Director: Peter Jackson
Original Release Country: United States
Times Previously Seen: six or seven
*Note: The Lord of the Rings (LotR) trilogy was considered a
single film by the list compilers at TIME, but I have reviewed each film
separately. Here was my review for the first installment, The Fellowship of theRing; my review of The Two Towers is here.
Legolas Quick-Draw-and-Fire Summary
The hobbits are still little, but the stakes and fights are
way, way, way bigger. “End of Middle Earth” bigger.
Extended Summary
Following the defeat of Saruman’s army at Helm’s Deep, Gandalf,
Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, and King Theodrin make their way to the evil
sorcerer’s tower, where the wizard is trapped and surrounded. The companions
reunite with Merry and Pippin, who have been awaiting their friends. Aragorn
and Theodrin attempt to convince Saruman to assist them by telling them of the
Dark Lord Sauron’s plans, but the wizard is slain by a vengeful Wormtongue
before he can provide any information. The group leaves the White Tower and
heads back to Edoras.
Not far from Osgiliath, where Faramir freed them, Sam, Frodo,
and Gollum continue their way towards Gollum’s promised “alternative path” to
Mount Doom. Sam, overhearing Gollum telling himself about luring the hobbits
into a trap, is convinced that the shifty creature is leading them to their
deaths. Frodo, however, sees no choice but to trust their guide.
Frodo, Gollum, and Sam prepare for their incursion into Mordor. Of course, the scuzzy critter in the middle doesn't exactly help their cause.
Back in Edoras, Pippin makes the foolish decision to take
hold of a “Seeing Stone” which they had discovered back at Saruman’s tower. The
stone allows the user to peer into Sauron’s mind to an extent, but it also
allows the Dark Lord to see back. Pippin is freed from the stone by Aragorn,
and whisked away from Edoras by Gandalf, who knows that the hobbit’s location
will now be known to Sauron. He decides that they must make towards Minas
Tirith, where he can begin to muster the city’s defenses against the imminent
attack which Pippin saw in Sauron’s mind.
When Pippin and Gandalf arrive in Minas Tirith, they find
that the grand city’s steward, Denethor, is wracked with grief and despair due
to learning of his favored son, Boromir’s, death. Denethor is too absorbed in
his own self importance and pain to heed Gandalf’s pleas that he prepare the
city for an oncoming attack from nearby Mordor. Gandalf and Pippin then take
the initiative and slyly ignite the city’s beacon system.
When the beacon arrives far off in Edoras, King Theodrin
subdues his displeasure at Gondor’s past lack of assistance to his own people
and musters his men to head for Minas Tirith. His daughter, Eowhin, disguises
herself as a male warrior and joins the hurried march.
Back in Mordor, Sam, Frodo, and Gollum have entered and lain
eyes on the imposing Minas Morgul, the massive black fortress that is home to
the Witch King Angmar, the most powerful of all of the ring wraiths. The
hobbits and Gollum witness the pouring out of a massive army of Sauron’s
forces, just before they begin to ascend a massive staircase up the side of a
mountain – this is Gollum’s secret path into Mordor.
The hobbits and Gollum ascend the path around Minas Morgul, with a massive force of monsters marching below.
Back in Minas Tirith, Faramir, son of Denethor and brother of
the departed Boromir, attempts to head off Sauron’s forces in Osgiliath, but he
meets defeat after a pitched nighttime battle.
In the middle of the march to Minas Tirith, Aragorn and his
companions begin to doubt their chances of victory. However, help arrives in
the form of the elf king Elrond. Elrond gives him the newly re-forged sword of
Aragorn’s ancestor king. The sword gives them new hope, but more will be
needed. At Elrond’s urging, Aragorn makes into a nearby mountain pass which is
haunted by an army of ghosts who had betrayed Aragorn’s ancestor two millennia
earlier. Accompanied by Legolas and Gimli, Aragorn braves the spectral
mountain, faces off with the ghostly leader of the traitors, and convinces them
to follow him. Aragorn vows that, should the ghost army fight with him, he will
release them from their cursed existence.
Back in Minas Tirith, the final battle has now begun. From
their newly captured center at Osgiliath, Sauron’s forces attack The White City.
