Eowyn was, of course, the niece of King Theoden, which is made clear in TTT.

How about adopted daughter? If I remember correctly, she and Eomer were raised by Theoden from a young age after the death of their parents.

A similar relationship not made at all clear in the movies is that Aragorn grew up in Rivendell, with Elrond as his adoptive father.

Scouring of the Shire and the demise of Saruman will be included in the extended version. Jackson has said since the beginning that the theater version was for fans plus the non-readers of the book (like action, don't care about details) while the extended version is for us. I get the feeling that he could have made each movie 5 hours. In fact, I hope that in 5 years he re-releases the entire three movies, each with another 60 minutes of film.

If you just finished reading the book itself, here are a few more details that you will find in the appendix:

1) Sam, Merry, and Pippin return to the Shire and lead prominent lives. They are also frequenters (to a degree) with the men of Gondor.

2) Sam becomes Mayor for a number of consecutive terms -- in the end, the most prominent man in the Shire. He and Rosie raise many children and name them after those they met while on the Quest.

3) Sam's children grow up. Sam becomes old and lives longer than most hobbits. It is the lingering effect of having been a ringbearer for even a short while. He feels "thin and stretched," like Frodo and Bilbo did.

4) Ultimately, Sam too does not die but leaves for Valinor (the Undying Lands) via the ship at the Grey Havens. Many, many years have passed since the others left.

You know my friend, some of us are offended when our Lord's name is taken in vain.

My usual response is "He's not going to help you in THAT tone of voice."

I'm reading through to see if the review I read is posted, but I thought I'd drop that comment in. It tends to discourage people from repeating.

Scouring of the Shire.....will be included in the extended version.

Jackson says in the commentary of the FoTR (Galadriel's mirror scene) that it will not be. Sauruman is dealt with differently from the book, as I understand it.

This is from Frederica Mathews-Green, a convert to the Orthodox Church. Her website is listed in here somewhere - I've never read a bad column from her. Her columns on the Orthodox perspective on Lent are fascinating. I subscribe to her list so get these through email. Anyhow:

Here's my review of the third film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, "Return of the King." I was able to see it at a screening yesterday. A few people told me they are having trouble reading these messages, because apparently when I write in Word it embeds certain formats; when I send it out by AOL I don't see them, but some email programs do and turn those cues into gibberish. Sorry. An alternative is, everything I send out goes onto the archives page of teh mailing list, and you can read it there "clean" of format.The URL for the archives is : http://lists.ctcnet.net/pipermail/frederica-l/ I was also thinking that I could send it as an attached file as well as pasted in, but don't know if that's a problem for recipients.

***

What becomes a legend most? The old answer, “fur,” wouldn’t be as popular today as it was when Blackglama mink draped legendary stars like Lauren Bacall in a glamorous ad campaign. What makes something a legend, a classic, is not easy to identify, but the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy has got it, hands down. “The Return of the King” is a crowning conclusion to the trilogy, and also arguably the best of the three films, though none are disappointments. That’s something that can’t be said of most movie-sequel series.

People know immediately that “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy is historically significant and will have lasting value through future generations. It’s a classic. It’s not till we go on to say, “Like…” that we realize there is no obvious work to compare it with. When have we seen something like this before? The Star Wars series is not of such consistent quality, and in its shallower moments seems a Patty-Duke cousin to Star Trek. Films set in outer space may always be doomed to Jetsons’ syndrome, premised on speculation that will sound arbitrary or even silly with the passage of time. Outer-space films will inevitably lack gravity, you might say, though I’d advise against it.

Others films at the top of anybody’s “classic” list are often character studies (“Citizen Kane,” “The Graduate”), or vigorous entertainment of the action, musical, or tear-jerker variety (“Wizard of Oz,” “Gone With the Wind”). To get the trilogy’s combination of profundity, emotion, and astonishing spectacle you almost always have to have a war movie--“Lawrence of Arabia” or “Saving Private Ryan,” though neither is as comprehensive as LOTR.

It helps that J.R.R. Tolkein created a legend to begin with, from its furry hobbit toes upward. Director Peter Jackson realized this material impeccably, with the best music, casting, and effects available. In this concluding film of the trilogy all the elements previously set in motion come together in perfect synchronization, without the occasional drag of the second film.

