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kribbanI've already posted this to my friends so now I'm posting it on my LJ as well. It's about the worst day I've ever had.
I walked out from Return of the King.
I have never walked out from a film in my entire life. I’ve fallen asleep twice (to Last Year at Marienbad and Mutter Krause Fahrt ins Glück) but I’ve never ever walked out. In my mind, no matter how bad the movie that was something you just don’t do.
Before you ask, I feel fine now. I have recovered and have smoked tons of cigarettes since, so fear not.
How it happened? Sigh.
We came to town about five minutes after three.
I was sick from the start and we should have taken that for an omen really and stayed at home. But we decided to go anyway since I wasn’t more nauseous then every now and then when I go to my work for nine hours. We had 55 minutes to do some shopping and we went off in different directions. I searched for the ROTK soundtrack in two shops but to no avail. Malin had told me she wanted “anything LOTR related from the new gameshop” as a Christmas present and I settled for a ROTK deck of cards (please let them be nice looking!) and the Gollum action figure (with crawling action & mountain wall to crawl.)
We then went to see the film. Sigh.
On our left there was a band of boys, ten or so of them, 10-12 years of age and obviously interrelated. Next to us sat two boys who were hiding their face in their hands and groaning “please let them be quiet.”
They were referring to the band of boys. Sigh.
They were loud. They did things. The boys at our side turned and yelled at them to be quiet because the movie was starting. To no avail. The ten or so boys yelled, talked loudly to each other, used their cell phones, ran around, changed seats. They called out after each other across the theatre. They threw popcorns at other theatre goers.
I didn’t see the film. I was either upset or nervous the entire time, expecting an “attack” from the left flank at any moment. Whenever something would happen, whenever there was a conversation you feared it would be ruined and it was. The boy next to us ran and got the guard who told the boys they had to be quiet. That didn’t help. People shouted and yelled. The guy who was attacked with popcorn moved to another seat. I suddenly realized Elrond was in a scene and he had said something important to Aragorn but what that was I had no idea. Malin then rushed out and complained to the guard who came in again and talked to each of the boys.
At this point in time I had lost one third of the film. I started choking up because I remembered how I had planned for this to be and how it was in fact playing out. It was all gone… the film was gone, the things that had happened were gone, my enthusiasm was gone. I went outside, having never used the exit door of a theatre mid-show before, and practically crying, asked the vendor if she had any tickets left for the 8 o’clock showing. She had, in front row where we always sit anyway. I went back in and asked Malin if she wanted to leave. I think she didn’t but I knew I had to. I saw the three hunters on the path of the dead and went ‘gee that’s what the oath breakers look like, that’s another thing I missed!” Another surprise spoiled. I couldn’t take anymore of it, I felt that I didn’t want *this* movie ruined for me in this way, not the remaining half of it anyway. I just got out of there as soon as possible.
We went outside and immediately lit up. We smoked all the way to the restaurant. We had planned to make this an exciting day, following a tradition we have to have a night for ourselves a few days before Christmas with a movie and a restaurant afterwards. We had planned to talk about the film and be excited. All this was ruined. Instead we sat there, upset, smoking (I sent messages to just about everyone to tell them what had happened and how I wanted murder to be made legal for certain reasons.) and wasting money on food we didn’t really enjoy because there was no atmosphere and all we could think about was kill, kill, kill…
So that’s money down the drain, in addition to the money we spent on getting new tickets. The waitress was friendly though and that helped a bit so we tipped her. We then went to a cellar-based video store to get cigarettes from Malin and then we went, four hours later, to the theatre for our second attempt of seeing ROTK.
I was so tired. I didn’t sleep well last night but got up anyway to go to that fucking show. I could have slept. I could have slept and gone to the 8 o’clock show from the start. This means when the film finally started I was dead tired. I could hardly keep my eyes open. It’s horrible to admit it but I kept wishing the film could be over with so I could sleep. I didn’t get very excited by the action on screen because it was all a blur to me. That’s an awful thing to admit to isn’t it? I was tired and my eyes were tired and so I felt it was all a boring blur.
Also Malin had to slump since the people behind her told her she was too tall and had to lean down so that they could see.
The first hour of the movie was awful. There was no excitement or magic left since I’d already seen it several hours before. It wasn’t like when we saw TTT last year. It was… oh yeah, another hour of scenes I have seen enough to have them spoilt for me now but not enough to have *actually* seen them. I just wanted to… I kept hoping I would get all my sleepiness over and done with while the scenes were still old. The new stuff was a relief but still there wasn’t the excitement that should have been, had things not turned out this way for us. I didn’t get my wish about the sleepiness.