The massive horde of all manner of creatures – including, orcs, trolls,
Uruk-hai, goblins, and others – bombard the city’s defenses relentlessly.
However, every time Sauron’s army seems to be on the verge of taking the city,
help arrives. First, it is from King Theodrin, who leads his Rohirrim into the
flank of the attacking army. For a while, the forces of good seem to be gaining
the upper hand. However, the Witch King Angmar joins the fray and takes out
Theodrin. Just when the tide of battle seems to be swinging back to Sauron’s
side, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli attack from Osgiliath with their ghost army.
With their forces bolstered, the defenders of Minas Tirith wipe out the
attackers. Among the slain is the powerful Witch King, whom Eowhin herself has
dispatched.
Gandalf looks on from Minas Tirith, the tremendous forces of the Witch King Angmar approaching to topple the glorious city.
Inside Mordor, Gollum finally makes his move. As Sam had
feared, he leads Frodo into a deadly trap. Leading Frodo into a dark cave and
then abandoning him, he leaves the hobbit to be attacked by Shelob – a massive
carnivorous spider. Frodo is initially poisoned into paralysis by Shelob, but
Sam comes to the rescue and fights off the vicious creature. Frodo is initially
taken by some nearby orcs to a stronghold, but is freed once again when Sam
capitalizes on infighting and manages to pull his friend away.
In Minas Tirith, the champions of the city take little time
to celebrate. They realize that, despite their victory, Sauron has more forces
that he can send after them. They also realize that, as long as the Ring of
Power still exists, Sauron will never be defeated. Aragorn realizes that their
only hope of true victory is to give Frodo enough time to reach Mount Doom and
destroy the ring. To do so, Aragorn and the remaining forces of good decide to
bring the fight to Sauron at Mordor. When they arrive at the Black Gate of
Mordor, Aragorn, who has now fully accepted the mantel of “King,” goads
Sauron’s forces into emerging from behind their walls. This pulls the attention
of the Dark Lord away from inside Mordor.
Deep within Mordor, Sam and Frodo have been struggling their
way towards Mount Doom. Frodo can barely walk, so weighed down is he by the
power and burden of the ring. He and Sam are unsure of how to approach Mount
Doom without being noticed by Sauron’s ever-searching massive eye. That is,
until all of the forces make for the Black Gate to confront Aragorn’s army. The
way is now clear for them.
At the Black Gates, Aragorn's army (center) are surrounded by Sauron's remaining hordes. This provides the distraction that Sam and Frodo need inside Mordor to dispatch the ring.
Sam physically carries Frodo up towards the entrance of Mount
Doom, only to be waylaid by Gollum, who goes after the ring. Amid the scuffle,
Frodo breaks free and enters Mount Doom. He at first makes as if to drop the
ring into the pit of fire, thus destroying it, but at the last moment, he
refuses. The ever-corrupting power of the ring has finally corrupted even
Frodo, who puts the ring on and becomes invisible, which also alerts Sauron to
the ring’s presence. Before Frodo can escape, though, Gollum reemerges and
finds him, literally biting the ring off his finger. The two struggle over the
ring, with it and Gollum eventually falling over the edge and into the pit of
fire. Both Gollum and the ring are destroyed, and the Dark Lord Sauron is
finally defeated.
The forces of good have finally and completely triumphed.
Aragorn is officially recognized as the first true king of mankind in over two
millennia, and Arwhen decides to forsake her elfish immortality and join him at
his side. The remaining elves embark on their ships for “The Undying Lands,”
taking the now very-aged Bilbo with them. Surprisingly, Frodo takes the elves
invitation to join them in their journey away from Middle Earth. Frodo’s
tribulations have left scars, physical and otherwise, that prevent him from
ever living a normal life in Middle Earth again. And so, he bids his friends
farewell and sails away.
In the end, Sam, Merry and Pippin all return to Hobbiton,
where Sam re-assumes his life as a humble gardener, marries his sweetheart, and
has a family.
My Take on the Film (Done after this most recent viewing)
Still the best film of the three, though one that has, like
its predecessors, lost just a bit of its magic to me. The reasons are similar.
So much of LoTR: Return of the King is still an absolute
blast to watch. So much so that I wished that I’d been able to see it on the
big screen again, though I don’t know if my backside could have taken the
endless sitting (the extended edition clocks it at nearly four hours).
