Hatrack River Forum: The Return of the King

This is topic The Return of the King in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by The Silverblue Sun (Member # 1630) on :

One of the best movies I've ever witnessed.

<T>

Posted by Bob the Lawyer (Member # 3278) on :

Preach it, brother.

Posted by David Bowles (Member # 1021) on :

Heh, I thought this would be a Jesus thread since Thor is its author.

Just joshing, oh Silvery-Blue Texan!

Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :

The second talk at church on sunday ended with that phrase. I was like... Wha???

Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :

Thor, give us the breakdown! What took your breath away?

Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :

Thor, I'm touched.

I didn't think you noticed I was gone, let alone back.

Posted by Eruve Nandiriel (Member # 5677) on :

Pippin took MY breath away!
[Wink]

Posted by Narnia (Member # 1071) on :

We've missed you Thor...how in the heck are ya??

Posted by The Silverblue Sun (Member # 1630) on :

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____spoilers ahead_____spoilers ahead_____
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Let me begin by talking a little about two of my favorite moments in Return of the King....

Moment A: When super-duper smooth Legolas takes down the Elephant At-At walker thing all by himself and then the scene is ended with "That only counts as one!" That was one of those scenes where your breath is taken away and when it comes back you find yourself screaming "YEAH!!!" in total joy.

Moment B: When Samwise Gamgi and Frodo are on the side of Mordor and lava is flowing all around them, and they are staring into a future that speaks of an inescapable death and Sam Wise says something to the effect of "Rosemary...I would have taken Rosemary as my wife" It made me cry and laugh at the same time.

There are so many wonderful aspects to this marvelous movie, it was one of the first movies that showed the true power of the modern age of movie making where "If you can imagine it, it can be made".

<T>

Posted by Frisco (Member # 3765) on :

quote:
Moment A: When super-duper smooth Legolas takes down the Elephant At-At walker thing all by himself and then the scene is ended with "That only counts as one!" That was one of those scenes where your breath is taken away and when it comes back you find yourself screaming "YEAH!!!" in total joy.

Man, if they ever let you touch Ender's Game, I'm coming to burn the studio down. [Wink]

Seriously...Burn. It. Down. That was the one scene that overloaded my suspension of disbelief. It made no sense, looked totally fake, and I think I subconsciously rolled my eyes three or four times before I realized I was getting dizzy.

Now, the charge of the Rohirrum--that got the reaction you described. And Faramir & Co. charging Osgiliath with Billy Boyd singing in the background. And the entrance of the Eagles....etc...

Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :

And what a beautiful, haunting piece of music by Mr. Boyd. All the contrasts of his lilt, Denethor's drool and the battle . . . shivers in delight.

I can't imagine Elrond actually proudly smiling as he hands off Arwen to Aragorn. THAT suspended my moment of disbelief. I loved Sam's homecoming, however.

And I'm still thankful to the unnamed person with the hankies.

Sniff.

Maybe I'll call in sick to work today and go see it again. [Blushing]

Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :

The girl's name was Rosie. That was a great scene.

The scene with Legolas killing the Oliphant was there for comic relief. Way over the top "heroic action" and he surfs the trunk down to the ground. It was supposed to be over-the-top. And Gimli deflating the whole escapade with "that still only counts as one!" was perfect. For that moment.

I thought the madness of the steward of Gondor was well worth the price of admission. His character was done perfectly. And the fire scene was impressive.

The only thing that failed my suspension of disbelief was the reforging of the sword. There is no way in heck that anyone, not even elves, could pound a busted sword back together that way and have it be usable in battle. They should've just melted down the original metal and made a new one. It would've made the same sense. IMHO.

And the parallel to returning the evil ring to it's EVIL fire versus returning the sword to its original GOOD fire would've been a nice touch.

Oh well.

Posted by Princess Leah (Member # 6026) on :

Hey, they're elves. They can do anything. [Smile]

Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :

Then why didn't they just unmake the one ring, huh????

Posted by The Silverblue Sun (Member # 1630) on :

Frisco...that's where we agree to disagree. I thought it was an excellent scene that displayed Legolas true ability as a warrior without equal, which is how I always saw him.

I don't think it went beyond the "suspension" of disbelief range, but I was so in love with all aspects of this movie, it probably would have taken Gandalf taking a long drink from a Coca-Cola can to pull me out. [Smile]

No worries about me having anything to do with Ender's Game, from what I undertand Peterson is slated to direct it after TROY comes out, and on top of that, I believe that OSC is 100% against the "filmmaker showing off" like the scene in ROTK when Legolas takes down the Eliphont. And if Ender was ever handed to me, I'd have a grand time showing in action why Ender and Bean have no equal on the battle field.

I'm still hoping Fate deals a quality hand and OSC and I have our films come out around the same time. That'd be a sweet Christmas, no?

...back to the subject...

Return of the King had all the elements of a high quality film, brilliant from beginning to end, and I must say, gollum.smiegel is my favorite "villian" of all time.

Allow me to compare the two trilogies...

Matrix Vs. Lord of the Rings

Lord of the Rings wins.

..because in Matrix 3, during that 40 minutes where NEO isn't in the movie, I kept finding myself saying, "get back to Neo, Get back to Neo!", during all the scenes with the boring sub characters, but in Lord of the Rings ROTK, I LOVED all the characters, so no matter what plots they were at, I enjoyed all the characters when they were on screen.

I LOVED the way they always lit GANDALF like he was GOD. that was very cool.

Sweet.

<T>

PS. as soon as I finished watching ROTK I started to read the Hobbit, and it's so cool, tolkien was really a brilliant, brilliant writer.

Posted by Frisco (Member # 3765) on :

quote:
I'd have a grand time showing in action why Ender and Bean have no equal on the battle field.

I'm picturing Matrix-style graphics in the Ender v. Bonzo fight scene. [Razz]

Posted by The Silverblue Sun (Member # 1630) on :

I believe in a grand mix of live action, great models, and computer graphics where absolutely nessescary. <---- missed spelling.

Frisco, it's silly to knock the Neo Vs. a zillion agent smiths as being "Too CG" because in the program of the Matrix isn't EVERYTHING a comptuer graphic?

[Smile]

<T>

Posted by newfoundlogic (Member # 3907) on :

Bob, they did completely reforge it. They even gave it a new name.

Posted by ae (Member # 3291) on :

I don't know about the books, but definitely not in the movie. The movie clearly shows the shards of the sword being rejoined.