Quiz time! (For brevity and my sanity, I’ll only mention three.) Why does the rope burn Gollum? How does Aragorn know that they’re called Uruk-Hai? And how the hell does Faramir know that his brother (Boromir) is dead? If you’ve read the books, you know, and I know. Unfortunately, the rest of the audience doesn’t. Leaving these tidbits in is fine, but to not explain them is just sad. And it takes a sentence, a fraction of a second. Of course, my idiot friend would argue that seeing these films, after having read the books, is the point. Bull and shit! A screenplay should never be so fractured, yet these are. Well, you can’t string bits together and hope that they’ll have weight. Furthermore, if there’s not enough time for everything, you don’t add your own meaningless junk.
The worst 25 minutes is a straight shot of added fluff. When my friend said that he was bored, I said, “No wonder, this is all shit they’ve made up.” If you’re going to put something new in, at least make it fit. The absurd flashbacks to Arwen are just that. So much precious time is wasted on nothing. (Orcs on wolves, anyone?) Hey, if people want to call this nitpicking, I’m sorry, but it’s not. These are major weaknesses and simply ridiculous alterations.
The characterizations are just as deplorable, even worse than the last one. Faramir? Well, like Galadriel, he’s depicted as almost evil, if not worse. Gollum’s portrayal is just as wishy-washy. Friends, Gollum is bad, plain and simple. He’s plotting against Frodo from the beginning. There’s no miraculous change in conscience like the film presents. In fact, the dread is in never knowing if you can trust him. CG Gollum is visually impressive though, more often than not. But like the insufferable Jar Jar Binks, you can barely understand a word. And while he’s a decent technical achievement, a guy in full body make-up still would’ve sufficed and been preferable. The same idiot friend once argued that you couldn’t find anyone skinny enough to play the part. Once again - wrong! Thank you for playing! I’ve seen performers with such drastic body configurations that it’s not only possible, it would’ve been oddly cool.
With each succeeding entry, Ralph Bakshi’s version is looking better in some eyes. The very thing that he was crucified for was ending his film halfway through Two Towers. Guess what, this version does the same. They end almost identically, leaving out the entire second half. What the fuck? I agree that it’s a hard book to end cinematically, but it’s meant to be ambivalent, as part of an ongoing story. Leaving us wanting more is not a bad thing. EMPIRE STRIKES BACK did it, so why can’t Peter Jackson? Now, imagine what will have to be cut out of RETURN OF THE KING just to finish this book? Add to those 40 minutes of Jackson’s useless garbage, like 20 more minutes devoted to Arwen taking a nap or something, and in total, we’ll see about 10 minutes of ROTK as we know it.
The one saving grace is Helm’s Deep. While certainly a Herculean task to bring about, let’s be frank, there’s so much intensity in just reading it, how could you screw it up. It’s so wrought with dramatic potential and excitement that you’d be remiss not to do it well.
Certainly I’d be remiss not to mention the extended DVD edition of FELLOWSHIP. In all frankness, this version was quite an improvement. The additional 30 minutes made a world of difference. The problem is, all the bad stuff from the theatrical cut remained. A DVD edition of TWO TOWERS would undoubtedly produce the same result. That is, unless a different edit was commissioned. Well, if the filming of TWO TOWERS is anything like FELLOWSHIP, the good stuff is there, Peter Jackson just cut it out.
Yeah, I’ll see RETURN OF THE KING for curiosity’s sake. Like a car wreck though, our excitement probably lies in how much worse it can get.
