Digital Analogue

Lord of the Rings

Lee and I got there at about ten to nine; we picked up our tickets and already eight screens had sold out (of a total of eleven---I don't know if the rest eventually sold out or not). We were allowed to go straight to the theatre, and we were not the first ones there. Two guys were playing cards about halfway up. (A lot more people had already gone in to the first theatre that sold out.) Anyway, we got front row railing seats, and reserved two for Mom and Dad.

The movie is awesome, of course. Peter Jackson did some great interpretation, modifying very little and that for good reason (usually), adding one or two scenes in a way that still felt very true to the thing. Two scenes stuck out: one line where Legolas says "A diversion!" for pretty much just the sake of saying it (my mom caught that one too), and the other where everyone is just standing around laughing, fakely. A few things were missing, but I suspect they'll be added in for the extended version next year, except for the scouring of the Shire, which wouldn't fit at this point (sorry!). Awesome awesome awesome. The interpretation of Minas Tirith was perfect. The scene with Smeagol will let them actually nominate the guy that plays Gollum for an Oscar this year. The whole show will probably get an Oscar, finally, as a sort of aggregate measure. Jury's still out on whether it was the best of the three; my parents voted for the middle one and I'm inclined to agree. How odd, that the middle movie of a trilogy might be best. But this third one was great too.

They really needed to stagger the starts, though. There were probably upwards of 5000 people there, and the parking lot was packed, with all the shows getting out at the same time... took us about forty minutes to actually get out of there.

"Certain death; small chance of success; what are we waiting for?" --Gimli, _Return of the King_