NullPointer
Member
Definitely makes a strong argument for Episode 3 being the most comprehensive film of the series.
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What is the best Lord of the Rings movie?
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ClosingADoor
Member
Fellowship > Return of the King > Two Towers.
But really, they are all great movies. And basically one big adventure, so I see little reason to split them up in a discussion.
But really, they are all great movies. And basically one big adventure, so I see little reason to split them up in a discussion.
Roronoa Zoro
Gold Member
I always liked 2 towers best followed by fellowship then return. I think this is the greatest trilogy of all time because there really aren't any holes to poke in it. The multiple endings are great and provide closure where many trilogies just...end and we have to read extended fiction stuff to get that closure.
All that being said helms deep is the greatest battle ever put to screen and I enjoy the frodo and ents side stories as well (yes I count Aragon and his crew as the main story).
Fellowship gets a little bogged down at rivendel but once they set out it's awesome and the Balrog is one of my earliest cinematic "wow" memories. I also love the buildup and how they introduce you into the world and let you settle before starting the quest. That's why I always prefer extended editions as I love to live in a world and have some downtime.
Return is still awesome and theoden's speech at pelenor fields is my favorite of the series. The final battle is a little underwhelming after Mina's tirith especially with no big bad like the witch king. Frodo stuff is dragged out the whole trilogy and is the least best part but here it is at least a little actiony with shelob
All that being said helms deep is the greatest battle ever put to screen and I enjoy the frodo and ents side stories as well (yes I count Aragon and his crew as the main story).
Fellowship gets a little bogged down at rivendel but once they set out it's awesome and the Balrog is one of my earliest cinematic "wow" memories. I also love the buildup and how they introduce you into the world and let you settle before starting the quest. That's why I always prefer extended editions as I love to live in a world and have some downtime.
Return is still awesome and theoden's speech at pelenor fields is my favorite of the series. The final battle is a little underwhelming after Mina's tirith especially with no big bad like the witch king. Frodo stuff is dragged out the whole trilogy and is the least best part but here it is at least a little actiony with shelob
tonysidaway
Member
The better trilogy of the two. Peter Jackson was a better filmmaker by the time he got around to the prequel, and frankly his source material was more amenable to adaptation. In Lord of the Rings, he had ploddingly reproduced Tolkien's least inspiring writing, the battle scenes, and inexplicably played down much that is great about the novel. By the time The Hobbit came around, he had an easier adaptation job because there are far fewer tedious set-piece battles to get through and the novel has a much lighter spirit.
I saw the extended versions of the films for the first time recently. i understand why most of the entra content was cut. It messes with the pacing horribly. The theatrical cuts are the best cuts.
Fellowship and Return are tied for me. I cannot choose between them.
Fellowship and Return are tied for me. I cannot choose between them.
superdeluxe
Member
Two Towers extended
Bobby Roberts
Banned
That's the tony I know.
FeenixRising
Banned
*sneaks in thread*
i've never seen any of the extended versions
*leaves*
i've never seen any of the extended versions
*leaves*
Yep.
As a teenager who had no idea what LotR was I was absolutely blown away by Fellowship in the cinema. Getting to Two Towers some of the gloss fell off (honestly the talking walking trees kinda just felt it crossed a line into silly territory for me)...
Fellowship was bloody perfect. Amazing music, truly epic. The first time we see the "ring" world... WOW. Absolutely breathtaking when I had no idea what to expect, and so tense. The whole film is tense AF.
Really need to rewatch it soon!
The other two had ok moments but felt bloated and quite anti-climactic really.
afternoon delight
Member
It's a flawless victory.
tonysidaway
Member
You're just going to have to live with the fact that not everybody agrees with you. In particular, the Return of the King disappointed me because it omits the great love that develops between Eowyn and Faramir as she nurses him, and we don't get so much as a squeak from the Scouring of the Shire.
And what do we get in that film and the Two Towers? Almost interminable bloody pointless battle scenes, every bit as tedious on screen as they are on the page.
I'm mainly just wondering how someone can criticize LOTR for putting too much emphasis on the battles at the expense of other parts of the book while in the same breath praising The Hobbit movies, which added fight scenes left and right and turned the book's one big battle (which Bilbo was unconscious for most of) into the centerpiece of the final film.
tonysidaway
Member
Mainly balance, I think. The set pieces are mercifully scarce in the Hobbit. It's a triumph of storytelling, which Tolkien was good at, while Lord of the Rings shows him at his worst as a fan of mediaeval battle chronicles.
sleverfunk
Member
Fellowship was the best. The music really sold it for me.
