The Long Road

12/20/2003 Archived Entry: "Return of the King"

At the risk of offending some people’s semantics, the Lord of the Rings is the best trilogy of films ever made.

The battle of Pelennor Fields seemed like it came out of nowhere, I wasn’t quite expecting it to happen so soon. In TTT, the battle for Helm’s Deep took a very long time to build up; there was so much suspense and anxiety that when it finally came it was a huge relief. They obviously can’t do that same build up twice though since it would be extremely redundant in a 12 hour viewing. The battle itself was fantastic. Never has there been a battle so large and so well realized in any movie. The standoff at The Black Gates seemed very small in comparison to the Battle of Pelennor Fields, almost anti-climactic.

What’s wrong with humans and not being able to win any battles on their own? At Helm’s Deep, they were saved by the elves, Pelennor Fields by ghosts, and at the Black Gate by Hobbits. So useless.

Weta really outdid itself again on the effects. They have definitely become the best effects house around. Better than ILM and Digital Domain. The giant orc and human armies were absolutely seamless. Gollum is the best looking CG character yet. Gollum’s believability would make or break these films and it shows that the filmmakers knew that from the very beginning. All the CG creatures were really well done as well, from the Fell Beasts, to the oliphaunts, the giant spider, and ogres. The only effects shot that looked obviously fake was the one where Legolas mounted an oliphaunt to kill it. It was still a great scene though! “Legolas, see that thousand ton beast over there with dozens of men on its back? Take care of it” and Legolas just sorta shrugs and goes off to do it.

Sam didn’t have a “I’ll make you cry, if that’s the last thing I do” speech this time, but I think, more than Frodo, Sam is fo’sho the hero of the story. Frodo wouldn’t have gotten very far if it wasn’t for Sam.

Minas Tirith was such a beautiful creation; it looked a lot like Thomas Moore’s Utopia. After he got out of his Ranger outfit, Aragorn had the best looking costumes in the whole movie.

Though the ending(s) was very long, I wish there was a bit more to it, we never get to see goodbyes from Legolas or Gimli, which would have been nice. Maybe in the extended edition. I think Stephen cried at the end.

For three years now we’ve had a Rings movie to look forward to and now that we’ve seen the end, left the characters for good it feels a little strange. I’d like to see more. Know more about the world they live in, the background of their lives, what happens to them afterwards. I guess I’ll have to finally read the books, but not for a while. I’ll have to not have the movies so fresh in my memory first.

Overall, I think I liked The Two Towers most out of the trilogy. It felt the most complete of the three; it had a really nice build-up, an exciting climax and a denouement. Fellowship seemed way too slow and I only appreciated it after having seen the extended edition. But really, picking a favorite out of these three films seems a little pointless since they are made to be one film.

I hope there’ll be more movies like this made but the odds of that happening are so low. We’ll never see another studio give a talented director 300 million dollars and stay out of his way. The convergence of such great scripts, actors, direction, visual effects, and the fact that no one messed it up on the way to the final product is so unlikely that we should be happy that it’s happened at all. We’ll be very lucky if we ever see another movie of this grandeur and scope again. Like the passing of the elves, the end of Return of the King really feels like the end of an era.

Replies: 25 comments

It is the end of an era. It is the end of the 3rd age and the beginning of the 4th. Unless I have the numbers wrong. bah whatever, I could look it up, the books are in a box at my feet right now. Oh well.

Posted by sbdep @ 12/20/2003 05:55 AM EST

You know what the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy was better than? The Matrix trilogy.

I'm so glad that Return of the King came out this year; it redeemed the rest of the year's crapfest.

Posted by Joe @ 12/20/2003 10:26 PM EST

what about X-Men 2 and Pirates? Those were 2 amazing movies as well!

Posted by Rayne @ 12/20/2003 11:20 PM EST

The Last Samurai was apparently one of the better movies of the year. I heard it really rocked.

Posted by Dave @ 12/21/2003 06:33 PM EST

Last Samurai was quite good, albeit fairly long as well. X-Men 2 was amazing and I enjoyed Pirates.

I really did like Lord of the Rings, although not nearly as much as it seems that everyone else did. I'd put it on the "good" movies list. I'd agree that the trilogy was better than Matrix, but that's not saying much considering the second two in the latter trilogy (especially the second... what were they thinking!?).

