Best Picture: # 76
Original Release Date: December 17, 2003
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 3 hours, 21 minutes
Director: Peter Jackson
Quick Impressions:
“One does not simply walk into Mordor.” Everyone knows that. Similarly, one does not simply watch The Return of the King. You can’t start there. The Lord of the Rings is one story. Tolkien wrote it as one trilogy. Peter Jackson filmed it at one time. (All the actors in the fellowship got one tattoo!) So If you intend to write about the seventy-sixth winner of the Best Picture Oscar, The Return of the King, then you have to start where the story does, with The Fellowship of the Ring. You have to begin with Cate Blanchett saying eerily, “But they were all of them deceived” (possibly my favorite line of the entire trilogy) and with Gandalf riding cheerfully into the Shire with a cart full of fireworks. You can’t write about the end of a story without watching it from the beginning.
So that’s what we did.
Re-watching the trilogy was bittersweet for us. My mother (who died last November 13) loved Tolkien’s work. When I was in kindergarten, she read me The Hobbit. Then when I was in fourth grade, we read The Lord of the Rings. I could not have been more obsessed. For months, I talked about nothing else. She even made me a beard, I so could pretend to be Gandalf around the house. When I first learned about Peter Jackson’s project in college, we both went wild with joy. With rabid anticipation, we’d wait a whole year for each successive chapter and were overjoyed by the continuing success of such an ambitious undertaking. Then like the Elves, I moved on (just because I was busy), but my mother chose to linger in Middle Earth.
When I was in grad school, she would watch these movies every single day. They played round the clock at our house. My grandma (who by then had dementia caused by small strokes) would watch in concern, confusing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with the war against Mordor she always watched on TV. She was particularly worried about “Sam and the little girl,” and “that poor thing who must be so cold.”
“It’s got no clothes on, that poor thing! It makes me cold just to look at it,” she would say, and shiver, “Boo!” (She was always admonishing us to put our socks on. She couldn’t stand to see anyone appear cold.)
My mother always maintained that if just one film of Jackson’s trilogy won Best Picture, it should have been The Fellowship of the Ring. It was, however, The Two Towers that she watched most often because she was obsessed with the Theoden/Éowyn storyline. (I can hear her saying now with such satisfaction, “I know your face!”) (I myself prefer The Return of the King and think it was the right choice for Best Picture—even though I could do without at least half of the film’s 274 endings.)
My mother also maintained that the extended editions are infinitely superior to the theatrical releases, to the point that after seeing the extended editions, the theatrical releases become unwatchable. I don’t know that I would go quite that far, but we did watch the extended editions in her honor, beginning on her birthday, November 6th. I’ve listed the runtime of the theatrical release of The Return of the King above, but what my daughter and I actually watched were the (much longer) extended versions of the entire trilogy. My husband and my father joined us (because you can’t really slip away and watch movies for twelve hours unnoticed). (We were surprised to discover that for each film, the last ten minutes (at least) of the credits were devoted to listing (in alphabetical order) the names of the charter members of The Lord of the Rings fan club (an immense list of names unfamiliar to us, plus Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee, and Sir Ian McKellen). My six-year-old son loved to read all the names aloud. In fact, that was the only part of the trilogy he watched. Every time, he would pointedly ignore the entire movie (except for interjecting the odd wizard joke), then eagerly turn to face the TV at the very end of the credits to read out the names of the fan club to his sister’s growing exasperation. (Some of them are quite entertaining because they include character shout outs, e.g. Cynthia “EsmereldaBrandybuck” F. Novacek, Holly “Elf Princess” Wright, and Neal “Glorfindel” Rosenstein (who probably had mixed feelings, at best, about Arwen’s big river scene in The Fellowship of the Ring).
