Well, even though we knew it would treat mostly of the events away South and skip over the most interesting and important part of the War -- the Scouring of the Shire, of course -- on the 20 of Foreyule we left the little Smallburrows with their friends and headed out to see ROTK in our local theater, which is not only convenient but also digital. The theater was packed; the front & center area had been taken over by an army of teenaged girls who must have gotten there well in advance to stake it out.

After the previews, but before the movie proper began, an usher (well, a teenaged boy in an usher's uniform) came out and announced "Hi, I'm Aaron, and I'll be your usher for this movie. The movie is The Return of the King; it's really long and really good." The teenaged girls, who were fairly keyed up already, all giggled and waved: "Hi Aaron!" With about three billion watts of feminine attention focused on him, Aaron panicked; he blushed and scurried away ("Bye Aaron!")

We sat next to a 50-something guy who looked normal enough except for three things: The look of religious intensity on his face, the fact that he was seeing the movie alone, and the fact that he had obviously seen it more than once before, even though it had only been showing for four days. Everyone gave him the deference due to his exalted level of geekiness. Behind us sat a family of four -- well, a mom with three kids -- of whom the youngest (a girl of about eight) seemed to be the only one who'd read the books. Mom, unfortunately, was an Announcer: As the Orcish army crossed the Anduin, for example, she declared for the benefit of anyone who might not have noticed "There are a lot of orcs in those boats." She also interrogated her eight-year-old daughter throughout the movie:

MOM: "Why is Aragorn going to be King?"

8YO: "Because he's Isildur's heir."

MOM: "Well, why doesn't Denethor know that?"

8YO: "Isildur's line died out in Gondor, but not in the north. But the northern kingdom fell, and everyone in the south thinks that Isildur's line has died out there too. Even Sauron didn't know."

But the level of camaraderie in the theater was high enough that I didn't mind; everyone cheered at all the right moments... I certainly wasn't about to shush an eight-year-old with an encyclopedic knowledge of Middle-earth dynastic politics, anyway.

As for the folks on the screen, here's what they would have had to say for themselves, if they could have written their own lines:

Aragorn: I *am* going to get to be King at some point in this movie, aren't I?

Gandalf: Merlin Schmerlin. *I*, Sir Ian McGandalf, am now the archetypal ur-wizard!

Treebeard: Yeah, yeah, I'll be careful. In the book I let him go, but I can see how that would make the movie about five hours long, so I'll keep him locked up.

Denethor: I don't like that Gandalf guy. He keeps hitting me with sticks. Plus I don't even get to say "The West has failed! Go back and burn!" What, is that too subversive or something? It's not like I'm a credible source, anyway. So why can't I say it?

Merry: Hey, I get to do something in this movie! And for some reason I'm at the Black Gate, too!

(BTW, in this movie Merry notices that Dernhelm is Eowyn right from the start. This was a detail that had always bothered me: I didn't see how he could have spent three days riding on the same horse as her without noticing.)

Sam: Real hobbits aren't afraid to cry.

Gollum: My Precious!

Shelob: Ouch! [pause] Well, it was probably sour, anyway.

Shagrat and Gorbag: [pointing at each other] HE started it!

Eowyn: Okay, so I didn't get to make my protofeminist speech about women and war. But sometimes actions speak louder than words.

Faramir: I'm not really as bad as I seemed in the second movie. And there's a reason Eowyn and I are standing so close together.  Maybe it'll be on the DVD.

The Witch-King of Angmar: Aw, sh*t!

Frodo: Yeah, I know the feeling.

Elrond: Don't anyone get the wrong idea here. I still don't approve.

Celeborn: Galadriel this, Galadriel that. It's all about *her*, isn't it? Well, who's the King of Caras Galadon, anyway? How about some screen time for *me,* huh?

Cirdan: Hey, you think you've got something to moan about? This is MY harbor and MY ship. Where am *I*? Do you think these things just sail themselves?

Saruman: Yeah! But at least I'll be on the DVD. I'd better be, or I'll turn Peter Jackson into a cockroach.  And I still think I would have made a great Dumbledore.

Gimli: Well, Leggy, it looks like Helm's Deep was our big scene. But we'll be around.

Legolas: Yo, ho, yo, ho, a pirate's life for me!

Eomer: And I want to speak for all the people who got edited out altogether: The Wild Men, the folk in the Houses of Healing and Ioreth's kinswoman from the country, Imrahil, Wormtongue, Bill Ferny, the Sackville-Bagginses, Barliman Butterbur and Ted Sandyman, Beregond and Bergil...

Pippin: I'm actually kind of heroic, aren't I?

Arwen: <sighs dreamily>

Sauron: Uh-oh. This is not good. This is definitely not a positive development.

Galadriel: Hey, I'm the narrator! Or should I say narratrix? So why does Sam get the last word?

Audience: Because it's that way in the book!