In that film, for example, the battle scenes were sometimes wearying--too many tiny figures clashing on a giant screen. In “Return of the King” the battles feature larger elements that are easier to track visually. The city of Gondor, a mountainside tower of flat-white stone glaring against the charcoal-gray sky, defends itself by launching giant chunks of masonry against the orcs, which land with the impact of a tossed elephant. The enemy has, not elephants, but oliphaunts, a beast the size of an aircraft hangar with bristling tusks. Each oliphaunt bears a wooden tower manned by dozens of archers, and when one of those goes down, it’s a sight to behold. (The elf Legolas’ acrobatic defeat of an oliphaunt brought an outburst of applause from the screening audience.) The winged Nazgul wheel overhead emitting unbearable screams. You can tell because the characters onscreen are clapping their hands over their ears in pain, but thanks to the miracle of modern sound recording technology, the audience doesn’t have to do the same.

A “big” classic film has big fight scenes. It also has courageous characters banding together, and in “Return of the King” we see members of the original fellowship further separated from each other, to the point of fearful isolation, and then brought satisfyingly together again. It’s necessary that such a story show the characters’ fallibility and fear, or else the courage seems to have no cost. Quiet doubting or despairing moments visit several of the characters, memorably when Pippin is required to sing a Shire song in a foreign land, and this hobbit who was hitherto a clown lifts his voice in a poignant ode. Most striking, however (PLOT SPOILER AHEAD) is the moment when Frodo has arrived at Mt. Doom and prepares to complete his quest by throwing the evil ring into the flames--and changes his mind. Its power over him has grown so strong that he declares he will keep it instead, and puts the ring on, becoming instantly invisible. (ALL CLEAR) We feel Sam’s astonishment and helplessness at that moment.

The effect on Frodo is lasting, and in the concluding scenes he retains a brooding, troubled quality. This is what saves the film from being too sweet; it’s what preserves a quality of mystery. Tolkein wrote to his publisher: “My work has escaped from my control. I have produced a monster…a complex, rather bitter, and rather terrifying romance.”

What becomes a legend is a story that is made out of elements already within us: awareness of a great battle that is going on, that involves us somehow already, as well as invisible powers far stronger than us; the need for others to help us in this journey, and a love for them in all their failings; a sense of our own capacity to turn traitor at the last moment, despite our high-flown claims. All of these are elements of the Gospel story, the story we’re born carrying inside, “The Greatest Story Ever Told” as it was called in a movie that used to be considered a classic. Such overt presentations of the Gospel have no traction in our current culture and provoke ridicule instead. The story has to go underground and come up from Middle Earth for a modern audience to embrace it in disguise. That’s how a story becomes a legend, and a great film of such a legend becomes an enduring classic.

My usual response is "He's not going to help you in THAT tone of voice."

I don't personally necessarily see anything wrong with it, but offending others this way does qualify, so I'll make sure I refrain. Thanks for the reply, though.

Hat-trick of Tolkien's treasures

By Nigel Andrews

Published: December 12 2003 18:52 | Last Updated: December 12 2003 18:52

They took our mobile phones into custody before the preview of the third and final instalment of The Lord of the Rings. Did they think we would all phone home in mid-film to say, "This you have to see!" Well, they are right. We would have. "Auntie, granny, sonny, honey, come quickly. Quit knitting, quit washing up, quit school. The Return of the King is a knockout."

Somewhere in Middle Earth - the real Middle Earth - there exists a motherlode of imagination which director Peter Jackson has sacked and pillaged so that, for the third Christmas in a row, he can empty its treasures over our laps. This concluding film may be the greatest fantasy- adventure epic ever made. It is almost certainly the most spectacular.

There are imaginary cities to set your eyes popping, with pride of place going to medieval-gothic Minas Tirith, a vision in white sprawling up a cliff like some larger, enchanted Assisi. There are warfare scenes to beggar belief, with million-strong armies, skyscraping catapult machines, armoured elephants and over-flying dragons that strafe the sluggish or pick them up for precipitous disposal.

There are wacky spendthrift embellishments like the giant wolf's-head battering ram and show-off setpieces like the grey-green army of the dead, vast, fluid and spectral, that sweeps over besieged Gondor like a ghostly river.

