I also think the Houses of Healing sequence will do much for Aragorn, Eowyn and Faramir's characters. I do with that they had included the Scouring of the Shire to spice up the last 30 minutes or so as an unexpected plot twist.

the Houses of the Healing thing will go a long way toward helping the ending. i for one loved that part of the book, showed Aragorn's full transformation into the King

Like I said, this is all personal because I found myself tearing up at many points throughout ALL 3 films.

Some of you make good points...but the only time I felt any real emotion is when .

I'd really like to hear from someone who has ONLY seen the movies, because I'm guessing Jackson left some stuff out for time reasons becasue he knew the die-hard fans would pick up on things...but for the casual viewer learning the fate of these characters for the first time, I still don't see the scarring that everyone is referring to.

How is Sam scarred? If anything, he's braver, more outgoing, more of a natural leader, etc. Merry and Pippin too. If the hobbits lost anything, it was their sense of innocence - but we ALL lose that in life...not a big deal, IMO.

I'm not a LOTR fan per se, but I thought ROTK had enough emotion. Sometimes Jackson tries to pump up a scene a little more with music or editing. But, it seems that he was more restrained this time around in overemphasizing an emotion. And I think that was a good way to go.

I didn't feel choked up like other people did but I was caught up in the suspense of the moments when characters were in danger.

Ahh, but hobbits don't. Do not project our society into the world of middle earth. For a hobbit, all that mattered was food, and beer and pipeweed ( ). Merry and Pippin and Sam were monumentally CHANGED by their experiences. Whether that change was positive or negative is debatable. It was likely both and neither at the same time, so to speak.

One other item from the books missing in the movie is that the destruction of the One ring makes the works performed with the elven rings fade. So Lothlorien will die, and Rivendell will decay, and Gandalfs fire (the passion and strength exerted through his wielding of the ring of fire) will be quenched.... So the elves lose big time as they still love Middle-Earth but are now fading.

The dwarves pass into myth, the hobbit lines fail and man comes to control the world for good or evil.

It is a bit simplistic to say that emotion can only come from negative loss. There are many positive losses which are just as emotional....

do this, live a normal peaceful life then one day get drafted to war. fight for 13 months against insurmountable odds, watch thousands of people die, kill people yourself, then go home and see if all you lost was your innocece

To appreciate the sacrifice you have to look larger than most of the posts here have done.

First, look at the lives they had:
Frodo was the favored nephew of a wealthy hobbit, living the life off his uncle's fortune.
Sam was a happy gardener without a care in the world.
Merry and Pippin were drinking, smoking and having a generally good time.
Aragorn was a vagabond ranger, going where he wanted, living life by his rules, worried about himself and nothing else.
Legolas was enjoying the elf life in Middle Earth.
Gandalf was wandering Middle Earth, going where his interests would lead, lighting fireworks and hob-nobbing with the rich and famous.
Arwen was living at home with Daddy enjoying the immortal life.

They then go on a quest to fight a war, the reason they are willing to take on this burden is to preserve life as they know it. Sauron is threatening to take away their freedom and they are going to resist.

In the end do they get what they were after? Well Sauron is defeated but:

Frodo has constant pain and suffering and can no longer enjoy his life.
Aragorn has to accept his role as king where he will need to play politics, concern himself with the affairs and lives of others, and generally take on overwhelming amounts of responsibility.
Legolas has lost many friends (odd thing for an immortal to suddenly lose friends hundreds of years old) and he has to leave his home for a New World. Sure it might be better, but it is leaving the life he has known for hundreds of years.
Merry and Pippin have become mature and responsible.
Arwen has given up immortality, sure she gets love but...
And Sam, in the movie context, he is now without a master and his best friend, he has a family (and the responsibility for them) and faces life in a new way. And anyone that is married with children knows that marriage, children and freedom are mutually exclusive...

For a group of people that set out to preserve life as they know it and to fight for their freedom, they sure seem to have gotten something else in the bargain...

I almost thought this thread title was going to be a joke. There were so many emotional highs I would tick them off except they have been covered.

As for some characters being better off after than before, that doesn't mean they didn't risk their lives and honor for a cause which seemed virtually hopeless to them at the beginning. For those who turned out better, they earned and deserved it!

The original poster is really asking three seperate questions:

1. Is ROTK emotional?
2. Do the characters make sacrifices?
3. Are the characters scarred for life?

To answer:

1. It obviously depends on the viewer; having read the books a long while ago, and many times since, I cannot say what someone who hasn't read them might feel.

