The third instalment of the Lord Of The Rings saga concludes with the ‘Return of the King’ in 2003. Again, directed by Peter Jackson based on the books of J.R.R. Tolkien the screenplay was credited to Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson. Produced by Barrie M Osborne, Peter Jackson, and Fran Walsh with a budget of $94m. Musical score by Howard Shore this had an epic list of cast members including (I suggest you take a deep breath in if you are reading this aloud) - Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Cate Blanchett, John Rhys-Davies, Bernard Hill, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Orlando Bloom, Hugo Weaving, Miranda Otto, David Wenham, Karl Urban, John Noble, Andy Serkis, Ian Holm, and Sean Bean. And relax. This was clearly the best of the three epics as it made $1.142B (yes that’s a billion again), the critics loved it too with IMDb giving it an 8.9 out of 10 with a score from Rotten Tomatoes score of 93% means that *trumpets playing* we have another (and possibly the last) entrant onto the Tri-critic Sync Challenge. With a five-point spread between us we can add this movie to that list which I will publish in full after the grand winner is announced. The film won many awards, so the Tri-Critic thing is really not that important too them. Filmed predominantly in New Zealand this beautifully shot movie sells the county off to tourists without an ad agency in sight. The epic-ness of the views and the CGI merging actions with animation is done so well you cannot see the seams (as it were) and you are drawn into the story faultlessly as it is simply great. The plot in a paragraph for a 3 hour and 21-minute movie won’t be easy so I’ll be cutting much of it out, but here goes.
The conclusion to story begins with a history not yet shared with the audience, namely two hobbits Sméagol and Déagol, fishing when they ensnare the ring. Sméagol kills his own friend to own the ring and retreats to the Misty Mountains as the rings power twist both his mind and his body. He is forever known as Gollum after this transformation. Centuries later we re-join the divided fellowship as they all fight their own battles. Gandalf Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and King Theoden to Isengard are reunited with Merry and Pippin. Gandalf retrieves Saruman’s palantír and the group returns to Edoras to celebrate the victory at Helms Deep. That night Pippin investigates the palantír and is seen by Sauron, describing the images to Gandalf he assumes that Sauron will attack Gondor’s capital Minas Tirith and decides to ride to warn Gondor’s Denethor taking Pippin with him. Meanwhile Gollum is leading Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee to Minas Morgul on the promise of taking them all the way to Mount Doom. He is going to take them all the way or lead them into a trap to reclaim his ring. Gathering an army together of all the human factions the group also round up elves, dwarfs and the dead. Whilst Sauron is creating his own army which is swelled by human factions of his own as well as Oliphaunts and giant ogres, orcs, and goblins. Everything is building to a huge epic battle that this story deserves. If that is true or not, I would suggest you invest the nine odd hours to watch the entire story.
The end of the epic trilogy and for me seeing this in the cinema was a great way to do it. I had read the book(s) in between the first movie and this conclusion. I know they started this with the end in mind and it shows as this stayed pretty genuine to the book but increased in epic-ness movie on movie. The thing is how epic the first one was, and it increased from there each time. Growing up with the games of Dungeons and Dragons this story was never that far behind and this version is the best that I have seen and right now in my life this is not going to get beaten. Epic sums up this trilogy to perfection everything about this story feels monumental and larger than anything else that preceded it. The monster got bigger the fear grew and the battles got larger and larger. The issue is with this telling this story as epically as it did. It left little room there after to develop more. They attempted the hobbit with is effectively the prequel to this story but for me it didn’t live up to this hype. The reason being they didn’t have the story to follow like they did with this one. The Hobbit was a much shorter story that they somehow stretched across three movies where it didn’t warrant it. For me it showed, this had a three-part story shining through the screen and the battle at the end of this one was truly deserving of the epic label. If you haven’t seen these, you have missed out, but it takes a huge investment of time to be able to get through them and is geared up for the cinema audience as they have paid and is tied in. With the home market people will drift off for a tea/coffee or pop here or pop there and miss elements here and there and before you know it you’ve missed thirty minutes of a three-hour movie. Yes, they are all around the three-hour mark so as I said you need to invest some serious time to enjoy these movies. You can lose a day watching them all or an afternoon for just one of them. But I would suggest having a break between them to increase the epic-ness of the story. Anyway, enough waffle from me go and enjoy this movie.
Next up is one of our Christmas movie traditions, this will be watched on the morning of Christmas Eve without fail…
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