The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

So, what does one say after finally finishing the viewing of a 10½-hour movie?  After all, that’s what The Lord of the Rings trilogy is, and The Return of the King is merely the final act.  After spending two years of anticipation, interrupted by about three hours each December of actual movie-watching, can one admit that such an investment of time and emotion was worth it?  Hell, yes, brother Nerds, one sure can! 

As I reminded all of you in my review of The Two Towers, I still haven’t read the books, and so as I didn’t comment on any levels of accuracy with that film or The Fellowship of the Ring, I’m not going to attempt to do so with this film adaptation, either.  I saw these movies as a moviegoer, and I’m sure that’s how most of the worldwide audience of these movies saw them.  The Ringheads among you will just have to deal with it. 

There is no simple synopsis of this film, or the trilogy as a whole.  It must suffice to say that the Fellowship is partially reunited as the film opens, save for Frodo and Sam (Elijah Wood and Sean Astin), who are still following the creature Gollum (Andy Serkis, and a lot of CGI on top of him) to the depths of Mordor in an attempt to destroy the Ring of Power.  The Dark Lord Sauron has his armies marching against the last stronghold of Man in his attempt to complete his conquest of Middle Earth.  The wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) must deal with a corrupt ruler of the city of Gondor, the target of Sauron’s invasion, as well as the other two hobbits Merry and Pippin, whose mischief often complicates things.  The king-in-waiting Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), along with the elf Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and the dwarf Gimli (John Rhys-Davies in close-ups and a host of midget scale-doubles in long shots) expend great energy in attempting to persuade King Théoden (Bernard Hill) of Rohan to come to Gondor’s aid, despite that city’s troops not coming to Rohan’s aid in the previous film.

Since most folks deem these films as spectacles first and foremost, let it be known that no one should be let down by The Return of the King in that respect.  The achievement of this film in advancing computer-generated imagery and melding it with miniatures, forced perspective and set design is almost impossible to describe.  White stone cities carved out of mountains, giant elephantine creatures used as war machines, a vast bonfire signaling system reaching across mountain ranges, thirty-foot tall upright-walking monsters in hand-to-hand combat with hundreds of men, a duel between a Hobbit and a giant spider, and on and on and on.  This movie, as its predecessors were, would be worthy of great praise on its technical merits alone.  Isn’t it wonderful that it’s a fantastic story, too?

The reverence with which director Peter Jackson treats this material is evident in every aspect of the production.  When the trilogy is taken as a whole, there is just as much emotional drama present as any adult drama or true crime story or morality play that would quickly come to mind.  The fact that Middle Earth is not real to us does not mean it is not real to Middle Earth’s inhabitants, and the fate of fictional characters is why we indulge in such stories.  How can one not invest great emotion in tales of fathers losing sons, poor souls driven to wrongdoing by addiction, lovers separated by great distance?  Are these not some of the things with which we deal every day, the drama of our lives, so to speak?  These characters deal with them as well.

Jackson spends a great deal of time at the end of the film, almost an extra act, delivering a series of epilogues that return our characters to their lives after the adventure.  In an ordinary picture, an editor would scream that gobs of such story fat should be trimmed, but in this picture, none of it could be omitted and the movie retain its emotional power.  After investing more than ten hours of time over three films becoming involved in these characters, spending thirty minutes seeing how these characters conclude their adventure is not only appropriate, but necessary.  It would be grossly unfair to an audience to not show this.

While my personal hope is for this film to win the Best Picture Oscar for this year, I doubt that it will.  Barring that, seeing the Academy present Jackson and his producers some sort of special award would be very appropriate.  This particular project, filming three incredibly epic spectacles in unison and creating three such wonderful movies deserves some sort of recognition.  However, all of that is just my own wishing.  All you potential viewers should be concerned with is seeing a wonderful fantasy epic.  Rest assured, paying to see this one is money – and time – well-spent.

Larry Smoak
January 2, 2004

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