mrmyth said:
"'Nostalgia' didn't magically create
more stupid comedy in the last two films compared to Fellowship." I didn't say FOTR was totally devoid of it.
So 10,000 Orcs showed up outside Helm's Deep for a toga party?
I already covered this. The main trio that participated in that battle were invincible and continually ran around attacking the massive horde of enemies as if they knew they could not be hurt. Sure, a bunch of nameless humans got slaughtered, but the main guys, they ran right into the fray and just easily cut enemies up despite overpowering numbers. I felt no actual danger for the characters I was supposed to care about.
Orcs overran Osgiliath and marched an army across Pelennor Fields to borrow some sugar?
So? I didn't see them provide any real fatal threat to the main characters, which were the only ones I ever cared about, even though as I said before, my investment in them decreased as the trilogy progressed and the goal of destroying the ring became more important.
Two of the main characters hung around a crackhead schizophrenic psycopath just for the hell of it?
I don't recall much danger there. They were chained up and interrogated. If I recall, if they had just been a little more forthcoming with information some misunderstandings that put them in Faramir's bad side would have been corrected.
Saruman was just a big fluffy bunny who had no intention of industrializiing everything in his path to provide weapons for his army?
He was a joke except for the first movie where he beat the tar out of Gandalf. Otherwise, he just sat in his castle sending out a bunch of idiot orcs and looking powerless and confused when the Ents came into the picture.
Sauron only wanted the ring back because it went so well with his favorite suit?
I think I've implied this point before, but let me explain. I did not care one bit about the human race or any other race in the series. I cared more about destroying the ring and foiling Sauron than actually saving the human race. I felt something for the main fellowship for probably half the series, and then well, it was only the journey to destroy the ring that I cared about. The characters had become invincible and didn't
need my investment, so I ceased to provide it. After Boromir dies, is there ever even an injury to the remaining members of the fellowship? Especially Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas, who begin the story as formidable warriors but increasingly take on greater and greater opposition with less and less perceivable danger. And Frodo, well Frodo just gets tired, although he does get caught by the spider. That whole debacle though was a bit cheesy for me, with the heavy-handed exchanges between him and Samwise, and then Sam's discovery of Gollum's treachery. Way too sappy and over-the-top, although I think that goes for most of their scenes towards the end of the trilogy.
The ending couldn't have been handled any other way, IMO. There was quite a bit of story to wrap up.
I already explained that by the end of this series I had ceased to care about the characters and only about the goal (or journey, if you will) so I couldn't care less what happened to these people after the ring was destroyed and Sauron was defeated. Right from the opening scene of FOTR, it was established that it was the ring that was important, and once that ring was destroyed, anything else was superfluous. The One Ring to Rule Them All. That's all that mattered. As I said before, at most you give us Aragorn's crowning, and end it there with that little rebirthing scene, as it were.
As far as the ghost army, with no previous intro to a stash of rangers and other men of the south, the only sensible route to take was to use the Army of the Dead at Pelennor rather than try to explain WTF the guys were and why they didn't show up when Theoden was gathering soldiers.
Part of my complaint was that the very concept of a superweapon like an invincible army of ghosts was silly. I strongly question whether any explanation would make this tolerable, although the previously explained approach the novel took might have made it less obvious as being a total copout in terms of storytelling.
You seem to be harping on the nostalgia part of my statement. I don't deny FOTR is a better movie than TTT and slightly edges ROTK, so I'm not sure what you're arguing anyway. But I believe that some of the FOTR love is shrouded in the fond memory of seeing those images play out for the first time, and not being dissapointed.
I'm hanging on it because I think it's irrelevant to anyone actually making an effort to critique a film intelligently. I mean, there are plenty of movies that I've watched and had great (or terrible) experiences, but that doesn't cloud my judgment on the actual quality of those movies. It's not that difficult to create that separation.
Thank you however, for at least responding to the criticisms made.