So, just by comparison, you think the battles and set-pieces in The Hobbit trilogy are... fewer...? or better? Either position strains credibility.
What on earth....? The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies was for all intents and purposes was literally one long set-piece. For that matter, a set piece that was barely in the original book at all.
I think I'll just quote myself from another thread on this:
With the Hobbit movies, Peter Jackson had a classic, fairly short children's book which he basically kind of mutilated on account of corporate greed and a seemingly shaky understanding of the source material. Tolkien's Hobbit is an imaginative, lively little story that focuses entirely on Bilbo as the world expands before him, gradually beginning to change and adjust to the dangers he faces...as Bilbo eventually returns to his home a changed man. It's a neat, concise little story...far less interested in sweeping battle scenes (Tolkien knocked Bilbo unconscious during the Battle of Five Armies for a REASON, Jackson) than Bilbo himself as a character and his gradual emotional progression. And yet Jackson almost utilizes Bilbo in his films as a secondary side character, constantly getting lost in all the CGI shit and unnecessary sub-plots that cling to each frame of those films like a disease.
Instead, Jackson's films are about like, CGI Trolls with CGI goblins on their backs and Legolas doing some sweet as shit acrobatic moves and a Dwarf/Elf love triangle to help hook in that female audience and like Galadriel and Saruman doing some cool as shit special effects magic! Fuck yeah! Gotta have Sauron in there too.
Perfectly captured the spirit of the book, boys. Now what's for lunch?
That's a fair description of the book (though my take on LOTR is different) but we were talking about The Hobbit movies until just now. Unless you're saying that you think action set pieces were "mercifully scarce" in PJ's adaptation?
old manatee
Banned
Fellowship is easily my favorite out of all of Jackson's Tolkien movies. I feel like he got bogged down with CGI as the movies went on and never reached that level again.
I'll never forget when Gandalf summoned Carfax. I nearly choked up.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
BEAV
GUMBALL
Gummo the DILF
GUMBALL
Gummo the DILF
BoogieWoogie
Banned
I watched this earlier. You win.
Monocle
Member
Same here.
old manatee
Banned
Book 4: Epilogue is so accurate.
-Plasma Reus-
Service guarantees member status
Fellowship is legit the best movie ever made.
Fellowship the most consistent, but let's not pretend Return of the King doesn't have the highest highs. Nothing in FOTR quite hits: Ride of the Rohirrim; I can't carry it for you but I can carry you; You bow to no one. Then there are some moments that are at least on equal footing with the best of Fellowship like Pippin's song, For Frodo, Battle with Shelob etc.
Also, everyone spouting "Boromir's in Fellowship, so that one," I mean, not wrong, but are we all just sleeping on the fact that Fellowship is also the only one that doesn't have Gollum? Potentially the best performance in the entire trilogy and a really well rounded character. FOTR is in no way an obvious choice if only for that reason alone.
Also, everyone spouting "Boromir's in Fellowship, so that one," I mean, not wrong, but are we all just sleeping on the fact that Fellowship is also the only one that doesn't have Gollum? Potentially the best performance in the entire trilogy and a really well rounded character. FOTR is in no way an obvious choice if only for that reason alone.
Yup. To be fair, it's pretty common for larger fantasy/sci-fi works to start much stronger than they finish, be it television like Battlestar Galactica or novels like A Song of Ice and Fire. Tying up all the dangling threads while still delivering the sense that anything can happen is a tall order.
The problem with Fellowship is that it doesn't have Theoden. Boromir is a decent trade, but he's still the biggest goober of the Fellowship.
They're not separate books (actually they're six books). Tolkien wrote one story and his publisher decided to split it into three volumes. The problem with shit like Battlestar and ASOIAF is that they weren't conceived in the same fashion as LOTR.
And The Two Towers is the best book!
I've always found Gollum's bipolar schtick really annoying and tiresome. Riddles in The Dark is absolutely great but beyond that I think he wears thin incredibly quickly. To me he's character designed for a children's book that got shoehorned into a much more adult book. His weird mannerisms and strange speech patterns seem out of place and kid-pandery.
I never considered his absence in Fellowship, but to me it's all the more reason to enjoy the film.
I've only seen the theatrical version of Fellowship, but I've seen the extended version of all three movies. I didn't particularly like any of them, but I recall hating Towers the least. My main issue with Return wasn't due to the pacing, though. Rather, I felt as though one scene in particular, which I assume to be an extra scene, didn't fit with the flow of the other scenes. I can't remember much about it, but I recall it going something like this:
1) Huge battle ensues.
2) Battle ends.
