So we finally saw Return of the King. I shall say this: Thank you for the gift, Mister Jackson.

There was a distinct advantage of not giving a rat's ass about Tolkien and not having read the books in, lessee, eighteen years - namely, I didn't know how anything turned out. There were some damn fine scenes in there, where I didn't know what was going to happen next, and I was happy not to. I had to clutch my wife's hand at one point and ask, "Is he really dead?"

She told me, of course, but I had to know. And I never ask to know what happens next.

In short, is it the best movie ever? No, not really. For one thing, the accusations of too many endings are entirely apt - Jackson ends on the last line of the books, which I don't feel is the best place to end it for the movies. And for another thing, as my most excellent boss Pyotr Hoefling pointed out, "You know, there are only so many times you can watch massive armies crashing into each other before you go, 'Okay, we get it already.'"

But will the series hold up as one of the greats? Oh yes. This is a fine ending to a fine set of movies, and already I am anticipating that loss that I will feel next year when I see the Extended version all at once and realize that this particular vein has run dry.

...Well, until two years after that when they do the extra-special Lord of the Rings super-duper $200 boxed set.

...and two years after that, when he goes back and digitally retouches some scenes and makes it so that Gollum shoots first.

But after that, I'll have nothing.

• You know what I love about Tolkien? He has no foreshadowing whatsoever. About a third of the dialogue in the movies involve standing before some place - the deep woods, the Mines of Moria, the mountain pass - and saying in ominous tones, "Boy, this place is bad news. Nobody ever goes here." Then they go there. Nobody ever says, "Boy, that would be like making the Kessel run in five parsecs" and has to do the Kessel run later on in the movie.



• I understand that Jackson wanted to end on Sam's final line, but it didn't really work for me. I could have dealt with our heroes sailing off into the sunset. That would have been cool.



• Sam and Frodo: The first slash fiction. I've coined the term "hobboerotic" in the past, and the little kiss on Sam's forehead is gonna be in LJ icons all over the goddamn place.



• In one scene right at the beginning, when they're panning past Rohan for the first time, there is a major gaffe: They've obviously reversed the film, and you can see smoke being sucked into chimneys and flags whipping backwards. Patty, who went with us, also said that Gandalf and Pippin cast two separate shadows when they first entered Denethor's hall.



• Aragorn really loses his humanity later on. Oh, the focus is on Frodo and Sam, as it should be, but after he gets the dead in a truly kick-ass scene, he's just sort of hacking and slashing and cutting. Me, I would have liked to have some sort of brief romantic longing for Arwen, just to a) give Arwen something to do (she says, "Dad, I'm mortal" and then vanishes for the next two hours) and b) to remind me that Aragorn is more than just an icon.



• Yes, Aragorn is hot. But I'd still rather sleep with Sam. I don't think Aragorn would want to cuddle afterwards. (He might brood while I fell asleep, but that's about it.)



• Okay, the whole thing of "Sauron as an eye" was good in the first two movies, but in the third when Sauron is reduced to this big Tex Avery bulgy woinging eyeball thing, it just starts to look silly. I don't demand that Sauron come out and kick ass WWF style, but could we at least have a shot of a ghostly, half-formed Sauron sitting in his throne just as he shorts out?



• Andy Serkis and WETA have the honor of turning in the first-ever subtle CGI performance with Gollum. Oh, their work in Two Towers was nuanced, but it was as subtle as a bag of bricks dropped on your head. Gollum's sly treachery was played perfectly.

And three other issues:

• If you had what you thought was a pithy ROTK review, I probably missed it. Do me a favor and link to it in my comments so I can go read it? (Mindless gushing, while wholeheartedly agreed with, is not necessary to read.)



• So where did this differ from the books? What are the purists upset about this time? I'm curious. Again, leave a comment.



• yendi said that he far preferred ROT13 (a simple code where letters are inverted to precisely thirteen places beyond) to ROTK. In a massive move of outgeeking him, I claimed that I much preferred ROT13 ROTK, where two very dirty hobbits fish a ring out of a pool of lava and then hide it in the Shire.

Message ends.

(76 shouts of denial | Tell me I'm full of it)