I had to rush to the bath room so I kept thinking when is a good time to go. Hence I basically missed some scenes I was interested in such as "Eowyn’s battle with the Witch King of Angmar and Gandalf’s speech to Pippin (which annoyed me a bit since he said everyone has to die and while the Ainu can die and be reborn they don’t have to.)
I did go, another movie first for me and splashed some real water on my eyes to keep myself awake (the past hour I had been using sparkling mineral water for that which of course wasn’t as effective.) I was back in a minute, a bit more awake and able to actually enjoy the remainder of the film (about 45 minutes.)
We then walked to the bus, smoked and made preparations for operation cheering up (getting two friends over to watch the TTT appendices and staying up all night.)
Malin is ecstatic about this films, she has after all seen it once before. She says the only thing that cheered her up was Prince Legolas.
Me? Well it was OK. It’s hard… I can’t put things quite in to words. I knew I liked it in some way. There just wasn’t any… joy in seeing it.
It was good. I know I will see it again and I will learn to love it, but I just don’t have this burning desire to see it again and again like I had when I had seen FOTR and TTT for the first time. I liked it, but it wasn’t… magical. I’m not filled with wonderful images or fantasies that can’t leave my mind. I don’t want to download the soundtrack at once and get drunk and smoke and talk about it for hours on end. I don’t feel any Christmas spirit in the way I did the last two years. I feel “Oh my, the holiday-tradition of escaping into a fairy tale is not as wonderful and thrilling and holiday-inducing as previously.” I’m tired and I came home four hours later than planned. I feel a bit disillusioned.
It just feels like a bit of an anti-climax.
The events in ROTK were not as dramatic as I’d though they’d be. The suicide of Denethor was not as wonderful as in the book. It did not send shivers down my spine the way it did when Malin read this scene at our kitchen table. It’s so beautiful and dramatic, how he jumps up on the table with the Palantir and his staff and is engulfed in flames even as he rants and Gandalf slams the door shut on him. That line about the Palantir showing hands burning and wringing. You don’t get much more dramatic than that.
Mount Doom as well. It’s chilling and eerie in the book. You sense the quest, how long it takes, how Frodo feels. The struggle of climbing and going through day after day, the Ring destroying Frodo and Frodo crawling on all fours to finish his task. Here they walked a bit, chatted a bit and then some cheery flute music plays! Sam picks Frodo up and viola, Frodo is doing a dramatic fight for the ring against Gollum in a lame effect seeking invention. Gollum takes the fucking Ring, gets his moment of happiness and gloriously falls down into the lava. End of fucking story
The most interesting love affair reduced to nothing, not good.
The use of Eldarion as a kid, yuck! Yuck yuck yuck! Cheap! And he didn’t even look elvish! I hate how people always use kids to provoke a reaction when they play no role in the story otherwise.
Just like the kids in TTT. It’s so cheap!
I liked the witch king bits, how Gandalf feared him, the prophecy and the actual fight, though that was too short for me.
I liked when Frodo chose to become the new Dark Lord though I wanted there to be more special effects, the shadow etc.
I liked Sam being tempted by the Ring.
I loved the Palantir scene though of course I preferred them to lie outside in the wild. I loved Gandalf sleeping with his eyes open! Billy Boyd was very good. I liked that whole scene and I absolutely loved how Gandalf touched him. That was one of my favourite scenes. Of course it’s one of my favourites of the book too.
I loved Pippin in Minas Tirith, the scenes with Denethor and him. When he’s forced to sing. He can sing, by the way!
I liked Faramir’s broken heart and his father’s will to sacrifice him. One of the worst things in the book is when he tells Gandalf he’d rather have seen Faramir dead.
I liked the beginning, both times I saw it actually! It was beautiful and the best part of the film. Andy Serkis was very good. Smeagol showed his love for Deagol before he killed him.
As I said, I liked Gandalf’s comforting speech to Pippin as they are about to, perhaps, die.
Loved it!
I liked Treebeard, he can light up a film if he’s in it for a minute. It’s funny I said yesterday if there was a franchise (horrible word!) born out of this and they were to make spin off films I wouldn’t mind seeing an Ent-film, just like Star Wards spawned an Ewok film.
I liked the hobbits in armor riding into Hobbiton.
I liked the eagles.
