Posted: 12/20/2003

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

(2003)

by Hank Yuloff

If it’s mid-December, it must be time for my annual review of a Peter Jackson adaptation of a book of the JRR Tolkein trilogy The Lord of the Rings.

Let me make a few points by answering the same five questions I answered for the first two episodes. Keep in mind that I really loved this movie. But there were some things I absolutely hated. Note: I am going to put in two spoilers at the bottom of this review but I will put them at the bottom and refer to them with notes in the body of the review.

1. How close to the book did they stay?. I re-read each book a month or so before the release of each movie. That way the story was fresh in my mind. With book number 3 I don’t feel they stayed as close as they did in the other two. There were whole sets of facts that did not match. See Spoiler 1.

2. Would director Peter Jackson’s vision of Middle Earth be similar to mine? Darned if this wasn’t a wonderful vision. It is amazing. The visuals during battle are superb. The cities are truly awe inspiring. The characters and makeup are perfection. The battle scenes are mostly done digitally and are nothing less than spectacular. Sit back a ways in the theatre for the biggest impact.

3. What did they take out? Mostly time. Best example: The armies of Gondor will be laying siege to the Black Gate. It takes them over a week and about 4 chapters to get to the gate from Minus Tirith. In the movie it’s less than a minute. We also lose the blossoming of some relationships. And the whole story of the White Tree.

4. What did they change? In the book, we jump back and forth far less often between Frodo’s quest and the fighting around Minus Tirith. I think that the movie does a much better job of showing the two parallel time lines. They also increase Arawen’s presence. Jeez, what in the hell was Liv Tyler doing in this movie? She plays a minor part that was really pumped up. The ending might be a disappointment if you have read the books. And it also might be a disappointment if you have seen the first two movies. See Spoiler 2. The opening of this movie is very good. We get to see how Smeagol came upon the Ring of Power in the first place. This event takes place 10 years at least before The Hobbit, but it ties in beautifully to the story. I think the final 15 minutes makes the movie not as good as it could be. I felt it was like they had just finished an epic attempt at completing three movies at once and after the telling of a great and grand story, had no idea as how to properly end it.

5. How do you compare the two? I have a problem answering here. I have a pretty strict rule that when a movie is based on a book, I review it on its own accord not letting the book influence me. I have a problem doing that in this case because the books are so intricate and there is so much detail that is left out. It really helped to have read the book recently. I think I enjoyed all three movies more after reading the books.

My recommendations? If you saw the first two, you have to see the third. Unlike The Matrix series, these three have a much better and more coherent story that makes seeing all of them essential. If you have not seen the first two, rent them and then go see this one on the screen. If you have not read the books, go back after the movie and read them and you will have dozens of moments where you say, “Oh, so that’s what they meant.” Like the last two years, The Lord of The Rings goes on my top 10 list. I remember prior to the first release thinking that it would be a long time between movies and wondered how it would play having that much time between movies. Now it’s over and next December I will miss having a The Lord of The Rings movie to look forward to.

Spoiler 1. Here are three examples: In the book, Aragon’s army of the dead does not make it to Minus Tirith. In fact, he never spoke directly to them in the book. And Elrond NEVER made it to the south before the end of the fighting. In the movie he brings Aragon’s reforged sword all the way to Rohan. Also, when the hobbits return to The Shire, there is evil afoot. Not so in this movie. Everything is as if the evil from the South never got that far.

Spoiler 2. The ending is very hokey. Frodo and Sam are going to be successful in getting rid of the ring in Mt. Doom. The mountain and everything evil begins to crumble. We see Frodo and Sam collapse together onto a rock below the mountain and the movie fades to black. Are we seeing them die? Is this the ending? Are we cutting out 100 pages in paperback? No. We fade back to see the Eagles swooping down to rescue them.

Then we segue into a 5 minute music only montage of the heroes (taking what amounts to a curtain call) in Rivendel (wrong place) and then the screen fades to white. The End? NOOOOOO. And while I am at it…. at the beginning of this second encore, the Eagles, which played a big part in The Hobbit and a couple of other places in the trilogy, appear at the very end here without any explanation of who they are. It was like throwing a new character in at the end to explain the mystery of whodunit. It is during this second ending that I felt we had the opportunity to have the movie resolve into a multi-species homosexual gang bang as there were extreme close-ups of all of the characters with a kind of “the pressure’s off now lets have sex” kind of glow. OK, maybe it was just me. (No. It wasn’t.) The theatre had kind of an uncomfortable buzz going on there. After this fade to white we fade back in yet again to watch the Hobbits coming home to The Shire. When they do, we get a completely different ending from the book. In the book all things are not wonderful and evil is present. But in the movie, all things are good and the Shire has not been touched by the fighting. We end this third section of “the ending” with a fade out on a yellow door. The audience was laughing at the sickeningly sweet way of ending this. Think Star Wars and the awarding of medals after the defeat of the Death Star. Now move it to Middle Earth. But everyone applauded as credits rolled.

Hank Yuloff is a lover of things Middle Earth, but does not have enough frequent flyer mileage to get there.

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