DEVO tradurlo. Abbiate fiducia! | It was a mixed bag for me. Careful: what follows is only my interpretation, so don't let it spoil the fun for you! I hate extremists who try to impose their reactions as if all the others were dumb! Sorry for the little rant - I think this board is much better-mannered than most Tolkien boards out there. Or maybe we just are a more like-minded group. :D Which might change after you read this. >:)
So it begins... (Warning: SPOILERS)
I thought the EE was not really better or worse than the TE. It did add lots of wonderful scenes, but also some that made me cringe and sometimes ruined for me other scenes that I loved. I got some explanations but other things were left hanging. Like the TE, I felt it not as an organic whole but as a succession of scenes, some of which were so beautiful that justified my deep love for these movies, but without a cohesion, a real plan, a good editing. It gave me the urge to take it all and re-edit it according to my taste. But once again, it's really a matter of my taste. I know some who love the very scenes I loathe.
And then I have another problem. In the commentaries, PJ and Co. keep hinting at other scenes they did not include. Grrr. Will they include them in the box set? the 10th anniversary edition? the 25th? I hate this temporary feeling. (SPOILER) Did some of my favourite minor characters like Gamling or Irolas (the blond officer in Minas Tirith) die off-screen, will they die in some future edition? (END SPOILER) This is one of the reasons I don't like the recent fad of making Special Editions. Beside the waste of money for the buyer, just imagine if this happened with a book. "Hey, a new edition of the Da Vinci Code just came out and it has new scenes!" Am I the only one who finds it ridiculous? Maybe because I'm more committed to the integrity and the immediate and strongest (and therefore lasting) feeling of a work of art than to the "game", the undeniable fun of discovering new things year after year.
Now for some specifics: (SPOILERS GALORE)
The Bad:
- The Pelennor battle is even more fragmented than before. Same for the Mount Doom / Black Gate sequences. I understand the need to show the parallel action, but I feel now it's too much. The continuous cuts do not let the great scenes sink in. "Oh, Eowyn rocks - Hey, there's Aragorn - oh yay, more Eowyn..." I love the Rohirrim charge because it's not interrupted and there's that slow-motion departure of Theoden in front of the army with sword in hand that lets one catch the greatness of the moment. PJ is a master of slow-mo but I feel sometimes he used it in the wrong moments. Eowyn/Witch King + Theoden's Death definitely needed it; and it needed to be uninterrupted.
Same for the Mount Doom sequences. I wanted to savour Frodo's drama, not to keep cutting to Aragorn fighting yet another troll. Parallelism yes, but less cuts.
HOWEVER, I have a juicy bit about the Black Gate troll. It is confirmed: it should have been Sauron. While this is rather blah, the interesting part is that he should have appeared first as Annatar, his fair form. Of course we know that Sauron cannot appear anymore in fair form. Yet, if they had managed to keep it as a mental projection of the Eye which Aragorn fights as he would fight a ghost, it would have been brilliant. More than another stupid troll. (I'm not racist towards trolls... I like the bemused one after Gothmog is almost flattened by a Minas Tirith missile: it's just that there are TOO MANY as plot devices!!!!)
- Unresolved matters. Arwen's abrupt change of dress in the falling book scene. The disappearing horses at the Black Gate. Others... I have a memory block now but they will come to my mind.
The Good:
- More Rohirrim - Theoden, Eowyn, Eomer, yeah! Though the scene where Eowyn chats with Merry about the upcoming battle while standing in the middle of the army with her helmet off is a bit weird. :P
- Faramir. With Pippin (only moment when my sweetie laughs, before the Coronation scene), with Denethor; the latter scene explains a bit better why his father despises him. Still don't like Movie Denethor though, but it's a matter of chemistry, I don't like the (worhty) actor in that guise. Faramir with Eowyn: nice (That Gaze!) but very short and fragmented. I'm not sure Eowyn's change of heart is believably illustrated.
The Mixed:
- The Voice of Saruman. Great scene. Great Lee and Hill exchange. Great tormented Grima. I was OK with Saruman ending this way. BUT: it feels loooooong, and it belonged at the end of TTT. Saruman was The Bad Guy of TTT, he deserved this, not to be dispatched at the beginning of ROTK as though to get rid of him and go on with the story. Who of the casual viewers really remember what's up with him and Grima and Theoden after a year?
- Drinking contest. OK, I guess. But in the wider picture, just another instance of Comical Relief Gimli. Where is the dignity of the dwarves? Give me Thorin!
- The Dead, the Pirates... Good scenes to heighten the creepiness of the caves, but overdone. Gimli blows at the spectral hands. Cool and loveable. Gimli blows again. OK. Gimli blows for what seems like twenty minutes. AAAARGH! KILL HIM ALREADY! Or the skulls. Walking on crackling skulls: creepy as heck. Avalanche of skulls: pure overdone cheese. And yet I know people who love that scene. The Pirates: OK, but they detract from what is happening on the Pelennor Fields. And what's with Gimli "playfully" nudging Legolas and killing a man in cold blood against Aragorn's orders? Just Not Funny.
- Aragorn and the Palantir. First, where does he pull it out from? Was it Saruman's? Maybe it's hinted that it's Denethor's, one of the reasons for the Steward's madness, but it's not clear. Then Aragorn sees Sauron. Great. Then he shows Anduril. Cool!!! Then he sees Arwen. NNNOOO. Not her again. I don't dislike Arwen, but why must it look like Aragorn does everything just for her and not for Middle-Earth? Am I so off-base here?
- The Mouth of Sauron. Creepy enough. At first I was not bothered by Aragorn's beheading him, but then I thought about it. It was a bad guy, ok, and bringing very bad news, but also an ambassador. I find it harder and harder to warm to Aragorn in ROTK. He's either too bland and gushy or too violent. My problem, I guess.
More to come... good and bad!
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