Why is TTT the least liked movie?

[TheTennisBallKid]

Because I've never been more moved by any sequence of film than FOTR, from the Argonath on.


Why, exactly? Maybe it's the more linear storyline. Maybe the ending feels just more...real. Maybe it's the music. I dunno.


ttbk

[yovargas]

Well, if you're going with music, ROTK wins hands down. IMO, of course.

I will say that about FOTR - those last 20+ minutes are the best 20+ minutes in the trilogy. Virtually flawless.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Well, if you're going with music, ROTK wins hands down. IMO, of course.

In mine as well.

I will say that about FOTR - those last 20+ minutes are the best 20+ minutes in the trilogy. Virtually flawless.

I think you've answered your question from before about why people don't complain about the ending of FOTR.

[narya]

At the end of TTT we have ... Frodo and Sam heading into the dread land of Mordor. Its almost like nothing has happened (though of course plenty has).

Key points developed in TTT:

Pippin and Merry rouse the Ents who quash the orcs so that there are enough Rohirrim left to fight for Minas Tirith. Except that the scrubbing bubbles clearly had the ability to do that without anyone's help, so why did they bother to go to Minas Tirith?

Aragorn gets his act together and starts acting like a king. (That wouldn't have been a problem for him if he'd read the book.)

Faramir gets the opportunity to show us what he's made of. Which is somewhat muddled.

Character development for Gimli. I would have preferred not to know.

Character development for Sméagol. What bothers me most about TTT is being 95% comfortable with Gollum as a real person while a tiny voice in the background is saying "that's a cartoon!". I'm not all that fond of Gollum or Sméagol, and could do with less of him. He really has an unpleasant personality. Unfortunately, just about every scene I want to see (with Frodo) has Gollum in it.

One way to shorten the movie to add in more important things? They coulda cut out Helm's Deep. ***ducks***

EDIT TO ADD: ttbk - it's the ring theme, the most compelling theme imho. I couldn't get it out of my head when I first heard it (or since).

[Old_Tom_Bombadil]

Perhaps that's clinching proof that I'm not, in fact, human . I've never got the sublimity of the scene.

I'm not human, either.

As Rohan is central to TTT it really spoils the film for me.

Although these scenes weren't in Tolkien's book, I was very moved by Théoden's grief-laden dialogue with Gandalf among the burial mounds, and especially by Éowyn's emotion-filled dirge at Théodred's funeral from the extended edition of TTT.

Aragorn gets his act together and starts acting like a king. (That wouldn't have been a problem for him if he'd read the book.)

Yeah, yesterday I was watching FOTR. When it gets to the part where Aragorn is at his mother's gravesite, and Elrond tries to fire him up a bit by mentioning the reforging of Narsil and how Aragorn is the only one who can wield it, Aragorn says something to the effect that he never wanted that power.

Huh?

Dude! How else are you gonna fulfill your fate, claim the throne of Gondor and Arnor, and marry the Elf-maiden of your dreams? Silly ranger!

[superwizard]

One way to shorten the movie to add in more important things? They coulda cut out Helm's Deep. ***ducks***

Do you honestly mean that? I mean that was one of the best parts of the movie. I personally could have had less of those wargs attacking and Aragorn almost dying I never appreciated that part of the movie.

[Primula Baggins]

Tolkien himself said in the Letters that Helm's Deep would be expendable in a movie adaptation.

And really, looking at it harshly from a structural standpoint, Helm's Deep is a little pre-echo of the Battle of the Pellennor. What we learn there (the heroism of the Rohirrim, the power of the Ents) could conceivably be achieved more economically, without staging a major battle.

Mind you, I like it fine the way it is, in both book and film.

[yovargas]

Surely, it coulda been different. But PJ chose to make TTT a war movie. If you accept that that is what it is, well, it's a pretty darn good war movie.

[axordil]

The only clean cut I can think of for Helm's Deep also loses the Ents AND the treachery of Saruman...and thus Wormtongue...and Théoden's dotage...and the reason for Éowyn being who she is...and why would the Rohirrim be reluctant to come to Gondor's aid then, exactly? And why would uruks be carrying hobbit captives west instead of straight to Mordor? That's not a cut, that's a fault line.

[MaidenOfTheShieldarm]

Surely, it coulda been different. But PJ chose to make TTT a war movie. If you accept that that is what it is, well, it's a pretty darn good war movie.

