Not as Impressed as I thought I'd Be

Rating: 8/10 (23 December 2003)

I was fortunate enough to see the trilogy as it was meant to be seen, or as good as it could get at this point. I went to an all day trilogy screening and, aside from the forty-five minute breaks in between each of the films, saw it as one. And I'm just not impressed as I thought I'd be. I do not deny the work that went into making this movie. I think it does the book justice however there are elements that not only annoy me about these movies but literally make Peter Jackson appear as though he has no directorial style what so ever. The over all feeling of the films are incohesive and stressing the fact that they were not shot in chronological order. I am not saying that movies should be shot in chronological order but usually when you see a film you get the feeling that what you just saw happened. I could easily tell that many scenes were shot on many different days and spliced together to get a complete sequence. Also how could any kind of cohesive directorial element be brought to the piece overall when Peter Jackson was only even present at maybe 40% the scenes being shot. He had two or three assistant directors that were at the healm of several camera crews just so principle photography coul;d be finished. And there is an air of that "rushed" element present. How could he mainain continuity....which brings me to my next argument: CGI IS GREAT IN SMALL, SWALLOWABLE DOSES. No, I'm not talking about Gollum, or Smeagol, I think the team at Weta workshop did an admirable job and hats off to Andy Circus. Mainly I speak of the fact that Jackson's lighting was mainly done by a computer program where you choose and highlight sections of frames or scenes and choose hues and intensities. On some scenes someone really went to town because I feel as thought I'm looking at Aragorn and Legolas in front of a blue screen...A simple sun set is not difficult to shoot. I got sick of the models...they were good ...but thats all...when it was a model, I could tell it was a model. Also the armies gave me a headache. I know of the huge numbers Tolkien spoke of in his book but there are points in the Tow Towers and Return of the King where one might say to themselves "did they not kill any!!!!!???" Plus the editing was poor on some sequences where you would have a medium shot of dialogue and in the background you would see an army two or three rows deep and then you have this sprawling wide shot overhead and the army is just this mass of identical bodies. Plus- and this is to who ever reads this- if you go to see Return of the King DO NOT clap every other scene- PLEASE! I was subjected to this and I don't mean "hey that was cool", I mean extended applause. It is not needed, we're all there to enjoy the movie lets do that. By the time I walked out of that movie theater I was unimpressed with the final product as a whole and ready to murder the majority of the audience I was trapped with. Overall- good but it could have been better. I wish more people would simply see through the title and criticize it. Pick out things that you didn't like- it's ok. Just because it popular doesn't mean it's perfect. It's not sacreligious to judge something.