I loved it, but I may have loved it because I love the story. I'm not so sure on the execution.

That sums up my reaction to a T.

So, you know, the love is there--it's just not what I expected/wanted. A few more viewings ought to let me figure out if it's what I needed.

This too.

[eta: And if you did want to check point-by-point, my initial reactions are here. I'm curious, anyway.]

I've only read RotK once--and a year ago. My memory for plot particulars in a work I'm not that familiar with is basically crap, so I didn't have specific disappointments based on anything left out in translating book to film.

Ideally, I'd like to watch FotR, TTT before seeing RotK, again. I was going to add that I should read RotK again, but that probably won't enhance my love of the film. I'm not looking to not love it. This time last year, between watching the FotR EE on a practically permanent loop, and seeing TTT--I was ready to leave my life behind and become a Tolkien scholar. Today? Not so much.

higher than Clovis would be able to loom on his own

Well, he IS Devil Bunny, so I always sort of expect him to be hanging out on the tops of tall buildings, looming quite high.

I get the mixed reaction. Partway through, my DH (the rabid Tolkeinist) leaned over and said "I was so sure this was going to be good." He's since readjusted his stance, but I think the transition from a book story, which you savor or tear through at your own pace, and a movie story, which is paced for you, is tough.

The fact that they made Middle-Earth real, with real mountains and fields and hobbit-holes and crockery and ruins, is absolutely the best part of the movies for me.

Back to the Arwen thing, I didn't think she was a slam against women in the books at all. She was barely in the books, but you got the idea that she had her own gravitas, her own brain. In the first movie, she was a subject, with motivations and actions of her own. A real character (although due to Liv, one that I cringe to watch). In the next two movies, she's an object, a completely empty vessel that is motivated entirely by two men. As someone said upthread she basically rides in circles for the two movies. Except when she sees a baby...did she not love Aragorn before that? Gah.

Wish they'd just left her out completely from TTT. Hey, if they leave Saruman completely out of ROTK, why not disappear Arwen from a movie? She's much less crucial to the action of the whole story.

But hey, I am open and upfront about thinking the weakest part of the movies was the writing.

I felt like Jackson was giving us a

Word, Cindy. I think I enjoyed it more than you, but I do need to see it more to come to a real conclusion.

After watching the EEs of FoTR and TTT this week, I've realized that TTT is really the weakest film of the bunch. There are some lovely bits, but I really feel it didn't hang together as well as FoTR, and it doesn't have the emotional impact of RoTK. And I still think Helm's Deep goes on too long...

There are some lovely bits, but I really feel it didn't hang together as well as FoTR, and it doesn't have the emotional impact of RoTK. And I still think Helm's Deep goes on too long...

I agree with you on the ranking. Although I loved every second of Helm's Deep.

Now, if you sit them down back to back, I think I'll like the last three hours the best, but as movies spaced a year apart, FotR is my favourite. RotK is paced entirely wrong for a movie, but well as the end of the story.

As for the meara effect -- yes, but inevitable, I thought.

I thought the writing okay -- for me the weakest part was, well, Arwen. Both in casting, and in the plot choices (here I realise I'm separating plot from dialogue, and I don't know if it was either or both you didn't like, Raquel) made to weave her into the story. Most of what made me mad was right there.

PJ also had a tendency to go for the direct confrontation (Carhadras, the possession of Theoden) where Ihought the oblique would have worked at least as well, and been more in line with the books.

But that pales in comparison to my Arwen issues.

PJ also had a tendency to go for the direct confrontation (Carhadras, the possession of Theoden) where I thought the oblique would have worked at least as well, and been more in line with the books

Oh, yeah. There's a lot of subtlety lost in the translation. But... eh. It's a movie, and they don't have time. It bothered me at the time but less so in retrospect.

I'm going to fantasize that Claudia Black was Arwen, and kicked ass. And that would make the endless kissing scenes in TTT waay hotter.

It bothered me at the time but less so in retrospect.

Using your technique, I may just get there about Arwen, too. I'm certainly getting there on those subtlety points.

By the end, I was just so grateful that PJ pulled it off. No, he didn't do it the way I'd have nagged him to, but he did it well, with idiosyncrasies, differing interpretations, and whatever real-world limitations we never were made aware of.

He brought passion and detail to an incredibly difficult job, and I love him (and most of his cast and crew) dearly for doing so.

This my first attempt at white-fonting: I'll delete if it doesn't work out.

I took Elrond's speech to Arragorn about Arwen quite differently than what I've read here. To me, his reference to her dying was that she had chosen to become mortal-which to an immortal IS dying, even if the death is a long way off. And the reference to her fate being tied to the fate of the ring I took simply as meaning since she wasn't leaving Middle Earth with the elves but staying behind as a mortal, if the Ring wasn't destroyed, she, like every enemy of Sauron, was doomed.

Hope that fonting worked.

but IIRC the contempt came from the prevalence of a specific kind of negative review. Namely, the 'I don't get it, so there must be nothing to get' kind which, as attitudes go is a pretty reprehensible one. Maybe it just comes down to how much or little of that sort of thing a given person perceives, and how much it rankles.

Just so. I find it very prevelant-and it rankles a good deal.

White fonting worked! Next- I master fire.

FWIW, at the time I saw the movie, I took away the same meaning as ted from That Scene. Now, I'm not so certain, having seen the reactions here, and the lack of a followup explanation to Elrond's statement in the movie later on.