Does RotK Feel Rushed?

[Theron Bugtussle]

I have seen reference to a general feeling by several in B-D Movies forum that <I>The Return of the King</I> was rushed. As though too many things were crammed into it, or perhaps things were not given the extra detailed treatment you might have expected due to the time factor (movie length). <P>I felt this to some degree. I anticipated feeling so, when I saw how much was taken out of TTT (compared to the book) and left either for RotK, or for the cutting room floor--if ever even filmed.<P>My first example: The Voice of Saruman, in my opinion, should have been included in either TTT or RotK, and the Wizards' Duel should have been removed, and kept in context with the book. I crudely label this directorial decision, along with Gandalf's casting out of Saruman from Theoden, as the "Dungeoning and Dragoning" of LotR by Peter Jackson.<P>My thinking here ( * dripping with sarcasm * ) is, otherwise Gandalf might not have thought "twice about returning through the door, after escaping from the roof" of Orthanc. Fortunately, PJ gave us the Wizards' Duel so the dumb audience could easily see which side Saruman was on. <I>"I am no longer Gandalf the Grey, you may call me Gandalf the Bozo, now."</I><P>In another example, how far is it from the Vale of Morthond (exit of the Paths of the Dead) to Pelargir? In the movie, it must have been a few furlongs at most. Aragorn and the Army of Oathbreakers just appeared at Minas Tirith--as from nowhere. <P>And in <I>unbookly</I> manner (I am purposely attempting to coin the phrase "unbookly" in the sense of ungodly, when comparing corruptions of Jackson's movie versus Tolkien's book--my apologies if I am not original) the travelers along the Paths of the Dead shed their horses on the way in. Did they have tickets for the 5 o'clock train? <P>This rush was required because of all the things pushed into the movie from TTT, or from directorial decisions to emphasize only particular aspects of the story at the expense of others.

[HCIsland]

The real issue with Towers is the decision to remove Shelob. Once that was done, you were pretty much forced to make Helm's Deep the climax of your story and then all other decisions fall from there. Taking out things like Theoden's exorcism or the Warg attack wouldn't have helped King as they would have only served to shorten Towers. <P>If Shelob were put into Towers, these things (especially the Warg attack) would not be necessary, but imagine King with Shelob taken out. The argument that it leaves precious little for Frodo and Sam to do besides march over Gorgoroth is a sound one. Shelob worked well in King not only for timeline reasons but mostly because it put the Frodo/Sam story on even footing with everything else that was going on, and in the end it is these two that the story is really about.<P>So yes, the movie definately felt rushed to me but honestly, is it a credit to Jackson's story telling ability to make a movie that is 3 hours and 20 minutes long that feels like half that.<P>H.C.

[Olorin_TLA]

Definately rushed 1st time round; since when Shelob dissapears, i all is squashed to fit time.<P>2nd time...I guess since I knew it was rushed, so it seemed ok. Wierd, no?<P>Good old Extended Edition. *hopes*

[Phervasaion]

The film did deem slightly rushed i admit, but i reckon the extended edition will make up for that. I realy wanted to see the houses of healing but i'll have to wait for the EE now.

[The Only Real Estel]

It seemed very rushed. To much to put in, & to little time (lucky PJ to be able to get 3 hours & 20 minutes for the film, since that wasn't even nearly enough ).<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>The film did deem slightly rushed i admit, but i reckon the extended edition will make up for that.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>It probably will (what'll it be? 4+ hours?), but this only further proves my point that RotK almost seemed like a 3 and a half hour trailer to the Extended Edition. <B>Not</B> a good thing at all.

[Kalimac]

Very rushed - I felt as out of breath as some of the characters must have been by the end. It certainly didn't feel like 3+ hours.<P>I wish there had been more breather-scenes, but that was probably impossible if they were to get the movie into a shape that wouldn't utterly confuse people who haven't read the book. (The only thing my non-book-reading friends were *really* confused by was the Faramir/Eowyn thing where they stand together at the end - one wondered if that was in the book, or if the filmmakers were trying to tidy things up. I told him the book had much more than that).

[Imladris]

Yes, RotK did feel rushed, but so did the other two before the EE...that does give one hope.

[Knight of Gondor]

I think we all should be a little less quick to be harsh with Peter Jackson. He has a lot of different groups to please, and he wasn't hired just to appeal to Tolkien purists, if the term doesn't offend anyone. <P>Also, there is a somewhat unconfirmed report that the RotK: EE will be a whoppin' 4 hrs 50 mins long!