I liked Gandalf and Frodo holding hands in the end, but not that Shadowfax wasn’t there.
The one major thing I have problems with, besides the lack of drama, is the ending.
The most characteristic feature of ROTK, and one thing it’s known for, is that it has an incredibly depressing and tragic ending.
You just want to shoot yourselves when you’ve seen it. That’s the entire point!
Frodo is *sick* after the war, that is why he’s leaving. He’s not cured and happy and young looking again. He can never be the same. He and Sam are devastated at being torn apart, it’s much more dramatic in the books, complete with Frodo’s promise that they will see each other before the end. Sam goes home, completely depressed on the way home though Merry and Pippin try to cheer him up, *sinks* into his chair, SIGHS and says “I guess I’m back again.” Cut to black.
It’s not a fucking happy joy joy ending! Get out of your fucking denial!
It’s supposed to be heart breaking, you’re supposed to feel depressed, I paid good money to have my heart ripped out (Elijah Wood promised we would “cry buckets”) and it’s a fucking happy end!
I wasn’t even closed to crying.
And yes the beacon shots were the best.
The ending as a whole is a bit odd. The laughter scene. The coronation where this shit-ugly Aragorn wears the ugliest crown I’ve ever seen, acts pretentious and kisses the girl while people clap looks like the end scene of Star Wars A new hope. Very very bad.
I also wanted to know what happened to the characters, a good way would be when Frodo mentions the Fellowship breaking and the map being shot he could sort of mention “In Ithilien, Legolas started a colony…”
This is not a good drama at all. It’s ok but not the life changing heartbreaking epic you were promised it would be. It’s decent. As I said, no tears, no pain. I felt a stab for Faramir but that’s about it.
The emotion was not captured well at all. Good action, not so good emotion.
Don’t get me wrong I will see this film again. I’ll see it maybe once more. I’ll enjoy it and like it better. There were things I liked and it’s good. It’s just not as good as TTT which in turn is not nearly as good as FOTR.
Which is OK. It’s just that everyone has said this movie will be the best of the three, it will be so amazing and so heartbreaking, that it just left you with higher expectations on it than on the other two.
In other news, I have now seen the extended TTT and it is much better than the theatrical version, much more logical, and the ending is a lot better and a lot less abrupt and a lot more dramatic.
This was the most bizarre day of my life.
I walked out from Return of the King.
I have never walked out from a film in my entire life. I’ve fallen asleep twice (to Last Year at Marienbad and Mutter Krause Fahrt ins Glück) but I’ve never ever walked out. In my mind, no matter how bad the movie that was something you just don’t do.
Before you ask, I feel fine now. I have recovered and have smoked tons of cigarettes since, so fear not.
How it happened? Sigh.
We came to town about five minutes after three.
I was sick from the start and we should have taken that for an omen really and stayed at home. But we decided to go anyway since I wasn’t more nauseous then every now and then when I go to my work for nine hours. We had 55 minutes to do some shopping and we went off in different directions. I searched for the ROTK soundtrack in two shops but to no avail. Malin had told me she wanted “anything LOTR related from the new gameshop” as a Christmas present and I settled for a ROTK deck of cards (please let them be nice looking!) and the Gollum action figure (with crawling action & mountain wall to crawl.)
We then went to see the film. Sigh.
On our left there was a band of boys, ten or so of them, 10-12 years of age and obviously interrelated. Next to us sat two boys who were hiding their face in their hands and groaning “please let them be quiet.”
They were referring to the band of boys. Sigh.
They were loud. They did things. The boys at our side turned and yelled at them to be quiet because the movie was starting. To no avail. The ten or so boys yelled, talked loudly to each other, used their cell phones, ran around, changed seats. They called out after each other across the theatre. They threw popcorns at other theatre goers.
I didn’t see the film. I was either upset or nervous the entire time, expecting an “attack” from the left flank at any moment. Whenever something would happen, whenever there was a conversation you feared it would be ruined and it was. The boy next to us ran and got the guard who told the boys they had to be quiet. That didn’t help. People shouted and yelled. The guy who was attacked with popcorn moved to another seat. I suddenly realized Elrond was in a scene and he had said something important to Aragorn but what that was I had no idea. Malin then rushed out and complained to the guard who came in again and talked to each of the boys.
