The biggest movie disappointment I have ever had was Lord of Rings Return of the King. I am a HUGE Lord of the Rings fan, I have read the book about 20 times, so needless to say when the movies came out I was psyched. The first two movies were not too bad and I enjoyed them very much, but the third one let me down very badly and here is why.
The movie really awesome until the second half the of the first big battle scene(The Battle of Pelennor Fields). The first half of the battle is one of my favourite battle scenes, the charge of the rohirrim was everything I could have hoped for and more. It had a great feel to it, the music was spot on and it looked awesome. The fight against the mumaks( the elephant things) was ok, but at that point I started to have bad feelings. Then Aragorn arrives with the boats and then the Army of the Dead appeared and this went through my mind; WTF!!! No, no, no, no, Jackson, you asshole, how could you fuck this up so badly. Then the magic army comes and kills everything in sight and there is a really retarded scene with Legolas killing a Mumak. The end of the scene. Jackson couldn't have missed more compeletely what the battle was about.
In the books and to an extent in the movies the greatests weapons that Evil has are fear, despair and corruption. If you think of the Nazgul, they aren't like Aragorn or any of the other heroes, they don't plough through ranks of enemy warriors, because they don't need to, since no one is willing to fight them. It doesn't take a lot of skill to kill a guy who is paralyzed with fear. Another good example of this is the beginning of the Siege when the orcs fire the heads of the executed soldiers into Minas Tirith to cause panic, in the movie this almost makes the defenders give up before the fight has even started.
Sauron also very cunningly attacked the leaders of his opponents Theoden, King of Rohan, and Denethor, the Steward of Gondor. His major objective was to cripple the kingdoms by crippling their leaders and without the efforts of Gandalf, Sauron would have succeeded. Theoden was driven to despair and almost crippeled by Grima, the spy of Saruman, until Gandalf convinced him that he was still more than capable of being a leader. In the book the effect was more psychological while in the movie Theoden is possessed by Saruman. After the spell is broken Theoden becomes an inspiring leader who leads his men into two great victories. Denethor is driven to despair by Sauron through the use of a Palantir, unlike Theoden he is beyond hope and
all Gandalf is able to do is contain the damage. Gandalf's presence helps inspire the Army of Gondor into fighting the seemingly impossible odds and hold of the darkness until help arrives.
The final weapon of evil is its most potent weapon, corruption. The Ring is the focus of this power and it was able to lead several great leaders of the good in their doom. The first victim was Isildur, who for the record defeated Sauron in combat. The second was Boromir, also a mighty warrior and a great leader, who tried to take the ring from Frodo and valiantly atoned for it by dying in combat while trying to protect Merry and Pippin. Even the innocent Frodo is eventually overcome by The Ring. The only one in the book who was able to reject the lure of the ring was Samwise Gamgee. When Frodo gets captured by the orcs, Sam is able to save the ring. The ring tempts Sam with the possibility becoming so strong and powerful that likes of Elrond, Gandalf and Galadriel would treat him as an equal. Sam is tempted at first but then he sees himself leading an army into a charge and at that point he realizes how ridiculous he would look, how insane the whole idea is and how it is not really what he wants out of his life. In this context Sam is the greatest hero of the book, without him the destruction of the ring wouldn't have been possible.
This internal struggel that the heroes in the Lord of the Rings go throught reminds me of the muslim concept of Jihad, a very much misunderstood, misused and abused concept. In muslim theology Jihad is split into two parts the greater and lesser, the greater jihad is the internal struggel against the evil with in and the lesser is the physical struggel against evil and injustice in the world. Nearly all of the characters in the book overcome some internal barrier before they can realize their potential and those who fail generally don't make through alive. Samwise realizes that power and greatness isn't what he wants, Aragorn is able to overcome his doubts about being suitable to be a king, Theoden is able to overcome his despair and sorrow, Boromir unable to overcome the lure of the ring and is lead to his doom, Gimli and Legolas are able to overcome their predjudice about one another and forge a lasting friendship, Eowyn and Merry are able to overcome the social prejudices againt their fighting abilities and defeat the might Witch King, whom no man can kill, and finally the Armies of the Good are able to overcome fear and despair and put everything on the line to fight off the armies of Mordor.
The Battle of Pelenor Fields and the Siege of Minas Tirith were the first major battle where the forces of good really put an effort to fight Sauron. It was the first time that they were able to stand against the darkness and hold it at bay untill morning came. Unlike in the movie in the book the gates of Minas Tirith don't fall until moments before sunrises and the Rohirrim arrive. The arrival of the Rohirrim halts the advance on Minas Tirith and the charge of the Rohirrim breaks the siege lines. The defenders of Minas Tirith start sallying out as the Rohirrim are confronted by Mordors reinforcements. Then one of my favourite scenes occurs when Eowyn and Merry slay the Witch King. The moment where Eowyn reveals her identity as a woman and responds to the Witch Kings statement "No man can kill me" with "I am no man" and shows her sword into his face. Another cool scene in the book happens when the black ships arrives. Eomer, now the King of Rohan, sees the ships arrive. While seeing other panic around him and after feeling abit of despair himself, he starts to laugh, when he realises that he is young and uninjured, a leader of an army of one of the fiercest warriors in the world and this is what he was born to do. Then he decides to fight to the last man but before he has the need to do that he realizes that the ships are bringing Aragon and the army from the south of Gondor. The narrative of the battle ends on after Eormer and Aragon meet in the middle of the battlefield. Tolkien concludes the battle by stating that after hours of grueling fighting the armies of Mordor are driven from the field and the battle is finally won.
And this is the disappointment I had. In the book the victory came because the good finally had to courage to put it all in a fight no matter what. The battle wasn't an easy one either the book lists all the great leaders who died in the battle. In the movie the are almost lost and then the magic army arrives and hands the victory to them on a silver plate. If the army of the dead was so powerful, why they just didn't send it to Mordor and kill all the orcs in sight? In the book the army's greatest asset is ironically terror, all it did in the book was drive away the enemy, which is even remarked by some character, can't remember who, that they used the enemy's weapons against them.
Jackson missed the major point, that is best summed up by Edmund Burke, "All that is needed for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing" Which really pissed me off.
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