I caught this epic again for the second time just recently, and all I've got to say is AWESOME. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy is what I was truly hoping the Star Wars prequels were going to be all along, but they've fallen far short of Peter Jackson's excellent LOTR work IMO.
I love that most everything just looks and feels
real in both of the LOTR flicks. Not nearly as much CG, and when there is, it's not nearly as noticeable and overwhelming. Someone said it very well elsewhere, when they said that Peter Jackson uses CGI to advance the overall story when necessary, but George Lucas practically uses CGI
as his story. There's just too much of it in the Prequels. I often find myself realizing that not a single thing on the screen at that moment is real, and thinking that I'm essentially just watching a really well done cartoon.
I also love the added length to the LOTR films. I understand that some people don't care much for 3 hour length movies - usually due to drinking too many sodas and needing to bust a squirt doing the movie, but I love a good, long movie. Certainly more entertainment value, to say the least. There's so much more story to tell and character development that should take place in the Prequels, but Lucas absolutely refuses to go over 2 hours and 20 minutes total for any of his movies (and it's certainly not a cost issue). At this day and age, that's plain silly. There's been tons of very lengthy movies (over 2.5 hours) that have done huge box office over the past 5 years. Why can't Star Wars jump into that mix as well and give us more of what we want to see.
I could go on and on about what I've enjoyed in LOTR so far, but I won't. Basically, Tolkien's already excellent stories have just been brilliantly interpreted into film by Jackson. They're just
epic all the way through.
It should be very interesting to see what George has in store for Episode 3, 'cause there's a hell of a lot of story left to tell, loose ends to tie up, parts to tie into the O.T., etc. Please Mr. Lucas: Return to the OT magic, and give us a kick a$$ Episode 3, so the Saga can go out in style...
But at this point, the Prequels have virtually no chance of catching LOTR for second best trilogy of all time - behind the Original Trilogy of course! Just my opinion, of course...
Just caught
this link that Scott posted to an interesting debate over the two film franchises at USAToday's site. Interesting...