2nd time around

The second time seeing Return of the King: the good parts got gooder and the bad parts got badder.

Badness:

* The Phial of Galadriel is not an oversized, poncy perfume bottle. Frodo wears it around his neck, for fuck's sake.
* Hobbits with mouths open, especially Merry and Pippin. As if they were about to cross over into the world of the horrible child actors in the Harry Potter movies. How is it through shooting three movies that no one ever told them to close their mouths once in a while?
* Hobbits gazing at each other.
* Hobbits gazing at each other like that and then not kissing. Just get on with it okay?
* Frodo being all wrong. Three modes: 1) about to hurl. 2) psychotic. 3) about to hurl AND psychotic. Where is the ethereal wise elfiness that pervades him as he gets thinner and wraithier? He's a fucking elf-friend. He should be yelping A Elbereth Gilthoniel a bit more.
* Denethor chewing.
* Denethor dying the totally wrong way. I have re-edited the movie in my own mind to put in the proper death scene with hands withering horribly around the Palantir.
* Denethor doing anything. He is supposed to be proud and kingly and austere and wise and noble and despairing from having been looking in the Palantir at Sauron too much. Grrr.
* Gandalf losing hope just to give Aragorn a big speech using the word "Hope" in it to bludgeon us yet again with the whole "Estel=Hope" thing.
* Flaming blobs of lava flying through the air very, very slowly, as if they were high up like jet planes, or meteors with parachutes.
* Merry and Pippin having no dignity. Pippin instead of nobly swearing allegiance just being bad comic relief.
* It not being clear that Faramir has some connection with Mithrandir.
* When Gandalf rides out of Minas Tirith to shine his really strong flashlight on the Nazgul, why did he bring Pippin with him? Why, why, why?
* Merry's arm being fucked up by the Witch King of Angmar, but then suddenly just okay again and he is riding off to battle to the gates of Mordor with everyone else. Unlike in the book no time has elapsed, which is fine, but then how did his arm get better?
* They fucked with Theoden's death speech and there was no reason to.
* Aragorn being all stupidly surprised at seeing Arwen.
* The cheesy, new-agey, "Let go!" or "Hold on!" speeches.

Goodness:

* The Riders of Rohan massing up on the hillside with the dawn behind them, and the fairly accurate exhoration and the spear clashing and most of all the marvelous charge that makes you suddenly realize everything about cavalry battles. I thought of Winston Churchill writing about the charge at the Battle of Omdurman and was rather excited. That the guy actually yelled "Forth Eorlingas!" Oh yeah! Swept away by the fervor of battle, I burst into tears, squared my shoulders, and mentally urged my horse to thunder dramatically over some orcs while I grimly stare out from my helmet, a little cross eyed from the nosepiece of my helm, sweeping around with my sword and screaming "DEAAAAAAATH!"
* Gondor looking just exactly as I had always imagined it.
* Any of the battle scenes or the scenes with a zillion guys and/or horses massed up for battle. Oh yeah.
* The way they painted the Mumakil's sides with cool war designs, and the chains between their tusks.
* The weird Celticness of the entryway to the Path of the Dead.
* Any time that an important speech was put in correctly. If Frodo had not said "Here at the end of all things" to Sam, I was going to have to go and assassinate someone. Thank god they made him say it - I don't want to go to jail.
* Arwen's damn cool green dress and green shiny beaded tiara/veil.
* The flags and banners and Minas Tirith armor being RIGHT.