2. I think the trailers are a little misleading in this regard; only a couple of the characters make the ultimate sacrifice. However, all of them were prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice - Frodo and Sam never expected to return from Mordor, and the other characters were prepared to give their lives in pointless combat before the gates of Mordor simply to give Frodo and Sam a better chance of success. All of the characters took risks, and were for the most part rewarded for their courage.

3. No, and I don't think anybody is really trying to argue that, apart from Frodo and Bilbo, that anyone is. This isn't the Deer Hunter, and any tears that you shed in the end are meant to be happy tears, as per Gandalf's last words to Sam, Merry, and Pippen.

TT lacked emotion for me. The last 20 minutes of this movie almost had me in tears. It brought everything together and it seemed so sincere, especially when Aragorn bowed.

I have only seen the movies and I felt quite a bit of emotional impact. I started crying at several points. The same is true for the person I went with.

I can see the parallels between what the hobbits are going through at the end and what Tolkien must have felt after the war. They just weren't the same people and they couldn't see life in the way they had.

I agree with jim_cook87, everyone suffered in some way.

Excellent points...there I go - thinking like a human again! I guess the level of emotion you feel is direct proportion to the investment you have made in these characters...for someone like myself, who have only seen the movies each one time, my overall investment was mild...for some viewers, who have read the books for years, keep up with all the latest news, etc. - the movie had a much more powerful impact. Fair enough.

The point of the thread wasn't to tick anyone off...just to see if I was alone in not feeling a lot of emotion or seeing a lot of sacrifice given by many of the characters. I see by this thread that I am in the vast MINORITY on this.

Once again, I really liked ROTK - just didn't feel the emotional "Jolt" that great movies always provide, and that I felt the first two LOTR films provided.

I think you hit the nail on the head. And hopefully no one is ticked off by this thread.

I always found this pretty sad when reading the books. The loss of the other rings of power hit the elves pretty hard.

I wouldn't say that's exactly true. The rangers were really the main reason the Shire remained so care free when evil was starting to spread through Middle Earth again. Different than governing the kingdom of men I suppose, but he did have some responsibility.

The biggest sacrifice any of the fellowship had to make was Glimli. He ended up having an elf for a friend

Just saw it. I was in tears just once in FOTR. None in TTT. Too many to count in ROTK. I thought there was plenty of emotion, because the emotion shown in the characters was so REAL. The battle scenes with the characters charging towards the enemy with odds against them, Sam's desperation in protecting Frodo from Gollum, Faramir's attempt at proving his worth, Aragorn and all the men bowing to the hobbits, Sam's speech at the end..... and on and on and on. Courage, betrayal, futility, respect- all of these emotions and more were very, very real. And at the end, I could just about feel the exhaustion that was bearing on Sam and Frodo. It was a long journey for everyone (yes, including us).

by "emotion" we're talking about sorrow, right...?

cuz, otherwise, there were LOTS of emotional parts for me..

the lighting of the beacons gave me goosebumps...the visuals and the music did it for some reason..

and, I hate to say it [since I voted for Arwin/Liv in the "Arwin vs." thread], the emotion I felt during Eowyn's battle scene caught me TOTALLY offguard..

Um, bro, did you see this film in a closet by yourself? Everyone was emotional in the theater, if you haven't read the other threads about this. They were either cheering loudly at the best parts, or in my case, sniffiling quietly.... And EVERYONE clapped at the end. TTT lacked all of this, and no one cheered or clapped at the end of FOTR. ROTK had all the emotion, all the closure on top of it. Where were you? Sorry, can't help but bully you on this....

Isn't "vast MINORITY" a contradiction? Wouldn't tiniest minority suffice?

I have to say, the first time I saw ROTK, the emotion fell flat for me, but I think it was the anticipation, the wondering of what I would and would not see that sort of Numbed me to the experience. I have since seen the movie 3 times, and I have to honestly say that not only does the emotion resonate strongly in the film but the movie seems better and better everytime I see it. If you liked the movie, but did not feel the emotion, I suggest that you see it one more time.

I actually had the same problem when I saw Schindlers List (I am not comparing this movie to Schindlers List, so please don't bother to send me hate mail, ok?) I was so busy preparing myself for the horrors and the atrocities I would see that I was actually numb to the film, the second time around it really got to me emotionally.

But then, thats just me.

Well, ok...if you insist. I was about to send you an e-mail criticizing you for comparing that overrated Spielberg film with Jackson's masterwork.

To telll you the truth, I really wish they had more of "Middle Earth" disappearing. Thats what I thought was the most emotional aspect of the books - a time has passed, and the earth will become less "magical"

I agree that all of the main characters seemed like they were bulletproof. Legolas and crew, get through several massive battles without nary a scratch.