The Good:
Should I talk about the entire trilogy here, or limit myself to The Return of the King? As a child, my favorite plotline by far involved Gandalf and Pippin’s adventures in Minas Tirith (where, in the book, Denethor mysteriously consulted his Palantír. I even had a role-playing book about Denethor’s Palantír that I happened upon in a mall bookstore to my absolute glee. Visiting for the first time in ten years, my dad’s dad was baffled about why a ten-year-old girl could possibly want such a thing, but he did agree to buy it for me). Only slightly less, I loved Gollum. (Who doesn’t?) Gandalf, Gollum, and Pippin have always been my three favorite characters, and, of course, as a young girl, Éowyn’s, “I am no man” moment delighted me. None of that has changed much—plus, I have a thing for ghosts, and Movie Faramir (David Wenham) has such great moments—so not surprisingly The Return of the King is my favorite part of the story.
(But who doesn’t love the ending of a great story the best? Almost always, it’s the strength of the ending that makes a story great. In grad school, I had a driving obsession with poetic closure that was rooted in my desire to write better endings myself. I’m trying to end a six-book series now and terrified I won’t get it right.)
Tolkien’s ending is wonderful. (I’m talking about the end of the Ring, not the twenty-seven additional endings after that!) (At least Jackson left out the part where Saruman enslaves the Shire. I acknowledge the literary merit and appreciate the canny commentary on war and human nature, but that part is so depressing and stressful. After sitting through a perilous ten hour hike to Mordor, movie audiences don’t need that kind of stress!)
I may be wrong, but I feel like everyone already knows about the making of The Lord of the Rings—how the hobbits always wore the fur on their feet to stay in character, even when their feet weren’t in the shot, how the differences in height are usually created by manipulating perspective, how doing the special effects (in innovative, unexpected ways) made New Zealand’s Wētā Workshop suddenly famous. So much work went into these films, and it paid off. Just the idea of shooting all three films at once—and beyond that, the idea of taking cinematic fantasy seriously—was so novel at the time. The 1980s were replete with fantasy movies, but, as a rule, they were not the type of film that would win (or, in most cases, deserve to win) Best Picture.
Thinking about everything that makes these movies good is a bit overwhelming. They’re excellent, well-made, innovative films. When discussing their strengths, it’s hard to know where to start.
I’ll just start with Gollum. He’s my favorite. Well, “favorite” may not be the right word, but he lives inside my brain. I can relate to Sméagol’s endless tortured conversations with himself (so beautifully dramatized in these films). I always seem to be having a tormented dialogue, even if no one else is talking to me. No matter how calm I may appear (which is usually not very), inside my head is Gollum undermining all of my best efforts to have any sort of self-confidence or positive self-image.
For that reason and others, I’ve always loved the character. My daughter loves him, too.
When he first appeared in Moria, she noted, “I only remember the parts with Gollum.”
Knowingly, I told her, “That’s because Grandma was always showing you those parts. And when we got ready to see The Hobbit movies in the theater, she kept reading you, ‘Riddles in the Dark,’ the chapter with Gollum.” (I guess everyone likes Gollum. The Rankin/Bass animated The Hobbit has quite a bit of Gollum, too, and so does the children’s theatrical adaptation which (not by design) I’ve seen several times.)
But Andy Serkis out Gollums every other Gollum I’ve ever encountered.
Serkis deserved a nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his outstanding performance. I don’t see why it matters that it’s motion capture. Gollum is difficult to play because while he is a villain (I guess), he’s so charming. And I’ve never seen another incarnation of the character that managed to convey (as capably as Serkis does in these films) his almost adorable charm, his genuine menace, and his pitiable torment.
I love it when he says, “I told you he was tricksy. I told you he was false.” I noted aloud, “I feel like there’s a Gollum on infinite loop inside of my head” (because there is).
My favorite moment in the entire trilogy belongs to Gollum. I’ll just say it’s his final act in the movie to keep spoilers to a minimum (though it seems bizarre to avoid spoiling The Lord of the Rings in 2021, especially because you can practically guess the ending). Gandalf gets a memorable line in the first film that sets up this satisfying finale for the audience.
