that the return of the king was seriously disappointing. I thought that the battle for Minas Tirith was seriously lightweight and didn't hold a candle to the battle of Helm's deep. Some of the CGI was seriously ropy, whole storylines were dealt with in 10 minutes, and much of the editing was sloppy. Ironically I thought the Two Towers was the worst book and the best film (and that's with one of the major fights shifted to the end of Fellowship for a more dramatic ending).

[KC Elbows]

Denethor/faramir is a dark father element: Denethor, who dislikes faramir despite the younger son being closest to him in foresight and virtue, sends his son to certain doom at osgiliath, where the son is poisoned by an arrow of Sauron's servants. But the wound was truly inflicted by denethor's choice, and the wound is a fever, a burning fever.

Yet Faramir refuses to die, showing his character to be superior to his father's, who has given up before even coming face to face with the enemy, and this refusal forces denethor, in his madness, to try to burn alive himself and his son, ultimately only burning himself alive, because of his son's choice to survive and the hobbit's awareness of it.

I don't think a comparison of the story elements of star wars and LOTR can yield much, because ultimately, Lucas does not have the understanding of the elements MK has described, as can be seen by his lack of awareness of their total absence in every other work of his that the original trilogy, whereas Tolkein was well versed on them, consistent, and merely way too detail oriented and verbose, which is fortunate, because those details have made the movies simpler to make. Both writers had their place, but where Tolkein's carreer is made up of books that support the central thesis of LOTR if nothing else, Lucas' only notable work is the original trilogy, and the followups largely unravel that work if accepted as canon.

As for the story, much of it also has to do with free will, and here we fall into tolkein's back story, the silmarillian. Eru(god) begets angels who take part in the song of creation, but a group of angels rebels. The world is made for man, but faithful angels make the elves and dwarves and seek to have them born before man, against Eru's wishes. The fallen angels descend upon the world and turn middle earth to turmoil, and the war between the angels ultimately lays waste to the world of mortals, and Eru reshapes the world and casts down the lord of the fallen. His second in command, Sauron, takes up where his master left off, ruining the world by seeking power over it.

To counter this, Eru sends a small number of minor angels to middle earth in the guise of old men who are sworn to avoid using their power in combatting Sauron. These are the wizards, and they are the same order of angels that Sauron is, though in truth, Sauron is diminished by the loss of his corporeal form, so one could assume that five like him could easily dispatch him, given permission. But then, the balrog would still have lay hidden in moria to be found later, and dragons, and such.

All of those wizards fail in their task save one, gandalf. Yet, he does virtually nothing himself, save inspire mortals to rise to the occasion. Saruman, who acts most directly, becomes enamored of his ability to act, and falls to corruption.

The point being, the world was sundered by the fall, and normalcy could only be attained by the valour of normal men, no matter how short. Every problem in middle earth could find its root in the meddling of great powers, whereas the solution, the salvation of valinor's sins, came from the willing sacrifice of a little man who had never slept with woman, as MK points out.


As for the end and the ommission of the scourge of the shire, I can survive this. However, they were weak on showing that Frodo had been ruined by the quest. Galadriel, earlier in the second movie, states to Elrond "The quest will destroy him, you have seen this". The book makes it clear at the end, the movie has him hold his shoulder once and that's about it.

[Judge Pen]

Thanks KC.

I'm not a Tolkienite and the back story was never clear to me. Your brief background explains some problems that I had in the story (like why Gandolf never does much). The movie implied that Sauron was more powerful than any of the Wizards, though. Plus, don't the 5 Wizards drive Sauron out of his stronghold in Mirkwood and back into Mordo around the time of the events in the Hobbit? someone told me that as well.

[MasterKiller]

whereas the solution, the salvation of valinor's sins, came from the willing sacrifice of a little man who had never slept with woman, as MK points out

I haven't seen ROTK, so forgive me if I'm wrong, but I'm under the impression that Frodo eventually succumbs to the ring, and it is only destroyed because Golem bites his finger off and falls into the lava with it.

Now, from a purely archetypical viewpoint, Frodo is not a hero, or even an anti-hero, because he does not conquer the ring (or himself). He does nothing really, except resist it long enough to get it to Mt. Doom. I suppose you could argue that, in light of KC's recent post, he sacrifices his soul or something, but sacrifice in of itself is more suited for saviours than heros. Frodo isn't aware of the sacrifice (at least I don't see him being aware. Maybe in the books this is more clearly explained). He doesn't know that the quest will destroy him until it already has, which means his sacrifice is an empty gesture, something he stumbled upon.

Who would you say then, is the hero of ROTK? The guy who doesn't want to be king? He doesn't follow the archetype, either. From a Campbellian stand-point, what was his quest?

[@PLUGO]

Who would you say then, is the hero of ROTK?

well... I would say it's Samwise who prettymuch follows the ah... Campellian arch.