[Tar-Alcarin]

Holy barrow-wights thats long. I cant wait. <BR>But it did seem a bit rushed at the end of the film. They had about 2 years of information in the end of the film in about 20 minutes. But other than that..<P>Ah, yes I've remembered, the Battle Pelennor should have been longer. Helms Deep was longer than that. So pelennor did seem a little rushed. But i guess it had to or else it would be a 4+ hour long movie.

[The Only Real Estel]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Yes, RotK did feel rushed, but so did the other two before the EE...that does give one hope.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>While I agree that the EE will probably help to mend things (especially <I>if</I> it's 4 hours 50 minutes !), I have to disagree with the 'but so did the other films'. Althought they were hurried along in someplaces, I don't think they had near the rushed feeling that RotK had. It's just what happens when you're forced to move Shelob & Minas Morgul to RotK...you have to do those scenes right, but that cuts out on valuable time for the original RotK material. Caught between a hammer & a nail really, & I know it wasn't all his fault, but it did really seem rushed to me :/.

[Carorëiel]

I found the <I>pacing</I> of RotK to be much better than tTT. I don't know if that's a somewhat different question than that of it feeling rushed . . . .<P>I agree that it seemed like there was too much to put in and too little time to do it, but it felt like the the amount of time alloted to each storyline before we moved on to another was much better handled than in tTT. <P>I'm wondering if the feeling of rush has a little to do with the fact that we know this is the end. What's not there now, won't be there (except in the Extended Version). But this is a kind of end. PJ can add scenes, but he can't completely change major plotting and pacing decisions.<P>Right. Hope that wasn't too rambly. <p>[ 11:19 PM December 26, 2003: Message edited by: Carorëiel ]

[Liriodendron]

I didn't get the rushed feeling. Lots of good stuff was missing, but I didn't feel rushed about what they did. I felt that more with TTT for some reason.

[Silmiel of Imladris]

I think that the main problem is that the non-book readers can't enjoy it as much when everything is crammed. I had to explain quite a bit of the ending to my mother because of this, like what happened to Arwen and Aragorn and that Frodo went into the West, ect. The first question she asked me when we got out of the theater was, "So did the King marry the Elf?" Soon followed by, "Why did Frodo have to get on the boat?" I enjoyed the movie for I understood what was happening because of the books but my mom was kind of confused.

[Liriodendron]

Yes! Without the books, I don't know what I would think of it all! I really enjoyed movie RoTK, but so much was abbreviated or missing. Trying to compare book to movie is ridiculous. I hope that most ardent movie fans will pick up the books for a read.

[Lily Bracegirdle]

My butt thought the movie was too long, but my head wanted it to be much longer. There were so many loose ends that weren't tied up: Faramir and Eowyn (as others have mentioned), Eomer becoming king of Rohan, and Legolas and Gimli disappeared entirely (though they did that in the book, too).<P>Though I was not looking forward to seeing Frodo and Sam slogging endlessly through Mordor, I found those sections too abbreviated. It seemed it took them months to get to Mordor from the Shire, but once within its borders, it was just a twenty minute stroll to Mount Doom. I think this was due to the time compression of removing the days between the battles of the Pelennor fields and the Morannon. It seemed that directly after the Pelennor battle they took a five minute break to discuss strategy ("A diversion!") and then set off again, arriving at the Morannon on the same day, when in actuality they took several days to get organized and several more to reach the Black Gate. <P>I heard the editor of the movie thought it was too short. The cut he and PJ liked was 4.5 hours long. I hope most of that hour and ten is set between the two battles.<P>-Lily<p>[ 1:05 PM December 31, 2003: Message edited by: Lily Bracegirdle ]

[The Saucepan Man]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> There were so many loose ends that weren't tied up <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Yet one of the main criticisms that I have heard made by (non-book reading) critics is that the film took too long to finish. As a book fan, I can't think of any way that it could be satisfactorarily shortened (and I too would have liked to have seen more), but I can understand what they are saying. 20 minutes of "wrapping up" after the main climax is pretty unusual in film-making terms.

[Birdland]

Yes, I found the movie to have a rushed feel, particularly the beginning, with P.J.s rather shabby treatment of Christopher Lee's character. I'm sorry, but that was just plain wrong, and I can see no reason for doing it, short of saving the space for many cool scenes of slaying oliphants.<P>I also found peculiar P.J.'s decision to throw Smeagol's "flashback" scene, willy-nilly, in at the beginning of the film. Why not have kept this where it was originally intended to go; during the scene in the Dead Marshes when Frodo first calls Gollum by his original, lost name.<P>I'm just catching up with the board after the holidays: has anyone else found the Cirith Ungol scenes to be totally rushed? How <I>did</I> all those Orcs wind up dead? If I had never read the books I would have been very confused by this.