Still, I don't think LotR was quite as good as some classics like Indiana Jones and Star Wars (originals). Oh well, I guess it doesn't really matter since they aren't really in competition.

Last thing: the special effects were VERY good, but noted a few more glitches than you mentioned.

- As you noted, we still haven't figured out how to convincingly overlay human actors and things like cloth or skin animation.
- Legolas mounting the horse in TT looked weird, fake and just way too weird a thing to do, when something as simple as jumping would have worked fine.
- A bunch of the shots with lava in the background (especially running out of the mountain) with Frodo and Sam had a bit of the "faked, blue-screen" look. You couldn't really see outlines or anything, but the lighting was off and they didn't really appear to be part of the scene.

Speaking of which this movie just had to perpetuate the myth that you can stand 2 meters away from lava but as long as you don't TOUCH it, you're fine.

Anyways my gripes aside, I did very much enjoy the trilogy, although I don't think I'll watch RotK more than 2ce at the theatres. If it wasn't for my sisters' obsessions, I probably wouldn't even get dragged back for a second viewing ;)

Posted by Andrew @ 12/22/2003 07:34 PM EST

Indiana Jones fails because of the horrifically terrible second movie in the triology. Saccharine and mostly unfunny, I wish that I could buy the trilogy minus that film. It is good for entertaining and scaring kids—I remember both when I first watched it when I was 10—but for the more sophisticated movie viewer it falls flat on its face.

Star Wars is another trilogy I've watched within the last year. It's stronger, with fewer bad moments, but lacks the epic scale and the really fabulously good performances on the parts of several actors. (Mark Hamill? Are you kidding me?)

Posted by Joe @ 12/22/2003 07:59 PM EST

In reply to Dave...Last Samurai ain't that spectacular...its just a "good" movie...

Posted by dAN @ 12/22/2003 11:43 PM EST

I've already seen it twice! I haven't watched the Star Wars trilogy in a long time and I haven't ever watched any of the Indy movies in their entirety so I can't really comment on them objectively but I'll take Joe's side. =D

Posted by Rayne @ 12/23/2003 02:08 AM EST

In reply to Joe, i have to disagree about your views on theIndiana Jones trilogy. Its big problem, in my opinion, is not the second film but the too big similarity between the first and third movie.

I remember feeling that the third was nothing else than a great remake of the first one, most of the important ingredients being the same. At least the second film broke from the scheme.

----

I agree with almost everything you wrote on LOTR thai. Keep on! :)

Posted by Étienne @ 12/23/2003 01:31 PM EST

Well the second Indi movie was certainly the worst of the three, but it still had some laughs and good times (the kid was probably the best part). Furthermore the third one has some brilliant humour and acting between Sean Connery and Harrison Ford, and is just a good FUN movie.

And sure the acting in Star Wars is nothing astounding, but it got the job done. Furthermore if you take into account how horrible the scripts are, the story is actually remarkably compelling :) It's simply amazing that those movies became so popular dispite bad dialog and bad acting - there must be something timeless about them.

And I agree that Last Samurai is merely a "good" movie, but either I'm becoming more cynical or "good" movies are fewer and further between recently. I'd also classify RotK as a "good" movie though. Ithink the last excellent movie that I saw was probably Minority Report... although I might be forgetting something.

Posted by Andrew @ 12/23/2003 03:46 PM EST

Yes, you're forgetting that Minority Report was a bad remake of a Philip K. Dick short story.

Posted by Joe @ 12/23/2003 07:11 PM EST

I liked Minority Report but it didn't wow me at all. It seemed like there were too many plot holes. I do want to see it again though. The designs in that movie are fantastic.

Posted by Rayne @ 12/24/2003 01:40 AM EST

No I know it was based on a short story, and there were admittadly some oddities with the plot... but even though I think the above was largely overshadowed by the annoy nature of Agatha, I still enjoyed the movie a lot.

It managed to take a *somewhat* original idea and run with it. Furthermore, it didn't suffer from being almost painfully predictable as most of the movies in the last few years have. It also wasn't scared to have a less-than-happy ending, which was new (could RotK have been ANY happier?).

Posted by Andrew @ 12/24/2003 04:56 PM EST

Minority Report was an original idea because it was written by Philip K. Dick. End of explanation.

