Simply too much to cover

Rating: Null/10 (2 January 2004)

Perhaps I had built this movie up too much in my mind before I saw it. Perhaps I'm too strict of an adherent to the book to fully appreciate this movie. But whatever the case, in the end, I feel like there is simply too much content in the third book to do a good job with on the big screen.
There are some minor spoilers below, so be warned.
They cover the majority of the important parts of the story. Seeing all of the things that were left out gave me a renewed appreciation for just how much material there was to cover; even at 3 1/2 hours, there really isn't much in the way of filler. However, cutting wasn't enough. Everything that is left in feels very superficial to me, simply because there is no time to go into any great detail with any one thing.
This is especially true of the character development. Theoden seems one-dimensional, alternating between a look of stern resolve and a gentle smile for those he likes; you never really get a true feel for his transformation from despair to redemption for himself, and the restoration of the honor of his people. Denethor simply comes across as a madman; you'd never understand the man that he is in the book from his depiction in the movie. Moreover, the cause for his despair is never explained in the movie, which only serves to reinforce the skewed depiction of his character in general. Aragorn should be stronger and more certain of his role as king in this movie than the previous two. And yet he seems weaker in this one than the others. This is exemplified in the handling of the Paths of the Dead, where he makes one of his uninspiring speeches to implore the dead to follow him into battle, rather than demanding it as their king, to fulfill their oaths.
The flow of the story also suffers, seemingly due to time constraints. First of all, the part with the palantir should have been left out entirely. It has little to no relevance in the context in which they introduce it, and serves only to make you wonder what the hell that was all about when it's never mentioned again. Seriously, does anyone who hasn't read the books have any idea what that's supposed to be about? I sincerely doubt it. Another thing is that all of the segues between scenes seem thrown together. To look at it, you would think that all that's necessary to go into battle in a neighboring land is to point your sword in the general direction and yell "charge!" First the Rohirrim ride here. Then there. Then Aragorn decides he has to leave, and just bolts. And Theoden, when questioned, says, "He has to go." And just like that, they ride off again.
And the battles? Well, they're epic, and the special effects are nice. But from a practical standpoint, the battles were pretty lame. There was nothing in the way of real strategic battle planning in the making of this movie, especially for one of the magnitude of that fought at Minas Tirith, where you have multiple armies coming together to fight each other. I find the battles to be rather incoherent and uninspiring. In addition, the oliphaunts inspire more terror than the winged nazgul? That's basically the way the movie lays it out.
Finally, things start to spiral way too quickly after the battle at Minas Tirith. The final battle is, what, five minutes later? Also, with Sam and Frodo, you see them coming down from the gate one minute, and the next minute they're at Mount Doom. It's hard to understand their complete exhaustion and inability to go on when it looks like their trip through Mordor happened in the five minutes between the two battles. Of course, there's a lot of material not covered in the movie in that time, but then that's my whole point.
I applaud the efforts made in the making of this movie, and the trilogy in general. It was no small undertaking, and I respect the attempt that was made (in contrast to the contempt and disgust I hold for the Ralph Bakshi version). But now that I've seen them all, I can't help but think this series would have been better served as a multi-part television series of some sort, where you could take more time to get to know the characters, to understand the history, and get a full idea of the magnitude of the events taking place. I think that, even with 3+ hour-long movies, there just isn't enough time to get it right. 6 out of 10 stars from me.