[Everdawn]

Does the RotK feel rushed? Thats what was running through my mind when i saw it. I realise that they had a time limit, but it seemed a little rushed. I guess we will just have to wait until the EE DVD comes out!<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>I heard the editor of the movie thought it was too short. The cut he and PJ liked was 4.5 hours long. I hope most of that hour and thirty is set between the two battles. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>For sure! Or with Éowyn and Faramir actually meeting!

We have two very different view points in our household. I definitely thought the film rushed mainly due to scenes left out (Faramir is dying and then he shows up at the end fine - Eowyn and Faramir together at the end - Gondor accepting Aragorn as King). However moving back and forth between the several plot lines (Frodo & Sam - Gondor - Paths of the Dead) added to the rushed feeling. I thought this worked well in the first two films but in RotK I felt out of breath because we kept shifting back and forth so quickly.<P>On the other hand my non-book reading husband liked the movie with the exception of the end. He thought the entire movie bogged down after the destruction of the ring and moved much too slowly.<P>He had no feeling for how long Arwen and Aragorn had waited to be together and the wedding was no big deal for him. <P>He also didn't understand why Frodo, Bilbo and Gandalf were sailing out of ME with the elves and he thought the whole ending was boring. <P>At least RotK seems to have confused him enough to get him to admit that he will have to sit down and read the books to get a better understanding of the films!

[Liriodendron]

Ah ha! Very good!

[Theron Bugtussle]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR><B>Faenaduial</B>: He had no feeling for how long Arwen and Aragorn had waited to be together....<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>A failure of PJ's direction and storyline, in my opinion. Overall, I think the movies spent too much time on the Aragorn/Arwen story, with too much--shall I say <I>complete</I>?--divergence from Tolkien, and still people did not understand it well.<P>Faramir, Eowyn, Merry all healed miraculously? Eomer become king...just minor details. Overall, some wrong decisions were made in pushing to much TTT story into RotK.<P>I hold out for many others to pick up the books and thereby develop a real love for Tolkien.

[Lily Bracegirdle]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> There were so many loose ends that weren't tied up <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> Yet one of the main criticisms that I have heard made by (non-book reading) critics is that the film took too long to finish. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>But, Saucy, Faramir and Eowyn's relationship mostly occurs before the first "ending", so adding it wouldn't drag out the denouement. Plus, some of the other things could have been addressed with just a line in the middle of the movie. If some Rider of Rohan had said: "Theoden King is dead, hail Eomer, King of the Mark!" at the end of the battle of the Pelennor I would have been satisfied. I'm not suggesting they needed to show everyone traipsing back to Rohan after Aragorn's coronation in order to bury Theoden and announce Eowyn's engagement.<P>-Lily

[The Saucepan Man]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> But, Saucy, Faramir and Eowyn's relationship mostly occurs before the first "ending", so adding it wouldn't drag out the denouement. Plus, some of the other things could have been addressed with just a line in the middle of the movie. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Agreed. I was disapointed myself that the romance of Faramir and Eowyn wasn't in the film, although I can understand why it was not. These scenes were filmed, so I am looking forward to them in the Extended Edition. I agree about Eomer taking the Kingship of Rohan, too. Perhaps something else for the EE.<P>I was talking about things that would naturally follow the main climax, such as Theoden's funeral, Legolas and Gimli sailing to the Undying Lands and (of course) the Scouring of the Shire. I don't think the film could have taken these as "wrap up scenes", and I doubt that they will be in the EE either (the Scouring of the Shire will definately not be, as it was never filmed).

[Lord of Angmar]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>I don't think the film could have taken these as "wrap up scenes", and I doubt that they will be in the EE either (the Scouring of the Shire will definately not be, as it was never filmed). <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>No, it certainly could not have. Speaking from the most unbiased vantage point possible for a long-time Tolkien fan like myself, I would say that the ending was already far too long for the average moviegoer and that, though it would certainly have drawn the fiery wrath of Tolkien purists, the movie would probably have best been ended at Mount Doom with the coming of the Eagles. The ending felt somewhat rushed and tacked on, a series of short, somewhat anachronistic clips after an epic, as it were, and I suppose they did add a "rushed" feel to the whole ending of the affair (although there was nothing rushed about the arduously long Grey Havens scene). I expect to see plenty of harsh criticism of this post soon enough, but I shall take them with a grain of salt. 'Tis but my own humble opinion.<P>Cheers,<BR>Angmar

[Olorin_TLA]

Got to disagree. My best friend, who loves the films but hasn't read the Books, told me after that when the screen faded after Mount Doom he was thinking "Please don't let it end now" - and quite right too...it would have been compeltely antilclimatic...too much of an "oh...so it's ended..." feeling. Plus we need to see how the charatcers are afected by this. Finally, naming a film "The Return of the King" is a stupid idea if he doesn't become King, whihc happens after Mount Doom (oh, and Arwen's character would be totally redundant too without a marriage)!