3) Some guy (again, I can't remember much of anything from these movies) is talking to some woman, and everything seems fine.
4) Same guy is kneeling over same woman's body, presuming her to be dead. Obviously, she isn't.
Or maybe I'm confusing characters with one another. All I can say is that #4 literally made me exclaim "WHAT?!" as I watched the movie with no one else around and was just baffled as to what was even going on.
Debate over.
Rumblebones
Banned
Fellowship possesses all the hallmarks of a sprawling adventure with characters we love making their epic journey through memorable places from the Shire to Rivendell and from the Misty Mountains to the mines of Moria. I wouldn't change a thing about it. Not a thing.
Two Towers and Return of the King are both GREAT films but Fellowship is the most consistent of the three and has most my favourite parts of the trilogy.
Two Towers and Return of the King are both GREAT films but Fellowship is the most consistent of the three and has most my favourite parts of the trilogy.
I thought I was crazy because no one else seems to think of this. The scene with Saruman hiding on the top of his tower near the beginning is so clunky and weird and unnecessary I felt surprised it even made it into an extended cut.
RotK Extended is the best LotR movie (vastly superior to the theatrical cut, somehow manages to feel shorter due to the added scenes improving the pacing and flow of the story), but Fellowship Extended is my favorite of the three. I acknowledge RotK as better filmmaking overall but Fellowship just occupies a special place in my heart for being so much better than I ever thought it was going to be. By the time of RotK I pretty much expected greatness.
The conclusion of the villain arc that dominated the first two films being cut from the theatrical was the only surprise related to that scene. It should have been in, it needed to be in, and it's a fine scene considering Jackson decided to (rightly) cut the Scouring of the Shire out of the adaptation.
The conclusion of the villain arc that dominated the first two films being cut from the theatrical was the only surprise related to that scene. It should have been in, it needed to be in, and it's a fine scene considering Jackson decided to (rightly) cut the Scouring of the Shire out of the adaptation.
IMO It wasn't necessary for this movie at all. The looming threat hanging over the series is Saron and the fate of middle earth. One of his henchman losing a battle isn't something that should railroad the flow of the third movie because it's completely unnecessary. We already understand that Sarumon lost the battle. We saw him panicking at the top of his tower near the end of the previous movie. That's all you need.
Fellowship is basically perfect from start to finish. I can't think of a single lull where my interest drifts a bit.
As great as Towers and King are, there's parts in those where I find myself drifting from the movie a little.
Still, as a whole the series is a triumph and I'll keep buying the box set in pretty much any format they put it out on.
As great as Towers and King are, there's parts in those where I find myself drifting from the movie a little.
Still, as a whole the series is a triumph and I'll keep buying the box set in pretty much any format they put it out on.
Kitsunebaby
Member
The Two Towers is my shit. Definitely my most watched of the three.
Extended Fellowship.
The greatest fantasy movie ever made, and the most endlessly rewatchable epic in the library of cinema. Seriously, how did Peter Jackson make this movie? How are we so lucky that it exists? It doesn't even need the rest of the trilogy, standing completely on its own as a monument of entertainment.
It boggles the mind.
The greatest fantasy movie ever made, and the most endlessly rewatchable epic in the library of cinema. Seriously, how did Peter Jackson make this movie? How are we so lucky that it exists? It doesn't even need the rest of the trilogy, standing completely on its own as a monument of entertainment.
It boggles the mind.
Tarextherex
Banned
I dunno how you can think that yet praise the Hobbit trilogy. He turned a children's book into a trilogy to shoehorn pointless battle scenes. Fights in LOTR are actually cathartic, they are in a war after all. The third Hobbit movie was horrible, it felt like some Avengers bullshit rather than an actually epic battle. "Let's make every faction fight each other because why not you never saw them fight in LOTR". Every added subplot in the first and second movies were superfluous af as well, they don't add anything of value to the story.
He should have just straight up adapted the book and leave it as that. If he wanted to do a trilogy+extended cuts, it should have been purely an adventure movie focusing on the main party traveling rather than adding random fights/wars/forced connections to LOTR
On topic, I watched all three of them a crazy amount of times, never thought about ranking them tbh. As mentioned in this thread it's one huge movie. Gotta admit it's Fellowship though, really. Has nothing close to the monotonous parts of its sequels(Ents, Gondor struggling, most of Frodo's scenes, etc). Just very solid pacing all-around. It's also the most self-contained one, sure the ending obviously hints a sequel but it still wraps up perfectly pretty much every event of the movie, it provides good closure. We watched it so much that when they finally announced Two Towers it felt so surreal. The whole trilogy provided some of the best hype in media tbh