The battles themselves should post an audience warning: "Fasten your seatbelts, you will experience a little turbulence." When catapulted boulders crash or elephants collide, you hear and feel it. (Surround-sound speakers ensure that no faintheart in the back stalls escapes.) Nor does the 12A certificate awarded by the British Board of Film Classification protect the innocent from sight of severed heads used for missiles, spears doing what spears nastily do, and such no-nonsense terminations as that of the armed and visored Witch King (Tolkienite prototype for Darth Vader?) who is reduced to a quivering heap of scrap metal.

In any other film, living actors would be upstaged and upscreened. But Jackson doesn't fail us even here. Following four storylines, from the treachery-harassed trio of Sam, Gollum and ring-carrying Frodo, crawling through mountain caves full of slime, perfidy and giant spiders, to the sundry armies of Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Theoden (Bernard Hill) and the Orcs, the narrative moves like a single juggernaut with a Rolls Royce engine and quality-controlled springs. Everything is perfectly suspended, including disbelief, and the main characters - Ian McKellen's wise, ambrosially voiced Gandalf, John Noble's scowling Denethor (strong contender in any Ivan the Terrible lookalike contest), Sean Astin's Sam Gamgee, bringing cheer and Mummerset vowels - provide heft, depth and human detail.

Cinematic self-confidence creates its own momentum. Jackson must believe by now that he can do anything, and the world is willing him on to do it. Dialogue in sword-and-sorcery epics is usually an embarrassment. Not here: though as a non-Tolkien maven I must to offer to experts the question of whether film or book wrought the marvellous phrase "sleepless malice" or the Lear-echoing line, "Come not between a Nazgul and his prey." I kept thinking we were getting station interference from Radio Shakespeare.

Even these - the human characters and their utterances - pale beside the verve of the character who isn't acted, and barely scripted, at all. Digitised Gollum, a scuttling overgrown baby with bad teeth, wheedling voice and blue eyes that dilate in proportion to the malice he is hatching, is a triumph of pixellation. We hiss him to the echo, but urge him back to life whenever he vanishes into a bottomless gorge or bubbling lava lake. "Don't leave us, we love to loathe you."

The story's only cornball element is the nine lives seemingly apportioned to each main character. No matter how hard they get whacked, they keep bouncing back. For one dreadful moment I thought Jackson himself was preparing the ground for a sequel. "There's room for a little more," says someone when everyone finally gets back to the Shire to compare adventures. (A large chunk of the book is ominously missing, Tolkienites tell me, involving Saruman, the Christopher Lee-played superbaddie absent from this movie.)

But surely there can be no encore for a screen triptych as perfectly finished as this. Jackson has created a fantasy masterpiece: he now has to move on. I suggest he starts with The Odyssey and The Iliad, then does Beowulf and Dante's Inferno, and ends with the complete works (in any order) of Dumas, Verne and Fenimore Cooper. On second thoughts, let's just give him the complete freedom of Hollywood and the world movie industry.

Regarding the "false endings": If you think LOTR is simply about destroying one magic ring, then you have missed the point of the story. I haven't seen the movie, but if Jackson has captured the spirit of the book's ending, he has created a masterpiece that transcends the genre.

Instead of a simple fantasy epic in which the story ends when the bad guy is dusted off and "everyone lives happily ever after", think of "Wizard of Oz" meeting "Saving Private Ryan" if you want to get the true flavor of what Tolkien (and it appears Jackson) is striving for.

Ain't It Cool News
http://www.aint-it-cool.com/display.cgi?id=16667

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING review

I’ve already given 6 hours and 44 minutes of my life over to RETURN OF THE KING, I’ve seen it twice. On Tuesday, I’ll see it again, and after that, I imagine I’ll see it 3 more times by the end of the week.

This is frankly one of the greatest films ever made. It towers over the other so-called epics of the year in a way that one could only imagine it was like when INTOLERANCE was released 87 years ago. What was it like in 1916 to see a film on that scale? Beside all the two-reelers and three-reelers and four-reelers to see a true epic. One with spectacle and size so immense that as you watched it, you knew… you felt the screen busting at the seams to hold it all.

However, unlike INTOLERANCE, this film takes the care to tell intimate… almost private adventures and stories with all the care, love and passion that you could ever hope for. The performances burn into us. I am sitting here trying to go over the history of epics in my mind to remember one that juggled so many characters and gave us so much to care for and I’m coming up empty. There truly is no film to compare to RETURN OF THE KING.

