Neither the Two Towers nor the Return of the King was as dramatic and awe inspiring to me as The Fellowship of the Ring. They are still wonderful movies, but I think a lot of the wonder from the first movie about just how Peter Jackson would visualise Middle Earth was over by the second and third parts. In Fellowship, there was just such a lot of “wow” factor. ROTK I liked more than TTT. TTT was more a bridge between the others and less a story in itself. (I felt the same about the books, too.)

I saw RotK on Trilogy Tuesday December 16th, 2003. I went with a group of friends in costume and had a blast. I miss the fellowship of people as crazy as me. (:

While I liked the movie, it was not as great as I was hoping. I am a longtime fan of the books and so I did not have the luxury of watching the movie just for the movie’s sake. Many things I was hoping to see were not in the movie. They showed the wedding of Sam and Rose, but not the one of Aragorn and Arwen. The movie tended to drag on occasion. Many things were left unexplained. Things someone who read the book would know, but not everyone has read the books, and those of us who have would have liked to have seen them just the same. The courtship of Faramir and Eowyn did not make it into the theatrical release, nor the fact that Aragorn made Faramir a Prince. It also never mentioned the fact that Eomer became King of Rohan when Theoden fell, but perhaps people could determine that on their own.

I am probably disappointed the most that they added a completely useless scene where Elrond tells Aragorn that Arwen is dying. That her life force is now attached to the ring. It made no sense at all, and was never mentioned again. I also do not remember seeing anything to do with Aragorn bringing the white tree back to Gondor. All I remember seeing was him jump over the side of the boat and rush the Orcs, while the Legions of the Dead swarmed in behind him. Many things were missing in fact, but still… overall the movie was quite good. Just not what I was expecting I guess, but it was in no way a real disappointment.

One final note, “The hands of the King are the hands of a healer.” This should have definately been included in the movie, yet it was not. In fact, no reference at all was made to the houses of healing, which was always one of my favorite parts of ROTK. I am however, very glad that Jackson chose to leave out the Scouring of the Shire. I was never fond of that part of the story at all..