Return of the Bulleted List

Because I'm on the cutting edge of culture (for values of 'culture' equal to roughly one third of a Peter Jackson trilogy), I only just got around to seeing Return of the King this past weekend. Part of this has something to do with my pathological fear of going to see movies on my own. Years of being ridiculed by friends of mine who are comfortable in their "one adult single, please" nature had finally worn off and I ended up seeing RotK at the Cambridge Arts Picture House on Saturday.

Anyway. In time honoured fashion, bullet-pointed observations:

• Gollum lost at least sixty pounds when he went on the One Ring diet plan
• Whichever was the one out of Pippin or Merry who looked in that glass ball thing? Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
• The beacon scene rocked. I hope in the extended edition it's at least five minutes longer.
• Faramir's ride to death juxtaposed with Denethor's bad eating habits was unsettling. I resent Jackson for that.
• I don't care. Legolas and Gimli's score-keeping is funny.
• I really didn't expect Legolas to kill that elephant type thing. It really didn't seem in character at all. I mean, it was cool, but it just jarred a little. Living thing and all that, co-opted by forces of evil. I thought he'd just incapacitate it.
• I've seen Pirates of the Carribean already.
• As was pointed out by a colleague at work: there were too many ghosts. It looked like Ghostbusters 3 where Minas Tirith was covered in ecto-plasm. I half expected a Statute of Liberty to crest the hill.
• Legolas: exposition boy? I wasn't the only one to laugh when he exclaimed "A diversion!"
• It was nice to see Sam kick ass. It was nice to see Pippin/Merry (oh, I don't know. They're hobbits and thus interchangeable) grow up a little.
• Did anyone else do a double take when Sam turned up in a powerloader to fight the Queen and screamed "Get away from her, you BITCH!"?
• I'm much less bothered now that Sauron looked more like a flaming eye in this installment and not, as in the first film, flaming labia.
• I realise that against the background of the second world war Sam and Frodo's relationship is altogether more poignant. But it doesn't stop me from being convinced that Sam's living a lie.
• Never mind Sam living a lie, I was a little disturbed by the fact that he seems to have married a mute.

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