What is the difference between the recently released (ok 4 months old) trilogies, Matrix Revolutions and The Lord of The Rings: The Return of The King (TLOTR:TROTK)? One was an exceptional hit with the Academy honoring it with 11 Oscars and other a decent fare even for the diehard Matrix cult (includes me). What probably could be the reason for the former?s failure considering that Matrix was released prior to TLOTR and expectations of a third sequel was higher at least here in India than US.
Is it the story? No, because Matrix is a story that was written keeping the box-office and the first movie in view, whereas TLOTR was an epic written long ago and the movie was just an adaptation of the book. Some would probably argue that both the movies are incomparable since they represented two separate genres of movies. Fine, let us leave Matrix alone now.
This is about the TLOTR: TROTK. What is so great about TLOTR when it is just an adaptation of a book? There is. The fact that J.R.R.Tolkien’s book, TLOTR’s sales increased thousand-fold alone proves the greatness of this movie. Many a movies which were adaptation of some famous books or stories were proved to be box-office non-starters due to the inability of the director to grasp the imagination of the viewers, the way a book has its readers. But when a movie increases the sales of a book, we can pretty well understand how the movie was made.
When the third edition of the TLOTR released people expected it to lose its sheen that the earlier ones had. But what happened was exactly the opposite. Each part of the TLOTR was a dream any director would have had. TROTK was no different. The combination of story-telling with the modern movie-making resulted in TLOTRs. The 3 hours odd movie held viewers interest so much that for the first time I saw people clapping for the scenes in the movie so much that they had probably done for Lagaan?s cricket match.
The sheer wizardry of Peter Jackson and his crew made this movie into one of those great movies which should be remembered for life-time. At no point of time in the movie you would feel that it is just being dragged or you are forcibly made to sit and watch the fare (although the ending may be trimmed a li’l bit).
The movie had me waiting for so long, inspite of this I controlled myself from being succumbed to watching the pirated version at home and watching the movie on the big screen really paid off for all that wait (probably an IMAX version would?ve been just out of the world, I’ll settle for the 70mm version). I’m not going to deal with the story here but I have no words to describe the greatest movie-watching experience I had. After this I don’t know what else movies can I look forward to. Last year ended the most eagerly anticipated trilogies of my life, leaving me to wonder what is left in life after these movies are over.
But trust me when I say that all those who loved the movie, especially the third one, DON’T WATCH THE MOVIE AGAIN FOR THE MAGIC OF THE MOVIE will be lost. If at all you want to see, watch it after a good 4-5 months gap.