He's a sort of fool who is called onto a journey far greater than he ever imagined. leaving his innocence and home behind.

He derives strength from a devotion to something beyond himself... both his loyalty to frodo as well as the ideal that the little good that there is still in the world is worth fighting for...

Even after Frodo sucumbs to the manipulations of Golem and sends Samwise away he eventually rededicates himself to the the greater quest.

Finnally after the ring is distroyed he personally sees to Frodo's salvation and eventually returns home, wiser, stronger & braver.

So while Frodo is a failed hero and a sort of savior. I'd say the hero's journey belongs to Samwise.
This same thing can be said to different degree of the other hobbits as well.

I think there is a major theme being played out in the films. No one individual functions as the Savior of Middle Earth. It is through the collective efforts of the most unlikely of beings (golem included) that bring about a sort of mid-wifing of Middle Earth's 4th age rather than "doom" at the end of its 3rd age.

The original Star Wars trilogy plays to a similar tune with the diverse efforts of charactors and ewoks. But does not do so as elegantly (IMO).

[KC Elbows]

JP,

The wizards have diminished powers due to their oath. In the contexts of the story, they are weaker, but in terms of their actual nature, they may not be. Considering that diminished in power, gandalf destroyed a balrog, which is another form of "angel" of the same echelon as sauron and gandalf, if lower in that echelon, suggests that gandalf and saruman were likely very powerful beings.

Also, I believe Elrond was also in on the seige in mirkwood, which infers elf forces were there as well.

MK,

I agree, that one element makes the story elusive. Looking at it from that perspective, I would say that Frodo is the hero because he knows the cost of the ring, and thus, aside from Sam's brief time with the ring, he is the only ring bearer who knowingly accepts his doom. Nonetheless, the end is a strange one, but I do not believe that any one definition of hero defines what a story can be, but merely gives a guideline one may work from, or escape if one can justify it to the reader.

DS,

That view does apply to Sam, but I can't think of him as the chief hero. It is The Lord of the Rings, and Frodo is its lord more than Sauron in the stories, while Sam is not even tested by it in comparison.

I think of Frodo as the chief hero because he is the one who takes compassion on Gollum even though he knows gollum may kill him, and he gets the ring there, and when he is found too weak at the end, the fruit of his compassion is what destroys the ring. He sees clearest the ring's power, and he says Sam would be destroyed by it, so we must take his view as fact in that case. Even when he cannot destroy the ring, he recognizes his failure. He cannot be truly like smeagol/gollum and rejoice in ignorance. And so, his spirit, lessened though it is by the experience, can stand uncorrupted, which Boromir could not achieve, nor smeagol, nor aragorn's forefather Isulder, nor faramir, nor Gandalf or Galadriel or Elrond. Only Frodo in the entire story achieves this, and it is the battle for his spirit that he is the hero of, which was Eru's(God's) original intention to be the whole point of middle earth.

My take.

[Chang Style Novice]

Yeah, whatever.

But the Battle of **** Your Pants will make you **** stuff you didn't eat when you see it.

Seriously, KC - nice posts.

[KC Elbows]

Thanks CSN.

As far as the movie popcorn eating aspect goes, I liked the battle of minas tirith, especially the fall of the Witch King, and thought Mordor was nicely done. I also liked the beginning of the movie, though I suspect that's what your purist friend didn't like about the second one: although the story and details are remarkably similar for a book transition into movie, the second book itself is made up of the events that lead to the battle for helm's deep in the first half of the book, and the second half is devoted to the journey of Sam, Frodo, Gllum and Smeagal, whereas the movie interspersed the two halves between each other roughly evenly. Same story, different organization, that's all.

I'm pretty much of a similar mind to MK on certain things with this movie, but I still feel it is a good story, and at times even better as a movie, imho.

Actually, the main thing I disagree with in ROTK is the palantir being in contact with Sauron himself. In the book, it was the witch king, and this I felt was more consistent with the story's approach to Sauron: an unspeakable evil beyond definition. If that were fixed, and the end conveying Frodo's doom better, I'd immediatey require fresh underpants.

[Chang Style Novice]

Nah, Eric understands the need for the movies lengths to be pretty close and the neccesity to not end TTT on too much of a bummer (Frodo getting apparently spider-chowed.)

One of his serious complaints was that a lot of Gandalf's action (speech at the black gate, some other stuff) was transferred to Aragorn. He kind of sees Gandalf as the big epic hero and thought he didn't have much to do except stand around twirling his staff. Well, HE thinks it's a serious complaint - I think it's pretty minor, and think so even more after reading your summation of the extra-LOTR Middle Earth stuff above. It adds resonance to my idea that the main theme here is about honest humble work being morally superior to power gifted from on high.

Anyway, I'd really like to see the scouring of the Shire, and I think the destruction of Frodo's ego and all that was excellently conveyed by Woods' performance, so I disagree with you there. I agree that the manifestation of Sauron as a lighthouse crossed with a contact lens was maybe NOT the best choice, though.

