Lord of the Rings

I hadn't watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy since it came out in theatres, and some bits and pieces of Fellowship of the Rings, until today. I sort of got the urge to watch The Two Towers, probably the best of the three. Anywho, some musings on the Lord of the Rings:

1) The second one has much less downtime than the other two. The first one is filled with more of a sense of wonder, but The Two Towers has the best battles and the most action. Return of the King, for whatever reason, was kind of a disappointment. In addition, it included the unforgivably cringe worthy cheesy feminist line, "I am no man...blah blah blah." They're all very good though...so I'm sort of nitpicking...

2) Another unforgivable disappointment with the films is the snubbing of the Epilouge, in which the hobbits return home to a changed (for the worse) world. Some would say it is only an interesting sidenote to the overall story of good versus absolute evil. But the epilogue is an important part to understanding the whole story. It portrays the loss of innocence that comes upon the completion of total war, even when the good guys win. The war brought about an end to the age of Elves, and ushered in the less noble and enlightened age of men. They fought to defeat absolute evil, but in its destruction, absolute good was destroyed as well, leaving something in the middle. Without that epilogue...this message is much murkier.

Another thing, which isn't as bad for the film, is that leaving out the epilogue it disconnects it with the World War I allegory. Most people could probably care less about that...but you know, I'm a history nerd, so I'm kind of into that. Now, Tolkein (who fought in WWI) said that the story did't represent anything, and interpretations are useless, but he was completely full of shit. And the allegory is not complete without the epilogue. That loss of innocence is the most important outcome of the fight, not the destruction of the ring.

Damn, that's a long movie...