Speaking of Gandalf, it’s hard to imagine anyone more perfect for the part than Ian McKellan (the only cast member to get an acting nomination for the trilogy (Best Supporting Actor for The Fellowship of the Ring). (My mom always imitated John Huston when she read Gandalf since Huston voices him in those Rankin/Bass animated Tolkien films. So I always read him as John Huston, too. Still, in my mind, as I read, he now looks like Ian McKellan.) And Christopher Lee is delightfully evil as Saruman. (Who can resist those intense, crazy-eyed stares paired with that booming, sinister voice!)
Of course, I won’t go through the entire (enormous) cast and note that each person was good in their role. (Fans of the catalogue of the ships in The Iliad will no doubt be disappointed, but I think everyone else would prefer not to read a massive litany of names, especially since all I would say is, “And he’s good, too! And so is she!”)
Screenwriters Fran Walsh (who is married to Peter Jackson) and Philipa Boyens deserve commendation for their brilliant adaptation of Tolkien’s work. They give us rapid, consistent story progression and a tight, taut narrative (especially compared to the meandering source material). Yet they sacrifice neither the eccentricity and depth of the characters, nor the richness and charm of the atmosphere. Best of all, they maintain a number of Tolkien’s own arresting turns of phrase and also include fantastic lines of their own. These films have the best dialogue (particularly The Return of the King). Every few minutes, I found myself wanting to write down what a character was saying. The movie is so quotable. And the dialogue sounds like what we expect to hear in a fantasy without being ridiculous or laughable.
The atmosphere in these movies is like a storybook come to life. (My mom used to have a book of art inspired by Tolkien’s writing, and so many images in these films closely resemble those pictures. My daughter pointed out that Tolkien does provide ample (almost excessive) passages of description in his writing itself, which could account for those similarities.) Despite the peril, after rewatching the trilogy, I always want to go live in Middle Earth (or at least visit New Zealand). The autumnal warmth of the Shire, the beautiful blue of the moonlight, the grandeur of Minas Tirith, the eeriness of the dead marshes, the Oz-like green glow of Minas Morgul—it’s all so vivid. (Even my Grandma, who got a little tired of round-the-clock orc carnage, was charmed by the beauty of Rivendell, and the cozy-looking hobbit holes with their cheery round doors.)
Best Scene Visually:
My favorite scene visually in The Return of the King is the stunning image we get when Denethor (in a somewhat delusional state) attempts to burn his son alive, then catches fire himself, runs out of the room, and just keeps on running…even when there’s nowhere left to run. And Gandalf rather calmly notes, “So passes Denethor, son of Ecthelion!”
It’s more than one scene because we keep jumping from plotline to plotline, but I love the whole process of Denethor building his son’s pyre. (“Honestly this is my favorite part,” I said to my daughter, “because Faramir is not even remotely dead, and everyone keeps saying so, and Denethor’s just like pouring gasoline all over him.” The despair of Denethor is simultaneously chilling, mockable, and relatable. “Denethor reminds me of me, too,” I said. “‘Well, I might as well set myself on fire, too! Never mind if I’m alive or dead.’”
This is such a pivotal part of the movie. As Denethor’s preparing the pyre, the Lord of the Nazgûl confronts Gandalf saying, “Do you not know death when you see it, old man?” That entire section of the film focuses on the inability of characters to recognize death. Sam mistakenly believes that Frodo is dead. Denethor is unable to see that Faramir is still alive. And then, of course, Gandalf refuses to yield to the Witch King of Angmar. (Meanwhile, Aragorn is busy compelling the dead to fight for the living.)
Best Use of Viggo Mortensen:
My sister (a teen at the time) was not as into these movies as my mom and I were. (Mom read her The Wizard of Oz books and some of The Chronicles of Narnia, so she didn’t feel the same connection to the material.) But as we watched The Fellowship of the Ring, she felt an instant connection to Viggo Mortensen.
“Hello, Mr. Sexyman,” she said. “What product do you use in your hair?” As soon as Aragorn showed up, she was interested.
The films do showcase Aragorn visually. I love the moment when the hobbits first notice him in the inn. He just looks so hilariously ominous sitting (right there!) in the shadows watching them. Another great moment comes when Isildur’s heir is being discussed, the scene changes to Viggo Mortensen’s face, and then his eyes flick up, so that he can stare directly into the camera.