At this point in time I had lost one third of the film. I started choking up because I remembered how I had planned for this to be and how it was in fact playing out. It was all gone… the film was gone, the things that had happened were gone, my enthusiasm was gone. I went outside, having never used the exit door of a theatre mid-show before, and practically crying, asked the vendor if she had any tickets left for the 8 o’clock showing. She had, in front row where we always sit anyway. I went back in and asked Malin if she wanted to leave. I think she didn’t but I knew I had to. I saw the three hunters on the path of the dead and went ‘gee that’s what the oath breakers look like, that’s another thing I missed!” Another surprise spoiled. I couldn’t take anymore of it, I felt that I didn’t want *this* movie ruined for me in this way, not the remaining half of it anyway. I just got out of there as soon as possible.
We went outside and immediately lit up. We smoked all the way to the restaurant. We had planned to make this an exciting day, following a tradition we have to have a night for ourselves a few days before Christmas with a movie and a restaurant afterwards. We had planned to talk about the film and be excited. All this was ruined. Instead we sat there, upset, smoking (I sent messages to just about everyone to tell them what had happened and how I wanted murder to be made legal for certain reasons.) and wasting money on food we didn’t really enjoy because there was no atmosphere and all we could think about was kill, kill, kill…
So that’s money down the drain, in addition to the money we spent on getting new tickets. The waitress was friendly though and that helped a bit so we tipped her. We then went to a cellar-based video store to get cigarettes from Malin and then we went, four hours later, to the theatre for our second attempt of seeing ROTK.
I was so tired. I didn’t sleep well last night but got up anyway to go to that fucking show. I could have slept. I could have slept and gone to the 8 o’clock show from the start. This means when the film finally started I was dead tired. I could hardly keep my eyes open. It’s horrible to admit it but I kept wishing the film could be over with so I could sleep. I didn’t get very excited by the action on screen because it was all a blur to me. That’s an awful thing to admit to isn’t it? I was tired and my eyes were tired and so I felt it was all a boring blur.
Also Malin had to slump since the people behind her told her she was too tall and had to lean down so that they could see.
The first hour of the movie was awful. There was no excitement or magic left since I’d already seen it several hours before. It wasn’t like when we saw TTT last year. It was… oh yeah, another hour of scenes I have seen enough to have them spoilt for me now but not enough to have *actually* seen them. I just wanted to… I kept hoping I would get all my sleepiness over and done with while the scenes were still old. The new stuff was a relief but still there wasn’t the excitement that should have been, had things not turned out this way for us. I didn’t get my wish about the sleepiness.
I had to rush to the bath room so I kept thinking when is a good time to go. Hence I basically missed some scenes I was interested in such as "Eowyn’s battle with the Witch King of Angmar and Gandalf’s speech to Pippin (which annoyed me a bit since he said everyone has to die and while the Ainu can die and be reborn they don’t have to.)
I did go, another movie first for me and splashed some real water on my eyes to keep myself awake (the past hour I had been using sparkling mineral water for that which of course wasn’t as effective.) I was back in a minute, a bit more awake and able to actually enjoy the remainder of the film (about 45 minutes.)
We then walked to the bus, smoked and made preparations for operation cheering up (getting two friends over to watch the TTT appendices and staying up all night.)
Malin is ecstatic about this films, she has after all seen it once before. She says the only thing that cheered her up was Prince Legolas.
Me? Well it was OK. It’s hard… I can’t put things quite in to words. I knew I liked it in some way. There just wasn’t any… joy in seeing it.
It was good. I know I will see it again and I will learn to love it, but I just don’t have this burning desire to see it again and again like I had when I had seen FOTR and TTT for the first time. I liked it, but it wasn’t… magical. I’m not filled with wonderful images or fantasies that can’t leave my mind. I don’t want to download the soundtrack at once and get drunk and smoke and talk about it for hours on end. I don’t feel any Christmas spirit in the way I did the last two years. I feel “Oh my, the holiday-tradition of escaping into a fairy tale is not as wonderful and thrilling and holiday-inducing as previously.” I’m tired and I came home four hours later than planned. I feel a bit disillusioned.
It just feels like a bit of an anti-climax.
The events in ROTK were not as dramatic as I’d though they’d be. The suicide of Denethor was not as wonderful as in the book. It did not send shivers down my spine the way it did when Malin read this scene at our kitchen table. It’s so beautiful and dramatic, how he jumps up on the table with the Palantir and his staff and is engulfed in flames even as he rants and Gandalf slams the door shut on him. That line about the Palantir showing hands burning and wringing. You don’t get much more dramatic than that.