For all it’s visual effects wizardry, the scenes and the moments that linger with me are not those moments. I remember Ian McKellen’s Gandalf telling Billy Boyd’s Pippin about the adventure beyond death amidst a battle to decide it all. There’s a serenity to Ian’s face… an impossible calm and resolute ease and anticipation to beginning that final adventure that puts Pippin at peace and calm. Billy Boyd’s face begins with sadness and in the end of the conversation… you see his nerves become calm, though the end is at hand. The scene is brilliant.

Just about every moment with Sean Astin in this film is one for the history books. Sean, bless him… He’s stunning as Samwise Gamgee and I can’t imagine the cold dark pathetic heart that doesn’t weep for him. There upon the endless steps…. Or upon the side of that cruel and desolate volcano… watching him carry the weight of Middle Earth upon those shoulders. No longer do I hear his speech at the bottom of a well, nor do I see him in football pads… Forever he will be the bravest of all cinematic characters, more noble than the The Cid of Valencia or even Boorman’s Lancelot… here you have on screen captured for all eternity as we will know it… the power of true friendship, duty and sacrifice. If somehow this performance is overlooked by those that give out baubles, then it is only their own insignificance that is illuminated, not this role, because this role will be taken into the hearts of all that see it.

Miranda Otto’s Eowyn and Bernard Hill’s Theoden… Tremendous work here. There’s a resolved sense of finality to the way Bernard plays his role in this final film. Watching him play this you get the sense that he knows what is ahead, but that he also knows the price of avoiding it. Eowyn is so good here, with so little. Watching her steal tiny moments and take on fantastic gigantic moments… Great. The spears scene with Bernard is classic.

Elijah Wood in many ways has the thankless Mark Hamill role in these films, but if he wasn’t perfect… the whole thing would topple. His eyes in this film tell such sadness and loss. You can see the innocence he had 2 films ago completely ripped from him. There is something taking seed inside his soul here that places deceit, suspicion, fear, want and spite where once was cheer, song and love. The transformation is complete and that moment where suddenly he can see again… absolutely killer.

Finally… there is Gollum and Andy Serkis… Here too you have a transformation, and to me… in this film there is truly no Gollum Visual Effects. Not once as I watched the film did I think for a second about anything other than the reality that he was there with them. Watching Gollum talk in his sleep, the conversation in the pool, where the Gollum personality is no longer a taunting jackal, but the resolute leader of the splintered remains of Smeagol. Here is a colder character, here we see the killer. In a way, while watching Gollum I was reminded of Melanie Lynskey’s Pauline Parker and Kate Winslet’s Juliet Hulme from HEAVENLY CREATURES. Melanie’s Pauline was the resolute one that was going to lead mother to the trail and kill her. Kate’s Juliet was the slightly reluctant, albeit obedient companion that went along with it. The pair were truly one by that point in the film, and both were confused lost creatures with evil taken root in their souls. Gollum is both of them… Colder and more pathetic than either. More lost, more sad and ultimately incredibly deceived by his obsession. There is an impossible subtlety at work with this character and performance that is just… impossible to imagine being created at a 24th of a second, yet it is there. Like so much in this film… that achievement has no parallel.

It is easy for many to overlook the enormity of the accomplishment in RETURN OF THE KING. It seems so effortless, but the concept that in spite of all the gigantic visual delights, that beyond all of that… above it all, the performances and the work of characters and actors and the constructed written scenes… for those things to shine above the battles and the beasts and the sets…. That this film is not swallowed up whole by the production design, that the digital effects do not make this film ring with the clunk of plastic… that the weight of what is at stake isn’t rendered mute and that the highlights of every battle are intimate personal risks of singular characters having to reach within to pull out that strength to face an evil bigger than they… well… that falls upon the shoulders of Peter Jackson and the astonishing spirit he placed into this spectacle that kept each piece of the puzzle centered on being exactly what it needed to be to create the whole.
While it seems I’m avoiding talking about the gigantic effects moments in the film, it is only because I feel words will fail me. The battle and encounter with Shelob is stunningly perfect. The coming of the Ohliphaunts, the dueling catapults of Sauron’s hordes and those of the White City of Minas Tirith. The trolls, the fell beasts, the charge of Theoden’s Rohan masses… The gaze of the EYE in Mordor, the return of the moth and all that follows. Pippin’s uncontrollable urge to look… the lighting of the signal fires atop mountains… the paths of the dead… All of this… these things must be seen to be believed. Trying to describe them… well… you would need to be Tolkien to do it justice.

