This post began on Sun Dec 21, 01:39:44 AM
It could have been the greatest movie I have ever seen… Yet I don’t know if I could ever watch it again.
The ending was… Too happy… Too sad… Too much to take in. AND I KNEW WHAT WAS COMING. As I watched everything fall into place, it just hit over again over again like waves crashing down on my chest. I couldn’t breathe; I couldn’t stop clenching my hands. I was told I couldn’t stop shaking my leg. Yet I do not remember. It was the best movie I have ever seen. Because combined with the Fellowship of the Ring, and The Two Towers, I don’t know if anything will ever match it. That’s how they have to be looked at. Sure they were released a year after one another, but they are a single movie. Filmed together, just as they were written together. As one. I don’t know if any movie ever had such an impact on me as what I just saw. There are just a lot of things I do not know right now. So much has flown through my head over the past hour. It ended at 1:00, and I’m still in a sort of shock. I mean a movie I have waited for for so long has come to an end. It’s as if I am saying goodbye to a part of me as I write this post. I don’t know if many people will understand, and I’m not sure if the movie will have such an impact on everyone else who witnesses it, but I know there are others out there. Others who heard about this movie many many years ago. Before the intensive filming began. Hell, before Elijah Wood was cast as Frodo. I remember. And there are more who have waited since they read the books for the very first time. Children who are now adults. But for some of us, it will all feel the same. Completion. That’s how I feel right now. Complete. As complete as I have felt in a long, long time.
It was hard not to cry during the end. I was told many people were leaving the movie in tears, but I could not figure out why until I was there. Maybe moreso than watching the events of final chapter of the movie in front of me; I cried because it was done. There was no more waiting. Nothing left to be done. Sure, I can wait for The Hobbit… And I will be waiting. But this was the first. And it did not disappoint. I don’t think I ever waited for a movie as long as I waited for this one, but I have waited for others. And they all failed in one way or another. They all let me down. But I thank Peter Jackson for everything he has done. He did not try to make a quick buck. He tried to live up to Tolkien, the master storyteller, as a master director. I did not see many other men crying… Maybe just one, but that was because I couldn’t stand up for 5 minutes, and they had all gone by that time. Sean Astin… You have a way of breaking me. First Rudy, and now this.
We arrived 2 hours early, and waited. And oh yes, people were staring. About 5 minutes after we got there, some guy who worked there came up and asked us if were waiting for the 9:30 and we said yes. And then he gave us a look, turned around, and shook his head in disbelief. I mean we were waiting in line beside people waiting for the 8:30 showing. But we had the best seats in the house. Because they were my seats. Amongst my fellowship. And I don’t believe I’ll ever forget it.
What I’m listening to right now: Silence