Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
So, this week’s Flick4Friday prompt was to recommend a movie that could have been truly good if it wasn’t too long. I think Lord of the Rings: Return of the King has to win this category hands down. Not only was it too long to begin with. It was part of a trilogy of movies which all-in-all was probably much longer than it had to be. Sorry, die hard J.R.R. Tolkien fans. Sometimes, parts of the book have to go to the chopping block!
After a relatively disappointing Two Towers, this movie had the chance to be great. As a whole, I still love the series of movies. I just can’t help but think there’d be a lot more impact if they concentrated on the best scenes instead of every minute detail. A directors mantra should be to move the story along. The Return of the King had so many really moving moments and grand triumphs over the bad guy, but after a while the slow pace and redundant scenes took away from the impact.
I love battles as much as anyone. But, how many long drawn out battle scenes do we need in the movie? It just gets anti-climactic. Do we need to hang out in Rohan for the entire first half of the movie even though nothing really happens? Is it really necessary to have Sam and Frodo look longingly into each others eyes for the last half of the movie? I can’t even imagine an extended edition of this movie. They should have released a special edition that was less than three hours long. The best part of watching this one at home, scene skipping. Feel free to turn it off after the first ending too.
What do you think? What movie do you think would be great if they were just a little bit liberal in making cuts? Feel free to write a post on your own blog and link back here or on Flick4Friday. I’ll even throw this one in. The best response gets an invite to a free screening of a hotly anticipated new comedy at 6:00PM this Thursday (April 3) in New York City. Yea, it’s short notice, so get your fingers typing!
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