Well despite my misadventures on Friday, I did get to see the Return of the King on saturday. Though Tickets were sold out for the show i wanted I did get one forty five minutes later. Roedo Baggins (Josiah's Hobbit Name) and I Cholto Meridock waited in line for forty five minutes to get into the theater. This wasn't a big deal since Roedo and I discussed various aspects of Chattanooga culture and the greater pop culture in general, more to be blogged on this later. Josiah however managed to strike up some deep and nerdy conversations with the thirteen something year olds next to us in line about the inner workings of Tolkien's mythical world. Josiah spouted out info like the excessively passionate and dorky man that I love and wowed the teenagers, they looked at him as the hobbits look to Gandalf, "Oh teach us the ways Master Roe Grand Wizard of Dorkdom." It was all pretty funny and I must say somewhat embarrasing, but thats not a strike against Roe, but more against my weak self esteem, the fact that I still care what 13 year olds think of me...
Well we made it to the movie and it was awesome, though I had to pee only thirty minutes into the movie, which by the way was the fasted recorded pee in history. The movie was with previews nearly 4 hours long, which in itself is pretty amazing. I liked the movie a lot more than Two Towers. This maybe because of a change in my attitude towards viewing the movies. The Fellowship of the Ring was great in my mind and I really thought it was well done and I had very minimal gripes about the changes. The 2 towers though hit me in the gut with the changes and left me questioning the substances Peter Jackson and his editors were taking while editing. After some counsel on two separate occasions from two Tolkien friends of mine, Frederick at church and Crabby at his house, I felt that I was partly to blame for my hatred of Two Towers. I was trying to be too much of a purest and like Frodo, I needed to let go of the ring, or for me let go of the book. The movies can't be the book, can't come close to the book, but what they can do is show a glimpse of the book, which they've done a great job. They've made the sights and sounds of the book come to life, however they've lost some of the deeper meanings and story that make those noises and visuals so amazing. That Crabby beat me into submission in a wrestling match till i granted him that 2 towers wasn't that bad.
That and I think after seeing the extended version of Two Towers i got a better understanding of what Jackson was trying to do, which by the way if you haven't seen, you must because it in a way makes the movie make more sense. For instance the whole Faramir taking Frodo thing makes more sense when Jackson takes the time in the extended to show how much Faramir wants to please his father. There are some killer flashbacks of Faramir and Boromir's love for each other while their Father only loves Boromir and sees faramir as weak.
So We went, we saw, we enjoyed. Josiah seems to get more annoyed the more more he thinks about the changes, but I think the movie was still dang good. The visuals were amazing and completely stunning, my imagination was a little better in certain areas as far as what i thought things should look like ie Mordor should look more like hell and less like a wasteland in my mind. But it was cool i enjoyed all 3 hours and 19 minutes of it (subtracted one minute for the pee break). The wife went to go see Mona Lisa's Bile... er smile with April and they said that it was pretty good, but never the less a chick flick. They also said for those interested its not as Feministical as the critics are making it out to seem. And after hearing wife's take on it, it seems one reviewer didn't even watch the whole movie or missed the point of the movie entirely. Nevertheless i won't see that one.