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It has occurred to me several times throughout the last week that at some point over the last year I have made a sort of transition - from 'fan' to 'enthusiast' or even just 'observer'. This was brought home to me a couple of times today: when I found myself actually dreading the advance screening of 'Return of the King', and later in the evening at 'The Ringers' party where I found myself observing the proceedings from an extremely detached viewpoint, wondering what on earth I had in common with all these people in fancy dress who turned into an unruly mob the second even a minor celebrity from the movies appeared on the scene.
About this time last year I reviewed 'The Two Towers'. I thought I'd trodden carefully, nervous about rushing to review the movie based on just a couple of viewings, still raw from the 'invented' scenes (which I thought poor) and continuity problems and plot holes. One of the many 'hate' emails I received as a result of that review showed me how blindly uncritical fandom can be - more than happy to criticise a review of a movie they themselves haven't actually seen! Apparently getting a seat to a premiere is supposed to mean a rave review must be written, because to do otherwise is not fair to those fans who didn't get a premiere ticket! But the insanity didn't stop there: "You deliberately went into the movie wanting to hate it", said one reader. "You clearly have some personal grudge against the film makers", said another. Against this background of, frankly unexpected, abuse from the 'great unwashed public' (aka thirteen year old trolls! :-P), and knowledge I would have to post some sort of review of this latest movie on my web site, I found myself actually dreading having to watch the wretched thing! Part of the problem was that this time round I'd heard too many 'insider' stories about what a bad shape the movie had been in, witnessed first-hand wide variations between the public pronouncements being made on the state of the movie vs those made in private, and witnessed public admissions of how late 'Return of the King' was in being handed over to New Line etc etc. None of this made it sound like this was a movie in any kind of reasonable shape, least of all 'the best of the three' as the director Peter Jackson in particular has been claiming since... well, January this year!
		The stories seemed to enforce my assessment of what had happened with 'The Two Towers' - basic editing and time measurement of the final movie being left so late in the process that there's no time left to fix things that are obviously wrong when changes have to be made to get the movie down to a reasonable running time: whether we're talking continuity issues, bad scripting or rushed special effects. The biggest casualty of this process, as far as The Two Towers is concerned, is that the ending of the second movie was effectively a repeat performance of the 'Fellowship' ending, instead of the Saruman death climax that had originally been intended but had to be excised because of running time constraints. These concerns about the state of 'Return of the King' weren't lessened on meeting a German friend outside the cinema who had bumped into someone from Weta the day before and learnt that the movie we were going to see was subtly different from what would be shown in Europe 'because Peter Jackson made some slight changes after the cut was sent to Europe'. Perhaps you can understand (and forgive) my nervousness that this third movie might be one I'd be better off avoiding, and really wasn't in any great hurry to see! Security in the cinema was tight, but myself and an English friend were the first to be let in, only to find the cinema staff were still testing out a complicated sound system using some sort of audio spectrum feedback analysers with a series of bleeps and hisses that were piercing. We had been admitted too early and were asked to leave. When I foolishly made a joke to my friend in a loud whisper as we were leaving the reaction was as if I'd announced I was a terrorist with a bomb. "Jesus people, it's just a frigging movie: if a whisper is going to upset the sound so much are you going to ban popcorn and drinks too??!!!" was the thought that immediately entered my mind at the time! When we were eventually allowed back in I have to admit the picture and sound were perfect, so maybe the reaction to my talking was justifed after all. Certainly I can't imagine I will ever see the movie in better form anywhere in the world - the Embassy really is one of the classiest venues around. An added treat was being able to watch the movie from Mark's 'named' seat which had a 'dead on centre' view, and was one of the very comfortable 'platinum de luxe' chairs. Most of the press had apparently come to a screening the day before so that there were only about 30-50 of us in a cinema designed to seat over 700, giving us the best opportunity to pick a seat with a good view. So what did I think, given that the review embargo of 'December 8th' is now over? Based on a single viewing, I think it's the best movie of the three! Yes, I think it's a great movie: a Christmas movie, a family movie (although the Gollum back-story is surprisingly dark and in a different league than that of the 'not real' horror of the orcs and the Black Riders), a blockbuster movie, a tear-jerker movie... in short, a superb movie! I know that some of the actors are somewhat bemused by all the ecstatic reactions, only able to see, as one actor put it, 'all the good stuff that's missing', but they can relax - even in its severely truncated (but still too long!) form it's a corker! 'Return of the King' is not perfect of course, but then how could it be? For this viewer it is close enough to Tolkien to make me happy, with no silly invented routines or naff (as in 'crass') dialogue. I can even handle the rather silly, but seemingly obligatory, 'let's make Orlando look cool' sequence if that ensures so many repeat visits from 13 year-old girls that it ensures profits are made for the makers and those who worked so hard on these movies. Parts of the movie are better than any fan reasonably has a right to expect, and anybody expecting a carbon copy of the book really should have learnt their lesson by now - it's not as if the first two movies haven't set expectations on that front! Characterisations are admittedly varied - Peter Jackson's Gandalf viciously clubbing Denethor (now a pig of a man and not the dignified but broken man of the book) is not 'my' Gandalf, nor is a rather 'whiny' Sam, who seems to find it too easy to give up on Frodo when Gollum stitches him up, 'my' Sam, but these are relatively minor criticisms really. Billy Boyd shines as Pippin and is given real depth with extended scenes here, but Dominic Monaghan suffers as poor old Merry barely gets a look in