Mortensen gives a good performance, and Aragorn does a lot of useful things. (Certainly more than Theoden and Denethor do! Setting lineage aside, a strong argument can be made that he deserves to rule because he’s the only one behaving like a ruler.) But these films also so often treat us to people looking at and talking about Aragorn. And then the audience is forced to play along. He rides across the screen in the beginning of the third film, and then comes the title, The Return of the King, and we realize, We were the ones looking at him this time! (We get so many visual cues involving Aragorn’s face and body.)
Moment that Most Reminded Me of The Wizard of Oz:
When the film was first released and I watched Frodo, Sam, and Gollum arrive at Minas Morgul (all glowing green), I immediately thought of the Emerald City.
“These special effects are incredible,” I reflected, “because you don’t even think of them as being effects.”
In that moment, I realized that movies had changed. The Lord of the Rings had issued a silent challenge to all future filmmakers. Audiences would begin to expect true innovation in visual storytelling, and artists would be excited to deliver it. To me, it seemed fitting that this would happen in the first few years of the new millennium, and I felt excited about how movies might continue to change in the future. I still like the way the scene looks.
What I Want to Dress Up as for Halloween:
Frodo looks like a pre-Raphaelite painting when he’s so pale and half-wrapped in Shelob’s web. I’m sure I could win a prize if I could figure out how to copy that look. (My best bet is probably to invite Elijah Wood over for Halloween. Then I could wear a lace tablecloth and vaguely hover behind him all night. That probably wouldn’t copy the look at all, but my guests would be distracted, asking, “How did you convince Elijah Wood to come to your Halloween party?” And that’s the point at which my little fantasy begins to fall apart.)
Best Action Sequence:
There’s a lot of great action in these films. Ordinarily I’m not a huge fan of long action sequences, but the battles in Lord of the Rings are so story driven.
In the entire trilogy, my favorite fight is the wizard duel at Isengard between Gandalf and Saruman, when Gandalf first realizes Saruman’s treachery. (If you don’t know why I think this is so amazing then you obviously haven’t seen the movie.)
In The Return of the King, I do like seeing Éowyn defeat the lord of the Nazgûl, though I think this moment could be more effectively showcased. (It was always fun to hear my husband yell, “Wing wraiths!” though, any time the Nazgûl appeared on dragons.) It’s also fun to watch Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Gimli (John Rhys-Davies who also voices Treebeard the Ent) make a game of their headcount in battle. (Gimli gets another of my favorite lines of the trilogy, the overly optimistic, “It’s just a wisp of cloud,” when it’s clearly not a wisp of cloud.)
Best Song:
That Enya song from The Fellowship of the Ring got a lot of attention, and “Into the West” from The Return of the King won an Oscar, but the one I love best is “Gollum’s Song” by Emilíana Torrini from The Two Towers. In fact, I love it so much that I bought the soundtrack (which is mostly the Howard Shore’s excellent score) just to listen to that one track on the CD over and over again. It’s so haunting!
(If you want songs that feature Tolkien’s own lyrics, watch those Rankin/Bass movies.)
The Negatives:
When these movies just came out, I thought Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens did a magnificent job condensing The Fellowship of the Ring and adapting it for the screen. One thing I praised was the decision to cut Frodo’s prolonged, hairy foot-dragging departure from the Shire (where he wanders around telling everyone “good-bye” for two months) and the entire, “boring part” with Tom Bombadil. When I read The Fellowship of the Ring again with my daughter back in the spring, I suddenly thought, “Boring part?! What was I thinking?”
If I were to adapt The Fellowship for the screen right now, I’d do it so differently. My script would lean heavily into both comedy and horror, and that eerie, trippy Tom Bombadil material would be showcased, not cut. (My mother always liked that part because it showed us someone completely unaffected by the ring, someone older, someone other. As a kid I was like, “No! No! No!” and now I’m like, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” What was I thinking? Usually I get older and begin to disagree with my mother’s take on things, but in this case, she was right all along. Tom Bombadil belongs in the movie!)