This film isn’t a movie filled with “Where’s Waldo’s” leaping about for the camera’s attention. This film is always exactly what it has to be from moment to moment. I don’t know if we’ll ever see a film series to match this. That is truly a sad thing to contemplate. Ultimately it will inspire others to mount impossible productions, but will they have the support, the vision and the resolute determination to pull it off? For me, the greatest trilogies have always been subject trilogies… things like John Ford’s Cavalry trilogy or Kieslowski’s Colors trilogy or Leone’s Man with No Name trilogy. Personally, I feel the best trilogy that carries a single narrative story is probably Hiroshi Inagaki’s SAMURAI series with Toshiro Mifune. However, as much as I love that series… This series surpasses it in terms of scale, intimacy, performances and just my own personal tastes. I still love the flawed, but great, trilogies like Coppola’s GODFATHER trilogy, Lucas’ STAR WARS, Spielberg’s INDIANA JONES, Karloff’s FRANKENSTEIN trilogy, Weissmuller’s TARZAN trilogy, Arnold’s TERMINATOR trilogy and the Wachowski’s MATRIX trilogy… but Peter Jackson’s LORD OF THE RINGS… for me, it is without equal or parallel. It does not diminish the others to any degree, it is just what it is… perfect. Like when Lean did BRIDGE OF THE RIVER KWAI, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and DR ZHIVAGO… there was just fate leaning over the shoulder and perfection was achieved. It happens rarely that a filmmaker is given a perfect run… folks like Hitchcock and Ford and Lean and Kubrick and Spielberg and many others have had their runs… never with the same story, but with a consistency of vision on multiple projects. Now we see if Jackson can move past these great tales when he takes on his personal lifelong passion of KING KONG… Spielberg didn’t fare so well when he took on his passion with Peter Pan, let’s pray that Jackson does better.

And finally… this last thought needs a SPOILER WARNING -- Do Not Read Below This Line If You Do Not Wish To Know The End Of The Film. I write about it, because so many seem to have issue with the alleged multiple ending of the film, but frankly… I feel they are completely missing the point.

THE ENDINGS are in actuality one. You see the story is THE LORD OF THE RINGS and the end of this film is about the passing of the ring bearers. We see the end of Sauron, the ultimate soul of the one ring, but we are also compelled over the course of these films to see the end of each who has carried the ring. In FELLOWSHIP we saw what became of Isildur and Boromir – both of whom carried the ring, no matter how briefly. In RETURN OF THE KING – we see the destruction of Sauron and Gollum… The passing of Bilbo, Gandalf and Frodo from the Gray Havens… and finally, the last ring bearer… Samwise Gamgee returning to his hole in the ground where the story which began in the HOBBIT started. THIS IS A SINGLE ENDING, following the narrative of the ring bearers and concluding as it began… with a hole in the ground.

Absolutely perfect.

As for me, I can not wait for Trilogy Tuesday… To watch it all play as one. What a treat!

Couple of new reviews posted, including Ain't It Cool News...

There be spoilers!

Great review!

Harry can be quite eloquent when he wants!

the grey havens is the name for the port where the ships take off for the west...but the phrase "going to the grey havens" implies going to the west in the book.

Filmmaker.com

Return of the King: A Review
Posted on Saturday, December 06, 2003 @ 13:52:32 MST by waldo

Well, last night I had the chance to see an advanced screening of Return of the King. Interested in my review? Read below. (Note-- there will be spoilers, so if you want your experience pure and unspoilt, don't read.)

First off, here's a disclaimer-- I haven't read the books. I thought the first film was a little too "Xena-like", in that I wasn't always sure what was going on, what the rules were for the world, etc. and didn't quite get into the weightiness of the drama. I liked the second film a lot more and like everyone else was impressed with the special effects, particularly Gollum.

