[Preface: Having just finished this, I think it's probably full of unintentional repetition. My apologies.]

I have just returned from seeing RotK for the first time, having seen FotR and TT both within the last week. I have a minor review, but I forewarn that it will be neither scathing nor in great praise -- I would give the movies neither zero stars nor five, and though I don't regret watching them, I don't think I'll see them again. What follows is an analysis of why LotR, as a series of movies, just didn't work for me.

RotK made me decide the LotR series was overall somewhere between "Okay" and "Great." The first two movies I described as not being at all engaging, and I stand by that. RotK, however, was the opposite: I was very much into in the proceedings; unlike in the first two movies, I actually cared about the characters and what happened to them. Now, something is immediately obvious at this point and I'm half-certain that 75% of people reading this are mentally shouting it at their monitors: the third movie is a SUPPOSED to be a most engaging. Looked at in a broad scope, FotR is the exposition and start of the rising action, TT continues the rising action, and RotK continues the rising action, climaxes, and (sort of) resolves. Thus, the last movie is the most interesting, since the first two have been building up to it in the exact same way that Titanic builds up to the iceberg collision and "Little Red Riding Hood" builds up to the slaughter of the wolf. In other words, yes, the first movies are liable to be dull on their own, but you have to look at it more broadly.

Which brings me to my main point.

My sister, who had read the LotR books (and some other Middle-Earth Tolkein books) in elementary school, told me that you have to look at the movies like a television series. That is, a long serial. Anime does this a lot, having a single series run perhaps eleven episodes and end not because it's canceled, but because that's when the story ends. Sam said in his review that these movies are perhaps pioneers in their reliance upon each other and that they cannot stand alone. Yes, that is true.

Now, would I have liked this story more if it had been presented as a television series, albeit on a big screen, perhaps? Yes. Here's why.

In movies, you have (or, at least, I have) certain unconscious expectations. I saw FotR for the first time after RotK came out, and I knew well that I was in for a long trip (208 + 223 + 201 = 10 hours, 32 minutes if you count the extended editions in the US). However, I discovered that cerebrally knowing that nothing was going to resolve did not increase my patience any. That is, I *knew* this was going to be long, but it still bothered me things were unresolved. See, I *expect* some form of resolution to come by the end of the movie, even if it's unresolved. Look at The Birds, for example, which has a complete nonending. I think it resolves, because there is a clear "end" to the story: namely, that the horrors will keep continuing. In other words, the movie says, "Things will continue, but there's nothing that will be new to tell. The story will repeated itself, but you can infer that. The new developments end here." FotR and TT, in contrast, just go "FWIP I AM OVER NOW BUT THERE'S MORE TO COME," which, after three to four hours, is rather irritating.

So didn't I find them engaging? Theoretically, the exposition and rising action should get me engaged for the grand finale. My wager is because you knew things weren't going to be resolved by the end of the movie, so why bother? There's no reason to be engaged, because you subconsciously know that you're not getting engaged for anything. If you get engaged, you have to wait months (when the movies were still being released) to become (gasp!) more engaged, then more months to finally have a reason to be engaged. So why bother?

I think THAT'S the distinction between movies and television series, even if I know both to be serials. (Note: I'm not talking about television series like, say, Star Trek, which for the most part is purely episodic. I mean more along the lines of something like ... augh, I can't think of an offhand example. A show that would present a piece of the plot every episode without any filler. A lot of anime does this, I know.)

(Look, just go with me on this.)

See, in a movie -- regardless of whether I know it's supposed to be serial or not -- my expectation is for the story to come to a satisfactory conclusion at the end of the single movie. It's just a cultivated expectation born from all the movies I've ever seen. It's worth noting, perhaps, that I had never read the LotR books and basically knew next to nothing of the whole plot, so I was essentially watching these with virgin eyes. (Except I knew the ending. Whoops.) Thus, I couldn't think, "Ah, this movie isn't very engaging, but I know it's building to up to [event] and [event] and [event] and [event], so I can be patient." I was seeing these as, "I don't know what's coming next, but if it's all like this, there's no point in caring."

This is diametrically opposite from my expectations in a serial television series. Unlike a movie, I know that there's no way a complex, multithreaded storyline can be resolved by the end of one installment. Thus, my patience is kicked up several notches and I ride through episodes that would be boring on their own but that I know are carefully crafted to reach a specific end, which I expect at the end of the series as a whole. One installment doesn't have to have any resolution. I just have to have faith that the complete story arc will.

This distinction in my patience is my own failing, but it really does stem from previous experience which has embedded particular expectations in movie and television series. (Actually, television series that have filler episodes within a large story arc require even MORE patience. And I'm willing to tolerate those. Good heavens, look at ... actually, no, to prevent embarrassment I'm not going to mention that show. Let's just say it was 200 episodes with mostly filler and I still had patience with it.) My conclusion is that, had the LotR movies been spliced up into spicy one-hour bits and aired as an eleven-episode series (assuming no commercials, I'm sure they could have padded out the remaining twenty-eight minutes somehow), I would have had more patience with the slow building of story and would likely have liked it a lot more. A lot more.

In a television series, you expect an overarching storyline and can go with it. It's harder for movies to pull that off. (I dare you to imagine your favorite television show as an eleven-hour movie without the filler. I dare you. I may be shooting myself in the foot because it may be terrific, but imagine sitting through the entire exposition and slow, slow development. Argh. It's not much like the LotR movies had a bunch of startling revelations to keep the story moving, like your favorite television-show-turned-movie might; it's mostly story development, getting ready for battle, battle, getting ready for battle, battle, battle again, battle, story development, story development, getting ready for battle, getting ready for more battle, battle, battle, getting ready for battle, battle, battle, battle, story development, getting ready for battle, battle, MORE battle, story ends. Note that I didn't actually count those battles.)

I just noticed I haven't written about the craftsmanship of the movies themselves. They gave an excellent sense of setting and place, and the various scenes were well-designed. It seemed like a real world, and I'm very impressed with how that was done. However, my general reaction is more concerned with the structure of the story.

I don't think I'll watch them again. If they were presented as a series of small bites, I would. There, that's a summary for all you who skipped all the repetitive stuff above.

I think I've written enough.

[Postscript: It has just been pointed out to me that TT has its own climax and plot. Yes, that's true. But as far as the major plot advancement goes, it's sort of a deviation. I won't go so far as to relate it to a filler episode, but I got that sort of "What about the MAIN story?" feeling at the end. Before I get blasted for that, I know it's part of the main story, but it really did feel a bit like a subsidiary plot that overshadowed the one the whole series seemed to be about. I think I just made a dangerous statement.]