with even the 'swearing allegiance to Theoden' scene shown in all the trailers and 'behind the scenes' documentaries seemingly being cut from the final movie. The special effects are excellent: in 'The Two Towers' there are one or two occasions where Gollum isn't quite convincing enough to come across as a non-CGI character, but it's a measure of the quality put in this time around that I completely forgot he wasn't a 'real' character in 'Return of the King'. Admittedly the final scenes at Mount Doom don't quite look right (fire and molten lava are always going to be hard to get right, I guess) and the 'changed' Gollum ending will, I suspect, upset many a purist (it does appear to be one of those "change for change's sake" that Jackson, Walsh and Boyens seem so fond of) but everything else is damn-near perfect, with Shelob exceeding even the highest expectations. Elsewhere changes made are for the better where a film is concerned. So yes, it's true that Sam doesn't put on The Ring but that's because it makes for better dramatic tension in the movie to not know where the Ring has gone when Sam returns to rescue Frodo and it's missing. I'm also glad that the movie isn't four hours long, so far more accepting of the loss of 'The Houses of Healing' that so many fans seem to be upset about, and as for the missing 'death of Saruman' - well that's a mistake made in 'The Two Towers', not this movie, as far as I'm concerned. I left the movie screening a very happy man. 'They dun good' as a friend of mine has a habit of saying. With the movie screening out the way, it was time to head for 'The Ringers' party. The party was, in truth, mainly about queueing: queueing for 45 minutes to use the cable car to get to the restaurant, queueing for 20 minutes to to get in, queueing for half an hour to get food, queueing for 10 minutes to get a drink only to find out you couldn't get one without a voucher that had to be purchased at a separate queue etc etc. This resulted in complaints about 'too many people' but in fact, there was plenty of room for everyone - just a lot of delays in trying to get food and work out what 'the process' was. My guess would be that there were never more than 400 people in the venue (either because of 'no shows' or, I suspect, because a lot of people arrived later and a lot of others left early). This lower-than-expected volume made it comfy except for when a special guest arrived or when something was happening on the stage, because the layout of the venue meant only the marquee could hold a reasonable number of people and it just wasn't being used to its full potential. Another problem for me was the frighteningly high 'geek' count! "I bet you didn't realise you'd bought a ticket for a freak show" was how one friend rather unkindly put it on seeing that about 90% of the attendees were in distinctly average costumes or fancy dress. Another poorly-thought out part of the party was the positioning of the stage which was just a few inches higher than the floor, making viewing difficult, and placed facing a narrow corridor with a capacity of about 50 people rather than in the large marquee where nearly everyone would have been able to see what was happening and get a good view. 'Quickbeam' from TheOneRing.net as MC did his best to alert fans that if special guests arrived not to hassle them for autographs or pictures ('They want to party too!') but these movies are so big now there was little hope of this happening with the 'herd' mentality that creeps in whenever the cast appear in public. When Bruce Hopkins and Laurence Makaore arrived, only to be mobbed for photographs and autographs within seconds of reaching the courtyard entrance, it was pretty clear that this was not going to be a 'party' for the guests but another (unpaid) convention like appearance, as a crushed mob determined to get 'value for money' on their tickets lost all sense of decorum. Ian McKellen, Bruce and Laurence appeared on stage, but its positioning meant huge frustration for celebrity spotters and the crush was unbearable. After 5 minutes I wanted to leave my position at the front and get some fresh air - not a chance as the crush was too tight. Sir Ian made a short speech and then wisely fled the crush the second he'd finished before the crowd could realise what was happening, leaving Bruce Hopkins on stage wondering aloud why they were no longer a trio. I wondered if the lack of security or control would jeapordise future cast appearances at TORn parties, but at the press conference the next morning Sir Ian gave TORn his customary plug: 'I went to the fan party last night. The OneRing.net throw the best parties' he advised the journalists present, as if chastising them for missing out on something great, so I guess he's realistic about these things and no real damage was done.
For my part, and the two or three people I knew and socialised with at this event, parties are for having fun and this one, frankly, wasn't much fun at all as far as we were concerned (there are plenty of accounts on TORn from people who enjoyed themselves so I guess you should go read those if you want a different take on the whole thing). On the plus side I have to admit the food was very good quality (but then, with the price of the tickets it needed to be!), and the music that I heard was good. The party was also well attended with guests from all over the world (the Asian Frodo's seemed to be having a particularly good time throwing themselves around the dance floor), and I had brief chats with some new people I hadn't met before who seemed nice folks. I guess that as far as most of those present were concerned the main reason for attending was fulfilled when members of the movie cast put in an appearance (Sean Astin, John Noble and Richard Taylor showed after I left). As one TORn staffer put it the next day 'For many, who are new to a TORn event, this was like the first oscar party was to many of us'. I knew I had a long day tomorrow and had to make a judgement call as to whether I felt duty bound to stay to report on any more special guests that arrived for the fan club magazine. With the difficult situation of the stage I realised that even if all four hobbits were to show up after I left, I wouldn't get any sort of decent pictures or usable quotes and therefore wouldn't regret leaving. Two friends who were desperate to leave helped convince me I was doing the right thing, although others I spoke to the next day had clearly enjoyed the event despite all the 'organisational problems'. Different strokes for different folks, I guess! Stay tuned for future reports (indicated by a photo appearing in the main Itinerary calendar) Back to Day 6 report Forward to Day 8 report (Premiere day!)
Don't forget you can check out reports of lots of other Lord of the Rings -themed events in the Web Logs section

Email: ian@iansmith.co.uk