boney:
It was AMAZING!
I heard an interesting perspective from a buddy of mine who hasn't read the book and he didn't like it as much as 2. The reason was because he thought the 3rd one could have ended a half dozen times before it actually did end.
This is NOT my view - but a view of someone who hasn't read the book... anyone out there think the same and have not read the books????
I too wish they put in the razing of the Shire at the end but then again, they missed a bunch of parts in all 3 movies...
I haven't seen it yet (I will), but have discussed at length with a "junior" Tolkienophile about all of the movies, in particular the screenplay's ending of v3.
IMO, Jackson should have read the books 5 or 6 more times. His poor dealing with Sarumon and the Razing of the Shire is an unforgivable abomination because Jackson ignores a major underlying point of the book that he himself touched on: no one can afford to try to ignore the world's problems no matter how much of an irrelevant backwater you may think you're in.
FYI, there have also been complaints from non-Tolkienophiles about the ending being too long and drawn out. They're legit too.
If I wrote the screenplay, I would have dealt with the entire problem by ending v3 much earlier - - pretty much when the 8 of 9 reunite and discovers that everyone else did okay (Rivendell, perhaps?). This would have eliminated the "too drawn out" complaints.
And the plan for the final chapters - - because the confrontation with Sarumon in the Shire really is critical to the book - - would be planned as a special 4th installment, released directly to Video/DVD. This approach better satisfies the Tolkien Faithful's legit complaints of the current ending.
Most importantly, since v3 won't be on DVD/Video for awhile, its not too late to do just this, with v3 being fixed in a "Special Director's Cut", and a quick filming of some Shire scenes and some CGI work to put together "v3.5"
There's also some very nice tasteful things that could be done that would be shown as the final credits to 3.5 roll, such as showing some elements that Tolkien only wrote about in the Appendix, such as Sam's (& others) final destiny.
-hh
