Waiting for the DVD

Rating: 9/10 (18 December 2003)

The movie was awesome. Now, if you've read the book, you kept getting an elbow in the arm each time a scene came up that whispers, "wait till you see the DVD in August!" There were at least 10 scenes, conservatively, that presented themselves and were not fully realized in this showing. I'm completely satisfied with that because I didn't really want to sit in the theater for another hour to 90 minutes.
The visual imagery if ROTK is everything we come to expect from this series. The view over Minas Tirith was breathtaking! You don't believe you're there, you are there! The battle fields are awesome, the confusion, the resolve, the nasty bits. Jackson pulled no punches, just condensed them because Tolkien's level of detail would have bogged it all down if on screen.
There were a few departures from the book, but many are much less concerning than the ones in the previous movie. Book readers will cringe a little and get over it quickly as the movie moves forward with awesome scenes in Shelob's lair, the riding out to battle from Minas Morgul, the battle of the Pelennor Fields. I laughed. I cried. And I breathed a giant sigh of relief that this series didn't get muffed up like the Matrix! You can have love story AND action!
I'm definitely going to see it again to digest it better. I had a really uncomfortable seat above the entrance with a too-tall, opaque safety wall in front of it. My butt is still asleep from sitting on the edge of my seat than the movie required.
Also, I was with someone who knew nothing of the previous movies and hadn't read the books, so I now know, you CANNOT see this movie without seeing the first two.
To those wait and see people...get to the store, buy the EXTENDED editions of this first two movies and spend the money this time, you may just enjoy yourself! Yes, this is the best one.