But the third film-- this Return of the King-- was just a breath-taking experience that in some ways reminded me of when I saw Star Wars as a little kid. This is the film that delivered what the new Star Wars movies promised. ROTK is not a flawless movie, and I'm not saying it's Star Wars per se, but then I'm not six years old any more. If I were, this film and The original Matrix would be my Star Wars films. I can say this: the LOTR series is without a doubt the best fantasy genre film series ever. Move over, Conan.

There are two stars in this movie. The first is the special effects, which appear in nearly every shot and put ILM and PDI's recent work to shame. They are so natural, and the transitions from CG to live action so seamless, that you have to keep reminding yourself that this place doesn't really exist because your brain is telling you, "But it's there! I saw it!" From the giant spider to the battle sequences (which reminded me very much of the AT-AT walker Hoth invasion from Empire Strikes back amped up about 1000%) to the Gollem's new Schitzophrenic plotting (this time talking to his reflection in a pool of water), the New Zealand effects team has crossed a line in special effects. They are the team to beat. The gold standard. They are the ILM of this generation.

The second star of this film is Sean Astin. At first I couldn't figure out why the American kid from Goonies would be cast in a fantasy epic like this. But Astin tears up the film, and should be nominated for, if not win, a Best Supporting Oscar for his performance here. Though most of the movie consists of he and Frodo making thier way through Mordor (?) to throw the Ring into a volcano, his character Sam's unflagging devotion to his friend and his determination to succeed is so pure and utterly heartbreaking at times that even I found myself choked up. Astin is the real standout star of this third film, no question in my mind. This is his film.

Visually, the film is among the best I have seen, but as I said the movie is not without its flaws. I did get bored at times during this almost 3 1/2 hour experience, particularly in scenes involving Liv Tyler's elf and her father. I just didn't know what the hell they were talking about. I also felt a lot of scenes repeated over and over ("get up Mr. Frodo." "no sam, I can't.. Too tired." "I'll help you Mr. Frodo"..) but I assume that's a reflection of the book, and although it got tough to sit through for three hours, after it's all over it isn't too bad.

Nor did I understand exactly where these giant eagles came from towards the end (maybe it was explained, but I missed it). And there were a lot of other conveniences-- it just so happens that there is an entire undead army around when you need them who happens to owe you a favor. I've noticed that much of the LOTR plotting involves getting armies to battles in time to show up and kick ass.

The biggest note sure to be brought up again and again is the 25-30 minute ending to the film. Or rather, endings. We see the same "goodbye, thank you for your help" scene two or three times, intercut with various "returning to the shire" scenes. One of each would have sufficed. And at one point everyone gets on a boat in the Elf village to sail away. Where and why I'm not sure.

So there are some problems, but these are minor flaws in a film that has so many strengths and awesome moments that they basically fade into the background.

I've been a fan of Peter Jackson's since his early, independent "bad taste" films like "Dead Alive" and "Meet the Feebles". It's really cool to see him ascend to such heights. He's worked tirelessly to get there. So a big congrats to him and the many thousands of people who made this movie happen.

The Fanboys will not be disappointed. I've already seen "Cold Mountain". I've seen "The House of Sand and Fog". I've seen "Mystic River". I've seen "Seabiscuit". This one film rules them all.

In spite of minor missteps, Peter Jackson concludes his landmark adaptation with a phenomenal flourish.

Caution: May contain vague spoilers!

In a recent British poll, U2’s song “One” was voted the greatest song of all time. Okay, perhaps it wasn’t a poll of musicians, historians, and songwriters, but of music fans. Still, the poll proves that U2’s song about longsuffering has struck resonant chords in its listeners over the last decade. The refrain, “We’ve got to carry each other… carry each other…” is indeed powerful and true.

The song is not included in the soundtrack for The Return of the King, but the same sentiment, the same chord, is struck in a line of dialogue, in a vividly literal image, and in a metaphor that will move viewers to tears around the world and for decades to come. It happens when brave Samwise Gamgee, perhaps the most inspiringly brave soul to ever journey across a silver screen, cradles the suffering and battered form of his dearest friend, and determines to finish the journey on his own two feet if he has to. Sam is suffering the hardest thing that a loving soul must suffer—not his own personal torment, but the torment of seeing the one he loves suffering from a burden that cannot be taken away. Crumbling from the burden of grief, he grits his teeth and says, “I can’t carry it for you, Mr. Frodo, but I can carry you.”