[Mister Underhill]

I don’t think you can end at Mt. Doom, but I also agree that the ending plods on too long. Part of the problem, in my view, is too... much... slooooow... moooootiooooon. Lots of scenes of hugging and kissing and actors standing around with big grins on their faces, and not enough trust in the story to let the characters breathe and show how what has happened has affected them.

I think things could have been considerably sped up and more information conveyed by use of the voice-over device, with Sam doing the narration. Since the trilogy begins with a lengthy voice-over, I think ending it with some of the same would have been appropriate. Having Sam do the talking would give an opportunity to show some maturation there.

If you stipulate that there’s no room for the Scouring of the Shire, I think there’s still at least one thing you need to do with the ending, namely, to show that Frodo has been wounded beyond hope of healing in Middle-earth. And I’m not just talking about that Morgul-knife wound.

The problem with the scenes as they are is that they don't show that although the Shire is unchanged (in the movies, of course), Frodo has changed. Now it’s like, “Enhhh. My arm still hurts. I have to sail away.” I think scenes where Frodo was not his old self and a watchful Sam noticed it would have led to a more logical and effective climax at the Grey Havens.

[Lord of Angmar]

I agree, Mister Underhill. Obviously they could never have ended it at Mount Doom, and I suppose it is rightfully so. Olorin_TLA, your point about <I>Return of the King</I> is an accurate one. The ending was too long, but I suppose that the content - if not the pacing - was necessary.

[Lily Bracegirdle]

Great post, Mister Underhill!<P>You're right: the slow mo "fellowship reunites around Frodo's bed" was pleasant, but a quicker scene followed by a bit of dialogue would have been nicer.<P>On the director/writers' commentary of the FOTR EE they mentioned that Galadriel would be "bookending" the trilogy with voice-overs. I was hoping to hear her wrap up what happened after the coronation with little cut scenes, leading into the scene at the Grey Havens. I think that would have worked to keep the story flowing. Your idea of having Sam do it, as the last author of the Red Book, is also good.<P>I also agree that Frodo's sailing away seemed arbitrary because he didn't appear changed/wounded enough. I think the scenes at the end of the movie must have been filmed near the beginning of the shoot when the Hobbiton and Green Dragon sets still existed and all the cast members were together. (Remember that Ian Holm only spent six weeks or so on the project, so scenes with him in them must have been shot early on.) I don't think Elijah Wood knew at that point how badly wounded his character was going to be emotionally and spiritually, so the scenes weren't played that way. After the sets were destroyed, PJ couldn't have gone back and refilmed them, so Frodo was stuck looking young and fresh with maybe a twinge in his shoulder. I think it would have been emotionally more effective to have re-shot those scenes in pick-ups once Elijah Wood understood more what happened to Frodo (and aged three years). The cost of rebuilding the sets probably forbade it, though. You could blame PJ for bad initial direction, but he was probably still feeling out the story and learning at that point as well, so I can't really hold it against him.<P>Another thing about sailing away that I think confused non-book readers was Bilbo's presence. In the movies it seems that a mortal can sail only if an elf gives up his/her "grace" -- as if it's some sort of invisible ticket. Some people were wondering which elf gave up his "ticket" so Bilbo could go. Elrond? I hope the reasons for "sailing" are made more clear in the EE.<P>-Lily<p>[ 1:43 PM December 31, 2003: Message edited by: Lily Bracegirdle ]

[Mister Underhill]

I think the scenes at the end of the movie must have been filmed near the beginning of the shoot...

Great point. I think you're almost certainly right. Nevertheless, it is in Jackson's job description to get the right performance out of his actors.

[Lily Bracegirdle]

Actually, I'm wrong! I just went to tORN and found a link to some cast interviews. Apparently, Elijah Wood's last day of shooting was the scene where Frodo's shoulder hurts and he gives the Red Book to Sam. Well, so much for my theory! In that case, I don't think Frodo's hurt was conveyed effectively at all. <P>-Lily