It is a good war movie, but should it have been a war movie at all? As I recall, the Hornburg takes up all of maybe two chapters in the book. That's the the little battle, the precursor: the Pelennor Fields is the BIG battle. If any of the three should have been a war movie, it's ROTK. PJ blew up Helm's Deep far beyond proportion and in the process lost a lot of other good stuff and got some other not so good stuff (Aragorn's 'death' and dream, etc). If TTT were it's own movie and had more of an ending then it would be just a good war movie, but it's not -- it's the the middle part of a 'trilogy.' Helm's Deep could never be better than the Pellenor Fields, but it came too close.

[yovargas]

It is a good war movie, but should it have been a war movie at all?

As an ultra-revisionist, all I required was it be a good movie.
I know why others can't think like that but to be quite honest I never really understand it. It still makes me go . Thus this thread, I suppose.

[Rowanberry]

Maybe it is because, the filmmakers themselves confessed that, they gave all their attention to the beginning and the end of the story, and then noticed "oops, we should do a middle part as well" - and, somehow, it shows. There is a feeling of "let's just stuff something there that keeps the story going". The film isn't exactly bad - but, with a better planning, it just could have been much better.

Otherwise, the thing that most annoyed me in TTT is present in the ROTK as well: Exaggeration. There was too much "upping the ante", too many false deaths, scenes that were done totally over-the-top. "Less is more" would have been a good guideline with both of these parts.

[Inanna]

TTT makes me nuts!
The entire movie I went... "What the...." "S**t! That's not right!!"

I disliked all the distortions. I despised seeing Faramir looking at that ring the way he was, and then dragging Frodo & Sam to Osgiliath. I disliked the scene with the Nazrul on those steeds... I get the point that PJ was trying to make... I think it could have been done better.

I don't like the part about Merry & Pippin kind of being the sole manipulators to get the Ents to war. They were responsible in themselves too!! I feel it diminished their role. Which made me very sad.

I dislike the scene when Gandalf the white shows himself - so flashy!!!

I think thats enough.

[Alatar]

I dislike the scene when Gandalf the white shows himself - so flashy!!!

Probably the most purist moment in the movies. It's practically note for note as described in the book!

There he stood, grown suddenly tall, towering above them. His hood and his grey rags were flung away. His white garments shone. He lifted up his staff, and Gimli's axe leaped from his grasp and fell ringing on the ground. The sword of Aragorn, stiff in his motionless hand, blazed with a sudden fire. Legolas gave a great shout and shot an arrow high into the air: it vanished in a flash of flame.

[Inanna]

still too flashy.

[Túrin Turambar]

Coming late to the party, but I’m surprised that this hasn’t come up yet – TTT drags heavily throughout the middle. Even coming from a purely film perspective, you have at least an hour where the characters are either trudging though the countryside or sitting in a castle talking about the plot between having perfume-add flashbacks, hanging out in a forest listening to an anthropomorphic tree recite poetry or wandering through a fairly dull landscape with a character who keeps having arguments with himself. It’s the shortest of the three films plotwise – chunks are excised to FotR and RotK. In addition, it already carries the burden of having fairly little happen in the Frodo-Sam storyline between Emyn Muil and the Morgul Vale.

Also, I think that TTT suffers from not taking Helm’s Deep seriously, which does a lot of damage to the film’s ostensible climax. I liked the wargrider attack, though, and thought the ending was very good.

[yovargas]

Even coming from a purely film perspective, you have at least an hour where the characters are either trudging though the countryside or sitting in a castle talking about the plot between having perfume-add flashbacks, hanging out in a forest listening to an anthropomorphic tree recite poetry or wandering through a fairly dull landscape with a character who keeps having arguments with himself.

Odd how those are some of my favorite parts - parts where we get to see the characters being characters and the actors acting. People often complain about PJ's lack of subtlety and yet...

[Inanna]

I agree with yov here. These were the parts I don't mind.

I just didn't like some of the messing around with the "real story" in TTT.

[Túrin Turambar]

Even coming from a purely film perspective, you have at least an hour where the characters are either trudging though the countryside or sitting in a castle talking about the plot between having perfume-add flashbacks, hanging out in a forest listening to an anthropomorphic tree recite poetry or wandering through a fairly dull landscape with a character who keeps having arguments with himself.

Odd how those are some of my favorite parts - parts where we get to see the characters being characters and the actors acting. People often complain about PJ's lack of subtlety and yet...

True, but characters talking about the plot is something that should always be avoided (except in mystery stories).

[Alatar]

True, but characters talking about the plot is something that should always be avoided (except in mystery stories).

Why is that? I have heard that statement many times, yet I have never seen a compelling argument to support it.