True to its epic form, the entire third act of LoTR brings
things to a massive and mostly satisfying conclusion. It probably would have
been easy for any filmmaker to let a few plot threads dangle or try to inject
too many of the countless minutiae from the source novels. Peter Jackson and
his co-writers did no such thing, though. As massive as the plot and cast of
characters are, it never feels too bloated, and virtually every scene and
interaction either is central to the story or deepens our view of the battle
for Middle Earth.
The inclusion of the Dead Men of Dunharrow may at first seem self-indulgent to Peter Jackson's horror whims, but it ties perfectly well into the larger plot. Not to mention it provides some of the most awesome scenes in the film, such as this one when they storm Osgiliath.
When taken with the first two installments, Return of the
King completes the tale magnificently. Everything that is hinted at or brought
up in the first two films finds its closure by the end. Aragorn’s place as the
unwilling king; Theodrin’s ill will towards the Gondorians; Gandalf’s descent
into death and rebirth as the new White Wizard; the hobbits’ noble attempts to
be a part of something far greater than their humble selves; all of it comes
together in the epic battle at Minas Tirith.
The fight at Minas Tirith is, as one would hope, the grandest
of all in the series. As entertaining as the battle of Helm’s Deep is in The
Two Towers, Minas Tirith cranks everything up to tremendous levels. From the
initial assault, featuring wicked black dragons snatching defenders off the
parapets and hurling them back into the city, to the nearly endless waves of
monsters and beasts of war charging the forces of man, it’s simply eye-popping
to behold. Again, it does lose something on anything smaller than the true big
screen, but I still found myself captivated taking it all again for the
umpteenth time.
Return of the King also adds in some new elements and
players, which only enhance the film’s strengths. The inclusion of the ghastly Dead
Men of Dunharrow is a great touch of the truly supernatural into the fantasy
setting. Tapping into his horror roots, Jackson makes this ghoulish army as
terrifying as it is awesome. There’s no small amount of satisfaction in seeing
their spectral green forms wash over Sauron’s forces first at Osgiliath and
then on the field of battle outside of Minas Tirith.
With all the fun that Return of the King provides, it still
has lost a bit of luster, in similar fashion to, and for the same reasons that
the previous two films have: Frodo and Sam’s part of the story. I completely
understand that, actually, Frodo’s mission is by far the most crucial to the
entire plot. And I understand that the relationship between him and Sam is the
quiet heart and soul of the entire epic tale. Still, their trek through
treacherous Mordor is painstakingly long, especially at the end. By the time
Sam utters the words, “I can’t carry the ring for you, Mister Frodo, BUT I CAN
CARRY YOU!!” I’m worn out with their love-fest.
Sam carries Frodo. The first time you see this scene, in the edited version of the film, it may carry an emotional punch. After that, though, it strikes as tiresome and sentimental.
On top of that is what may be the most dragged out, laborious
ending in film history. I get it – this is an eight-hour-plus film trilogy
(ten-plus if you watch the director’s cuts), so it’s going to take longer to
provide closure for everything that has transpired. But really, it’s hard not to
feel that the end of the story should be shortly after the victory at Minas
Tirith, or at the very least, after Sam and Frodo finally destroy the ring. And
yet, the movie keeps going for nearly thirty minutes AFTER that. The first or
even second time I watched them, I didn’t notice it. But after you’ve seen the
films several times, the ending can feel rather glacial.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy is still a monumental
achievement in film. It’s bound to be many years, and even decades, before a
film series translates the true spirit of fantasy storytelling with such
outstanding visual effects, action, and adventure as Peter Jackson did. He’s
trying to replicate it with The Hobbit as I write this, but even if the prequel
tale’s three films are as good, they will still be in the shadow of their
earlier, grander cinematic translations. I may not be as enamored of the series
as I was for several years after their release, but they truly set a standard
that I don’t see being matched for a very long time.
And that is, truly and completely, a wrap. 105 shows down.
And that is all.
Coming Soon: Wrap Party!! - Where I do a recap of my last three-and-a-half years of working through this entire list and revisit my favorite and most despised films from the 105 that I watched.
Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.
