anotheranon | ROTK - first impressions

Wow. WOW. "Epic" is a very good word to use just now.

Very brief impressions follow - I'm not going to write a book 'cos I know y'all are going to see it sometime!

The battles - if it is possible, the battle at Minas Tirith was more impressive than Helms Deep - oliphants, lots of oliphants, and because it's in daylight you can see the legions of orcs more clearly. And shemhazai accurately pointed out - many trebuchets. If you're a medieval warfare nrrd, this is your scene :)
Aragorn - gets the girl, kills the baddies, saves the entire planet (or Middle Earth, at least). Ladies, it's all about the King!
Eowyn - earned several coolness points in my eyes when she killed the Nazgul! I was hoping that she'd suit up and sneak into the battle, and I was rewarded - girls really do kick ass!
Legolas - looked pensive and had few lines. Sharpest knife in the drawer, clearly :P
Gimli (also Merry and Pippin) - desperately needed comic relief, no matter what their roles in the books. This was an intense, action packed, very serious film that suffered going the overbearing way of David Lynch's "Dune" without them.
Smeagol/Gollum - I liked the opening scene that highlights Smeagols downfall. I also now see the eerie resemblance between Andy Serkis and his computer-generated alter ego, though when I saw the actor I couldn't help but remember his role in "24 Hour Party People"; after he got the ring I half expected Gollum to say "I'm a genius, you're all wankers, you'll never see me again" :P
The army of the dead - the only thing that smacked of the tiniest bit of cheesiness for me. When they showed up coming out of the boats it almost felt as though Pirates of the Carribean (the ride, not the movie) had infiltrated - but not quite.
Minas Tirith - my only gripe is that this city doesn't look lived in, unless the citizens are extremely clean and it was planned from the ground up. Regal, just a bit too tidy.

Might add more later, but I was mightily impressed by the acting, the script, the effects, the sets, everything so fully thought out and executed. Go, go go - definitely must be seen in the theaters!