[KC Elbows]

Originally posted by Chang Style Novice
Nah, Eric understands the need for the movies lengths to be pretty close and the neccesity to not end TTT on too much of a bummer (Frodo getting apparently spider-chowed.)

One of his serious complaints was that a lot of Gandalf's action (speech at the black gate, some other stuff) was transferred to Aragorn. He kind of sees Gandalf as the big epic hero and thought he didn't have much to do except stand around twirling his staff. Well, HE thinks it's a serious complaint - I think it's pretty minor, and think so even more after reading your summation of the extra-LOTR Middle Earth stuff above. It adds resonance to my idea that the main theme here is about honest humble work being morally superior to power gifted from on high.

Anyway, I'd really like to see the scouring of the Shire, and I think the destruction of Frodo's ego and all that was excellently conveyed by Woods' performance, so I disagree with you there. I agree that the manifestation of Sauron as a lighthouse crossed with a contact lens was maybe NOT the best choice, though.

Actually, I liked the contact lens, but just felt it the wrong choice to create an inferred dialogue with Sauron and that midget

I agree with your assessment of the theme, btw. Gandalf is not the epic hero, nor can he be. He is a hero, but a much more subdued one, and every use of his power is a moment of weakness, and every time he brings out the best in others, it is his strength.

[MasterKiller]

Originally posted by Design Sifu
The original Star Wars trilogy plays to a similar tune with the diverse efforts of charactors and ewoks. But does not do so as elegantly (IMO).

The ewoks are important because they are technologically ignorant. Of course, everyone knows the final battle was going to be with wookies, but Chewbacca was developed "too smart" in the first 2 movies, and the story arc called for a race of less developed (technologically) beings to defeat the evil, mechanized empire. Unfortunately, they went for Teddy Bears instead of something more grown up.

One of the central themes of the story is, well, Nature vs Technology, which is why the Force is ultimately more powerful than AT-ATs and TIE fighters. Vader says in ANH "The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force." Ironically, Vader is only kept alive by technology after Obi-Wan kicks him in the lava pit. His very existance is an abomination of nature because he cannot live without the machines. If you pay attention, all of the Emperials are white human males, while the rebels are a smorgasbord of animalistic aliens and a lot of human females, which further contrasts the nature vs (western) society motiff.

However, Luke is clearly the main focus of the original trilogy, and while the other characters are important to the story, they are only important in relation to Luke's quest and his feelings for them. It is through his "faith in his friends" as The Emperor says, that he is able to remain on the Light path. His love for Leia is the only reason he will not strike down Vader or Palpatine because he knows Leia will be their next target for a Sith apprentice, and he feels he must protect her in the end even though it is his need to protect her that almost sends him over the edge during the final duel with Vader.

The value of Star Wars is ultimately that it introduced an entire generation of young people to Buddhist and Taoist concepts which they had never been exposed to. The story was a vehicle for a greater message, like the Matrix. My problem with the LOTR movies is that the story just seems to be the story, with nothing more significant at stake, which is why it appears (to me) to ramble on without focus. Like Bob Dylan told John Lennon, "The Beatles are great, but what are you saying?"

BTW, Lucas didn't write ESB or ROTJ, or even direct the movies, which is why the originals are superior to the new installments. Like Tolkien, he is more of a concept guy than he is a writer.

[KC Elbows]

Amen about Lucas and Tolkein being concept guys first and foremost before being writers. I think both came up with a set of amazing concepts. I don't agree on one having some presence of story over the other, but then, I can see your point; LOTR's story is a subtler one than Star Wars, and while subtle is not better or worse, it places the two in entirely different categories as stories to me. Both utilized a barely spoken back story to give a feeling of reality to their stories, but Tolkein's back story is more in keeping with the themes of his story, as more of it was written beforehand, while Lucas' back story is more the logical conclusions he drew from what he'd already made, imo.

[@PLUGO]

The interesting thing about Star Wars (for me) is that is was created FOR the movie experience while the LoTR series is an adaptation from a written piece.

With LoTR alot of effort seems to have been directed toward what to include verse what to exclude. Star War's doesn't seem to have this delima and instead allowed for plenty of additions (RPGs, BOOKS, etc...) to the mythos, after and around the film itself.

This idea seems to be the cornerstone of the new episodes. The movies themselves seem to be little more than frameworks upon which a new series of games, books, and audience participation is made avalable.

Nice sumation of the original SW trilogy MK.... and Yeah I actually saw an original sketch of Ewoks that looked almost bird like which I think would've worked better. There was also suppose to be a rival race that would unite with the ewoks in the final battle...

Still. . . I can't help but recall seeing stormtroopers struck by wooden clubs and saying "ouch" as they fell over. What's the point of waring that armor if a teddybear with a stick is going to hurt you?