As for Return of the King having a happy ending... were you watching the same movie we were? Bittersweet is the best description of it. And just wait until the extended edition comes out; it'll be even more emotionally draining.

Posted by Joe @ 12/25/2003 01:48 AM EST

... ok I'm missing you... how does who wrote it have any bearing on whether or not it was good or original?

Furthermore RotK was extremely happy! The only semi-major character that died was Theoden (and I guess Golem, but he really counts as a bad guy), everything worked out exactly as planned, and the world pretty much went on to be the best that it had ever been. Sure some of the people got on a boat with the elves, but who cares really? Everyone is happy, and everything is all good.

They didn't kill off ANY of the main protagonists, and that in and of itself makes it MUCH happier ending than many other movies. The only draining thing about the ending of that movie is how long it stretched itself out...

Posted by Andrew @ 12/25/2003 07:36 PM EST

You are aware that the Lord of the Rings trilogy is based on a somewhat-famous trilogy of novels, aren't you? Your misspelling of Gollum (who is the bad character, but Sméagol was the character who died in the end) paints you as someone who came out of the first movie saying "Boy, they sure set themselves up for a sequel there, didn't they."

Posted by Joe @ 12/25/2003 11:00 PM EST

Well I am back online now.
Regarding Minority Report. Yes it was written by Phillip K Dick. So what? He writes a story and it get s revised and converted into a movie. So yes the original idea comes from a book. Most movies are based on books or stories by other authors. This is a normal state of affairs. The goodness of the conversion from book to movie I'll leave for those who have both seen the movie and read the book. That doesn't negate the goodness of the movie and the story as portrayed in the movie.

Posted by sbdep @ 12/25/2003 11:44 PM EST

Lol of course I am aware of that fact that LotR are books (my sisters and father and girlfriend are all fairly obsessed with them ;) - in fact I don't know anyone who is NOT aware of that fact. Furthermore I do not see how mispelling "Gollum" has any relationship to this... I'm sorry that it offended you and I'll take the time to look up the spellings in the future. Lastly the separation between Gollum and Smeagol is purely academic in this context and your response shows that you were clearly aware of about whom I was speaking.

I also fail to see how any of this relates to whether or not the ending was happy...

Posted by Andrew @ 12/26/2003 03:41 PM EST

I think Joe's just trying to stir the proverbial pot. He's also a big believer in the opinion that Dick's stories have all been butchered by Hollywood.

Posted by Rayne @ 12/26/2003 06:10 PM EST

Okay so I finally saw the movie today and I am very impressed. I'll be seeing it again in a few days so I hope so maybe pay attention to some details in the film a little more closely. My biggest qualm (sp?) about the movie is the cutting out of Saruman's entire part of this movie. I know they filmed it all and I'm crossing my fingers they find a way to add it back into the extended edition, I think it really added to the story and I'd like to see it. The also really didn't do a very good job of conveying time in the entire film, they make it seem like right after Bilbo left the Shire that frodo journeyed, however there was a period of about 16 years (give or take a year) before frodo left. Not that this is a big deal or anything but just something I observed.

Thai, in the book the Elves never came to Helm's deep, and they played up the battle a lot more in the film than in the book. I think the battle at Pelennor Fields was a much bigger event. And again, the army of the dead only destroyed the Cossair army in the book, they never wiped out the armies already invading Minas Tirith. I think Peter Jackson just really wanted to have fun with the dead army (and I have to say I enjoyed it).

I'd like to state for the record that this story is not a trilogy.

I did find the ending slightly bittersweet but still on a whole note I think Sam understood what had to take place and was in the end happy.

Oh, and the last samurai is tom cruise's best work since A few good men. I liked the movie a lot.

Posted by Mike @ 12/28/2003 09:58 PM EST

can someone tell me why frodo went with the elves on the boat. At the end of the film

Posted by daywalker @ 01/13/2004 05:50 AM EST

its cause he was scarred by the ring

Posted by Rayne @ 01/15/2004 01:53 AM EST

You mean when he would let it go.

Posted by Daywalker @ 01/15/2004 06:47 AM EST

I mean emotionaly and psychologically.

Posted by Rayne @ 01/15/2004 11:11 PM EST

correct, he was leaving for the greyhavens (pretty much the land of elf afterlife, since they don't grow old and die) to leave behind a world that will forever torment him.

Posted by Mike @ 01/16/2004 12:39 AM EST