(Now having said that, I should also emphasize that I still believe Walsh and Boyens did a fantastic job adapting the story for the screen. It’s just that the source material is so rich that someone else could make a second, completely different adaptation of the same books and come out with a totally different result, also worth watching.)
Another obvious weakness of the films (and of The Return of the King in particular), is that there are simply too many endings. (My mom and I would always joke about this, as if Peter Jackson were crying out through his work, “People thought The Fellowship of the Ring shouldn’t win Best Picture because it didn’t have an ending, huh? Well, The Return of the King has all the endings!!!!!!!!!! What do you think about that?”)
The movie’s final act does not need to drag on as long as it does. Surely it could be truncated a little. (As I said, I am glad Peter Jackson deliberately omitted that bit about Saruman coming in disguise to enslave the Shire. And I’m also aware that he probably tried to showcase Sean Astin’s performance as much as possible in hopes that he’d get a nomination for Best Supporting Actor, which he would have deserved.) But come on! The Ring is destroyed, and then the movie continues for like another hour (especially if you read out the names of the entire fan club)!
Another thing I don’t like about the theatrical release of the third film (corrected in the extended edition) is Jackson’s decision to leave out Christopher Lee. I wasn’t there. I don’t know exactly what happened. I’ve heard both that Jackson cut Lee from the third film because of their falling out, and that they had the falling out because he cut Lee from the film. My mother thought it was ridiculous that all other major cast members show up in The Return of the King (even Sean Bean!) and then appear in the picture credits at the end. But not Lee. Saruman clearly deserves a curtain call at the end like everyone else, and I see no reason for cutting him out of the third film (especially not if you manage to work in Boromir who has been dead for two movies!).
At the time of the film’s original release, I was massively disappointed in this movie’s take on Denethor. I do like John Noble (especially on Fringe), but I was so sad that this movie leaves out the storyline about Denethor’s Palantír. At the time, I read an interview in which Peter Jackson explained that he didn’t want to overdo the Palantíri, which I guess makes sense. As a kid, I was wildly obsessed with that particular part of the story, though. My favorite plot thread in the whole trilogy is Gandalf and Pippin’s adventures in Minas Tirith, and Book Denethor came across so differently to me. Over the years, I’ve eventually come around to liking the way Movie Denethor is portrayed. (It helps that I like John Noble.) But this part is much, much better in the book (which I’m just about to reread with my daughter). (I don’t even care about all the differences between the book and film when it comes to Frodo and the Ring. I’m bizarrely obsessed with Denethor.)
The way Éowyn kills the lord of the Nazgûl seems much more momentous in the book, too. For whatever reason, this moment feels so rushed in the movie to me. Particularly in the extended editions, Éowyn gets so much screen time, and it’s all been building to this moment. Building and building and building. It’s basically the only thing she’s in the story to do. (Well, that and to make Aragorn realize how much he loves Arwen, and also to marry Faramir who is not complete without someone around to show him up.) (That’s a joke. I actually love Faramir. He’s a person of quality.) We get to Éowyn’s big moment in the spotlight, and it passes so quickly. It’s all too brief.
My daughter found the, “I am no man,” moment cheesy. “Why what a line,” she said sarcastically, “So cool.” I was saddened because I loved that moment so much in the book when I was a kid. But she was not impressed that Éowyn spends most of her time pining away for a man who’s obviously not that into her.
It is true that all that screen time (surely way more than Arwen and Galadriel get) doesn’t equate to much development. Éowyn wants to fight, and she wants to marry Aragorn, so she’s perpetually frustrated and sad. Miranda Otto gives a good performance. She’s charged with the unenviable task of making the audience deeply invested in the one female character who is powerless and constantly frustrated (also a bit grief-stricken), and she explores this character as thoroughly as she can, but she’s kind of boxed in by the narrative.
Even my husband slowly began to come around to my daughter’s viewpoint. “She’s a good character in the books,” he said, “but in the movies, she just seems to move from one man to the next.”