Mount Doom as well. It’s chilling and eerie in the book. You sense the quest, how long it takes, how Frodo feels. The struggle of climbing and going through day after day, the Ring destroying Frodo and Frodo crawling on all fours to finish his task. Here they walked a bit, chatted a bit and then some cheery flute music plays! Sam picks Frodo up and viola, Frodo is doing a dramatic fight for the ring against Gollum in a lame effect seeking invention. Gollum takes the fucking Ring, gets his moment of happiness and gloriously falls down into the lava. End of fucking story
The most interesting love affair reduced to nothing, not good.
The use of Eldarion as a kid, yuck! Yuck yuck yuck! Cheap! And he didn’t even look elvish! I hate how people always use kids to provoke a reaction when they play no role in the story otherwise.
Just like the kids in TTT. It’s so cheap!
I liked the witch king bits, how Gandalf feared him, the prophecy and the actual fight, though that was too short for me.
I liked when Frodo chose to become the new Dark Lord though I wanted there to be more special effects, the shadow etc.
I liked Sam being tempted by the Ring.
I loved the Palantir scene though of course I preferred them to lie outside in the wild. I loved Gandalf sleeping with his eyes open! Billy Boyd was very good. I liked that whole scene and I absolutely loved how Gandalf touched him. That was one of my favourite scenes. Of course it’s one of my favourites of the book too.
I loved Pippin in Minas Tirith, the scenes with Denethor and him. When he’s forced to sing. He can sing, by the way!
I liked Faramir’s broken heart and his father’s will to sacrifice him. One of the worst things in the book is when he tells Gandalf he’d rather have seen Faramir dead.
I liked the beginning, both times I saw it actually! It was beautiful and the best part of the film. Andy Serkis was very good. Smeagol showed his love for Deagol before he killed him.
As I said, I liked Gandalf’s comforting speech to Pippin as they are about to, perhaps, die.
Loved it!
I liked Treebeard, he can light up a film if he’s in it for a minute. It’s funny I said yesterday if there was a franchise (horrible word!) born out of this and they were to make spin off films I wouldn’t mind seeing an Ent-film, just like Star Wards spawned an Ewok film.
I liked the hobbits in armor riding into Hobbiton.
I liked the eagles.
I liked Gandalf and Frodo holding hands in the end, but not that Shadowfax wasn’t there.
The one major thing I have problems with, besides the lack of drama, is the ending.
The most characteristic feature of ROTK, and one thing it’s known for, is that it has an incredibly depressing and tragic ending.
You just want to shoot yourselves when you’ve seen it. That’s the entire point!
Frodo is *sick* after the war, that is why he’s leaving. He’s not cured and happy and young looking again. He can never be the same. He and Sam are devastated at being torn apart, it’s much more dramatic in the books, complete with Frodo’s promise that they will see each other before the end. Sam goes home, completely depressed on the way home though Merry and Pippin try to cheer him up, *sinks* into his chair, SIGHS and says “I guess I’m back again.” Cut to black.
It’s not a fucking happy joy joy ending! Get out of your fucking denial!
It’s supposed to be heart breaking, you’re supposed to feel depressed, I paid good money to have my heart ripped out (Elijah Wood promised we would “cry buckets”) and it’s a fucking happy end!
I wasn’t even closed to crying.
And yes the beacon shots were the best.
The ending as a whole is a bit odd. The laughter scene. The coronation where this shit-ugly Aragorn wears the ugliest crown I’ve ever seen, acts pretentious and kisses the girl while people clap looks like the end scene of Star Wars A new hope. Very very bad.
I also wanted to know what happened to the characters, a good way would be when Frodo mentions the Fellowship breaking and the map being shot he could sort of mention “In Ithilien, Legolas started a colony…”
This is not a good drama at all. It’s ok but not the life changing heartbreaking epic you were promised it would be. It’s decent. As I said, no tears, no pain. I felt a stab for Faramir but that’s about it.
The emotion was not captured well at all. Good action, not so good emotion.
Don’t get me wrong I will see this film again. I’ll see it maybe once more. I’ll enjoy it and like it better. There were things I liked and it’s good. It’s just not as good as TTT which in turn is not nearly as good as FOTR.
Which is OK. It’s just that everyone has said this movie will be the best of the three, it will be so amazing and so heartbreaking, that it just left you with higher expectations on it than on the other two.
In other news, I have now seen the extended TTT and it is much better than the theatrical version, much more logical, and the ending is a lot better and a lot less abrupt and a lot more dramatic.
This was the most bizarre day of my life.
