The third movie as well as the third best

Rating: 7/10 (24 October 2004)

I'd rank the movies as best to worst, in the order they came out (Felowship, Two Towers, Return of the king)
Return starts well enough but then it becomes kind of mired. This might be due more to Tolkien than the current filmmakers. After watching, while being somewhat disappointed, I flipped through the book when I came home. I had not read the trilogy in quite a few years, partially on purpose since I wanted it to be somewhat fresh for the films. Unpon skimming the third book again, I found that the book itself is pretty long winded and boring in parts. Pages after pages of hanging out in bogs trying to get to mount doom are just not that exciting, translating it to film doesn't really improve it either.
So I think it was maybe mostly due to the book, but the pacing just seemed horribly off. Besides the book problems, having to edit out a lot of the book did not really help either. The movie would have been redeemed for me by seeing things like the scouring of the shire and the houses of the healing, but I guess they figured that would be even more falling action than they already had.
Houses of the Healing was kind of important because it is where Eowyn hooks up with Faramir, since both are there being nursed back to health. My guess is such things were left out, while I'm certain that the female writers would have wanted them put in(the Faramir/Eowyn romantic conclusion, that is), because the film already seemed to have like 3 endings as it was. Instead all we get is a glance and a smile between Eowyn and Faramir, which makes no sense unless you know they hook up. Otherwise you'd be wondering why Eowyn is not more upset about her obsession Aragorn getting the elf chick.
In spite of those complaints, which I'm sure others have also voiced, I tried to watch this one as I did the other films - independent of the books but rather a work of its own. As a work of its own something is still off and there still is just not enough "meat" to it. Its overly long in the boring parts and the parts that I enjoyed, such as getting the undead army, seemed overly short.
I enjoyed this movie more the second time, in a DVD watching in order after viewing the first two extended ones (yeah, that is a whole day right there basically ;) ) My guess is that I'll enjoy it even more come december with the extended edition. I'm hoping to heck that the extended edition includes a lot of the scenes I want in the film, rather than making Sam and Frodo's trek even LONGER. Two Towers also did not do that much for me in the theater initially, apart from gollum being so cool and impressive. He was already in the second film so much, though, that by the third one he was old hat. He seemed just like another actor by then, which I suppose is a testament to the technology ;)
I don't know why the first film seemed like the best to me, it may have been because the life of the hobbits was such a good starting point as well as the back story/introduction of the ring. The extended version extra hobbit scenes were especially wonderful. The first film just seemed to really pace itself better and hold my interest more. My one regret with that one was the missing Tom Bombadaii stuff (SP?) and the wight mound, which explains where they got their swords as WELL as someone who is basically God-like who can't even protect the ring. I thought this was important, Frodo mentions that they should give it to him while Gandalf wisely counsels that it would mean nothing to him and he'd leave it on a stump or something (this is all from the book, where tom took it and put it on and it had no effect on him since he is much older than it even.)
But I digress. I gave the third one a 7 though I'm likely to rate the extended DVD higher. The first one I'd give a solid 10, with towers taking around an 8.