As Jason mentioned today, he and Amy went to see Return of the King on Saturday. Erin and I were also at the same showing - in fact, Erin sat next to Amy. The theatre was probably over half full, but we were worried that we wouldn’t get tickets at all. As it turned out, we had no problems, and even got decent seats. I went in ahead and saved some seats while Erin waited in the lobby for Jason and Amy to show up. Just as they walked into the theatre, the lights dimmed, and the previews started. That’s what I call good timing.

So, I’ve avoided talking about the movie thus far… You might conclude that I didn’t like it. That’s not the case. I liked it - I even liked it a lot. I still think the first movie was the best of the bunch, mainly because it was forced to focus on things like character development, and setting the tone. Despite the obvious technical brilliance of the large battle scenes, I found them to be more distracting than integral to the story. I realize that people wouldn’t sit through a three+ hour movie without any big action scenes, but honestly, I think the movies could have stood up well without a lot of the special effects in the battle scenes. Obviously the battles had to be there, and if they weren’t as grand as the rest of the movie, lots of people would have been disappointed. I don’t think I would have been one of those people though. There were some cheesy parts, and some fantasic parts. The set design was fantastic, the costumes were right up there too. The music was well done, though at points I felt it was overused to mask the lack of emotion being created by the acting. The actors all did a credible job, I guess.

The one thing that made me chuckle was when Frodo was picked up by the orcs after being stung by Shelob - his face went from very very dirty, to very very clean, back to very very dirty. At one point it looked like he’d gone goth on us.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “First some ground rules. Number one, we get bathroom breaks every half-hour.” - Lionel Hutz