Why LOTR Sucks: Does Anyone Really Like A Montage?

This opening montage strikes me as a poor choice. In general, I think of montages as a filmmaker’s crutch. Anytime the story needs moving along, and it’s beyond the ken of the screenwriter to do the job him/herself, it’s time to use a montage. Think of all your favorite montages? Most of them are probably parodies, such as The Naked Gun, or Team America. The only successful, non-ironic montage I can think of off the top of my head is from Rocky.

And Jackson thought it would be a good idea to open his grand trilogy with a fucking montage? Oh, I can hear what you’re saying. He needed some way to orient people and give them the information they needed to know that the ring was evil.

No he fucking didn’t. That’s what good screenwriting is all about. Wouldn’t the movie have been stronger if the audience (the part of the audience who hadn’t read the books, and who the montage was intended for) wasn’t sure the ring was so evil at first. Let the story teach us how evil the ring is. Don’t fucking spoon-feed us a bunch of backstory at the beginning because you’re too fucking unimaginative to know how to take a beloved novel and turn it into a good movie.

And one more thing. I absolutely hate when somebody stops in the middle of a raging battle to look around and notices something important hundreds of yards away. And it’s already happened twice in the first three minutes. Well, I’m sure it’s only because of the opening montage. It won’t happen again, right?

Minutes Watched: 3.18

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