It is, arguably, the most powerful moment in what now stands as the most important and beloved film trilogy yet made. While J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings takes us to a world of fantasy, in a way it takes us to a world more true to our own than most "realistic" dramas. It "rings true" because it was told by a storyteller who believed in the Truth. “The closest thing to true communication between two human beings is story-telling,” writes Orson Scott Card, “for despite his best efforts at concealment, a writer will inevitably reveal in his story the world he believes he lives in.”

So what happens when that story is re-told by someone else? In the case of The Lord of the Rings, as re-told by director Peter Jackson and his screenwriters Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh, we get some semblance of the world Tolkien believed in, but that is clouded a bit by a vision of the world that the re-tellers believe in.

Nevertheless, Jackson’s big screen victories far outweigh his failures. What Tolkien described in detail has been given its most powerful visual representation yet in these films. The quaint Hobbit culture, the elegant and ethereal Elves deep in their woods, the “tough bones” of the country ruled by men, the dead lands of the enemy—these have all been brought to vivid life, as if we could fly to the film’s New Zealand locations and find the ruins of this ancient world.

In The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Jackson finishes the epic with a flourish that leaves all other big screen fantasies thoroughly humbled and making excuses. It stands as a rare exception: a trilogy’s third film that surpasses its predecessors in bold storytelling choices, thrilling action, heartbreaking emotion, eye-filling spectacle, and technical accomplishment. While I prefer The Fellowship of the Ring’s greater balance of distress and delight, this grief-burdened journey achieves something far more complicated—resolving the myriad plotlines with style, drama, suspense, and grace. It goes to show that even in the production of multi-million dollar blockbusters, sometimes you do get what you paid for.

Our heroes reach “the end of all things…”

The Return of the King opens with a prologue that portrays Smeagol’s disintegration into Gollum (played by Andy Serkis), a tormented wretch obsessed with and addicted to the great Ring of Power. In this surprising flashback, Serkis plays the as-yet unspoiled Smeagol unenhanced by effects, and it becomes clearer just how much of the actor’s brilliant work indwells Gollum’s animated expression. This reminds us of where the Ring is taking our story’s ring-bearer—Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood)—whose every step Gollum follows with malice and deadly intent.

As we watch brave Frodo march toward similar spiritual ruin, Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin), his steadfast companion, gets to “show his quality.” When Gollum cleverly separates the hobbits, Sam demonstrates newfound courage and loyalty. First, he confronts Shelob, whose intelligent malevolence makes her film history’s most frightening spider. Soon after, he takes on a tower bustling with orcs. Right to the end, when Frodo’s will teeters on the edge of an abyss, Sam perseveres.

While Sam’s determination is truly inspiring, the determining factor in the quest and the conflict is, in the end, the compassion of Frodo for suffering Smeagol, a quality that provokes an unlikely but profound conclusion.

Some reviewers have interpreted Tolkien’s epic as a mandate for “the West” to send Muslim extremists “to an early grave.” This is sorely misguided. The saga’s central thread is one of longsuffering and mercy. In the books, Aragorn even offers the orc armies a chance to surrender. Violence remains a grievous and questionable necessity for the protection of innocence. Unfortunately, in places, Jackson and company transgress in their storytelling, glorifying vengeful instincts. (At one point, Sam offs an orc with the words, "Not if I stick you first!" Someone next to me responded, muttering, "George W. Bush!")

It is hard to imagine actors who could have portrayed Frodo and Sam better. No film that comes to my mind has portrayed a more intimate and powerful friendship. Their transformation from simple whimsical folk to battered, beleaguered survivors is heartbreakingly convincing. Astin will likely earn more acclaim and attention for his part; tearful breakdowns win awards. But Woods’ emotional performance equals Astin’s, a riveting portrayal of disintegration.

Their sufferings are painfully tangible, for the audience is only given two hours of journeying in dark, dank, dying Mordor, while Frodo and Sam endure it for days. The Ring of Power grows heavier on its chain around Frodo's neck, carving deep scars there as he seeks to destroy it in the fires of Mount Doom.

