The most disappointing, for me, of the three

Rating: 10/10 (16 February 2004)

A few minor spoilers, nothing big
When I walked out of Fellowship, I was not disappointed in any way. Every single frame of that movie was perfect and could not have been better. When I walked out of Two Towers, I was disappointed that they cut the Shelob scene from the books, but I felt that every single scene that was transcibed was done perfectly. When I walked out of ROTK, I did feel disappointed. Many people like this movie the best of the three because it has the most memorable story plots- ie Pellenor Fields, Mt. Doom, Shelob. It's true. It has the best and most iconic parts of the book in the movie. What makes me disappointed was how POOR the translation of these great scenes was. Although the Two Towers was lacking in memorable scenes, every single scene that was in there was done to the best it could be. In ROTK, there are great plot stories but it is n ot done to the best. Here are a few of the things that made me feel disappointed:
The poor use of music- The makers decide to play Shire music with the flute on the foot steps of Mt. Doom. I know its trying to conjure some of that brotherly comradery, but it seriously misued and a darker music should have been used.
Mt. Doom sequence- In FOTR, we get to see Ring vision where the world flutters about wildly- something that looked great. How come there was nothing like that when Frodo puts on the ring at the climax of the books?
No ending narration- This I don't understand. At the beginning of FOTR, there was a great prologue. In the Two Towers, 1/2 way through there was a great sort of Galadriel voice over. Why not detail the fate of the fellowship? That would have been a much better way to tie up the loose ends of the project than the lingering ending
The ending- Well, so much has been said about how this movie keeps dragging on I will not bother to go into this.
Shelob- Call me crazy, but I felt the Watcher from FOTR was a hell of a lot scarier than this bug. I wish PJ would have emphasized the fact that Frodo blinded it more. If PJ put 1/2 the amount of creativity into Shelob that he put into desigining the superb Balrog or Watcher, we would have had a much scarier climax.
Witch King Confrontation- Poorly done, I got no emotion from watching that. It felt terrible
Smeagol Deagol murder- I thought the transformation of Smeagol to Gollum was, but the Smeagol Deagol murder was so poorly executed. PJ makes the two hobbits look like Teletubby idiots. Why doesn't he make it more serious, more solemn, with some of that great Prologue charisma?
Anyways, I could go on and on about how disappointed I was. Will I buy this movie? Hell yes. Is this a good movie? Hell yes. But in terms of being "better than the 1st two movies combined" - Elijah Wood, or being 'the crown of the trilogy', I believe these people mistake memorable scenes for being good than actually reviewing at how well these memorable plots were translated. I say its the worst because it was poorly translated.