ladynox25

...which, I just got back from. Having gone to the movies to see (what else?) The Return of the King (for the third time), I was rather shaken out of my WSOD by the fact that just before Frodo gets stabbed by Shelob, the movie jumped...to Frodo and Sam heading across Gorgoroth. A little while later, just as Sam and Gollum were battling it out on the slopes of Mt. Doom, it skipped again...and there was Eowyn handing Merry the reins as she hamstrung a mumak at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. Then, just before Aragorn decided to march on the Black Gate, it skipped once more...and there was Sam looking for Frodo in the Tower of Cirith Ungol.

Having worked in a movie theater, I knew when the movie skipped the first time exactly what had happened. Theaters these days usually use a platter system, in which the film winds off of one platter, through the projector, and onto another platter. When the movie is over, the film is run through from the second platter back to the first and so on. The amount of film on any one platter, even for a two hour movie, is phenomenal. Therefore, movies don't get sent to the movie theater in one piece, but rather in several reels, which the theater then splices together, along with the preview trailers and any ads that they run. What happened in this case is simple; the movie was mis-spliced and no one caught it before it ran.

Needless to say, we got free tickets for another showing, but still...how many people out there can say they've seen any movie out of order, much less TROTK? Funny, even though it was mis-spliced, it still had enough oomph in it to keep me spellbound. Well done, Peter Jackson. Flaws TROTK may have, but it's still edge-of-your-seat-gripping the third time around--and even out of order! *grin*