“Well, somebody’s got to rule Rohan!” I chimed in. “She’s not going to do it! All she wants to do is have adventures!” You see, by that point, I had complaints of my own about Éowyn. Her uncle the king keeps telling her to look after the people in the caves. She’s upset because she wants to fight. But he’s not just blowing her off, giving her a pretend job. Someone does have to look after the people in the caves. There’s a real crisis of leadership in Rohan! I understand that she wants to fight (and, obviously, it’s good that she does), but she could be the Princess of Rohan, a leader of her people, there to keep them focused, boost morale, influence policy. She has a role. She’s just not doing it. No one in Rohan is doing what they should be. That whole country is a mess! (Of course, she’s falls in love with Aragorn! If Aragorn wasn’t there, she’d probably fall in love with Gandalf! Everybody still living in Rohan is completely incompetent! She knows kingly behavior when she sees it! I’ll give her that!)
Perhaps Éowyn is not much of a hero for young girls in 2021. In her defense, however, I must say that my mother loved this character (and her relationship with Theoden (Bernard Hill), whom my daughter also had it in for). (“He was boring,” she complains, “and selfish. He didn’t want to help anyone who wouldn’t help him.”) (My mother and I speculated and Theoden was the role Sean Connery had turned down because he said he didn’t understand it (since it contains that eerie Saruman exorcism), but in fact, Jackson had offered him the role of Gandalf. So now I don’t understand what Connery didn’t understand!)
I applaud Jackson and the screenwriters for including some female characters. Even at the time, I had no problem for Arwen (Liv Tyler) appearing in the main story and subbing in for Glorfindel (because who cares about Glorfindel!). (Just kidding, I’m sure a lot of people care about Glorfindel. Neal “Glorfindel” Rosenstein cannot be the only one!) Personally, I find Galadriel the most compelling female character. I find it delightful that Cate Blanchett’s actual eyes look scarier than her “scary” special effects when Frodo offers her the Ring. Of course, who wouldn’t like someone who could easily become an all-powerful evil queen but chooses not to? (My mother’s favorite elf was Haldir. She just (really!) liked him. Even she wasn’t sure why.)
To my surprise, my daughter also found the dynamic between Frodo and Sam a bit much. As we’ve worked our way through all these Best Picture winners, we’ve discovered that she’s usually fascinated by homosocial bonds that can also be read as homoerotic, so I thought she’d love the Frodo/Sam energy. But instead she found their intense, devoted camaraderie somewhat exasperating.
At the end of The Fellowship of the Ring as Sam floundered in the river, she conceded, “This is a better love story than Titanic,” then quickly added, “Okay, this is charming, but YOU’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RIVER!” Once Sam was safely in the boat, she yelled, “Kiss! Just kiss!”
By the end of The Two Towers, though, she was no longer charmed. When Frodo asked, “What are we holding onto, Sam?” she teased sarcastically, “If you say each other…!”
As The Return of the King ended, she was thoroughly fed up with them. When Sam finished his journey by marrying Rosie instead of going off with Frodo, she was beyond exasperated.
“Why is Sam marrying her?” she demanded. “We only see her real quick in the beginning!”
“He’s known her all his life,” I pointed out.
“Well, I haven’t!” she exploded. “Why can’t he go on the boat with Frodo?”
Overall:
I half-dreaded re-watching The Lord of the Rings. I associate it so strongly with my mother that I wasn’t sure I entirely wanted to see it right now (on the one-year anniversary of the week she died). But I enjoyed the experience far more than I expected. The whole family had fun. Even my six-year-old had fun reading the names of the fan club and, in the first movie, the rest of the credits, too. (Did you know The Fellowship of the Ring stars “Hug-o Weaving” (like hug and kiss) and Sean Bean (rhymes with green bean)?) Every time I watch Gollum’s big moment in Mount Doom, though, I think of my grandma exclaiming in dismay, “They’ve been trying to destroy the Ring? I thought they were trying to save it!” My mother made her watch those movies every day!