That fire-blasted wasteland is a visual metaphor for many forms of modern devastation, not more poignant than the modern world’s destruction of the environment that God asked us to “replenish” in the first command he ever gave us. Tolkien wrote, “The horrors of the American scene I will pass over, though they have given me great distress and labour. They arise in an entirely different mental climate and soil, polluted and impoverished to a degree only paralleled by the lunatic destruction of the physical lands which Americans inhabit....”

Frodo and Sam are not the only dynamic duo divided in this chapter. Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd), who so far have served as comic relief, are separated as well, thrust into differing dire straits.

After King Theoden (Bernard Hill) orders his niece Eowyn (Miranda Otto) to stay behind while he leads the Riders of Rohan to battle, she defies him, carrying the equally willful Merry with her. They join what is perhaps the most exhilarating exhibition of an army on horseback ever filmed, riding to save the city of Minas Tirith. The city is besieged by an orc army commanded by the ugliest orc ever invented: a monster resembling a Giant Evil Elephant-Man Yoda. The parts our heroes play on that battlefield lead to a showdown that earns the film’s biggest cheer.

Pippin (Billy Boyd), meanwhile, pledges his service to the despairing Steward of Gondor, Lord Denethor (a scowling, snarling John Noble). In a time of distress, he sings a haunting song, like little David singing to a sour King Saul. (Yes, that is Boyd’s real singing voice; in fact, he composed the song.) This music becomes the soundtrack for one of the saga’s most excruciating episodes, and creates one of the masterstrokes of Jackson’s directorial career. Thus, Pippin too finds opportunity for heroism, as Denethor descends into a suicidal madness that threatens to take innocent victims.

Meanwhile, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are off on another memorable journey, one that gives Peter Jackson a chance to revel in his love of zombie-movie spectacle. While this particular subplot is certainly thrilling to watch, it also represents a diversion from the text that makes the literal "return of the king" something rather anti-climactic. Aragorn's rise to claim his kingship is, in the end, overshadowed too much by the other adventures. His final stand at the gate of Mordor is edited poorly and lacks the inspiring emotion of King Theoden's rallying cry at the battle to save Minas Tirth.

These adventures are only a few in a film that tests the limits of audience endurance. If viewers had any trouble following interweaving plots in previous installments, they’ll be disoriented by the many additional characters, monsters, races, places, talismans, histories, and prophecies presented here. Be patient. Do not put your coat on too early. Viewers around me at the sneak preview applauded too early, and were surprised to learn there were still fifteen minutes of epilogues to take in. (My colleague Greg Wright chuckled, “It’s like being at the symphony, surrounded by people who have never been to one.”)

Many critics will complain about the parade of emotional endings. And the sequence is indeed awkward. Some things work in a book that do not work very well in a film. But all of those endings are necessary. The thrilling climax of the action is not the end of the story. Tolkien's brilliance is in illuminating how much is lost in a conflict, and how the brave must carry on, bearing heavy burdens. Some of the survivors may never be able to return to the quiet happy lives they once lived.

In spite of its awkward marathon of endings, the film boasts far more triumphs of translation than failures. Jackson wisely returns us to an approach of intimate close-ups, giving us a perspective on the conflict from the hobbits’ point of view. This gives us the sense of being a small observer in an intimidating and amazing world, a more effective tactic than the panoramic “eye in the sky” approach of The Two Towers. It also succeeds in making the monsters scary again. Shelob makes us squirm. Flying serpents called Fell Beasts, merely a spectacle in Towers, sweep down like bone-shattering nightmares.

Let me put it bluntly—Return of the King may well be the most awe-inspiring visual spectacle ever to play on a big screen. It represents standard-setting work by a vast host of artists. We get a feast of superlative performances from actors who committed more time and energy than a cast has ever given to a film project. Writers have beat the odds to triumphantly please the majority of Tolkien’s vast fan base as well as many newcomers and fantasy-wary critics. Designers, effects-makers, the cinematographer, the composer, the costumers, and the other wizards—all have thrown down the gauntlet and said, “Top this!” Nothing of its scale is likely to be attempted again for a long time.

If the Academy voters once again deny Peter Jackson his overdue Oscars, they only accelerate their increasing irrelevance. Titles more likely to win awards—Mystic River, for example—are impressive, but also bleak and morose. Return of the King is not only a Herculean feat of workmanship; it is also charged with tangible hope. It will be quoted by young and old alike for decades to come. It has inspired a generation to read, surpassing Harry Potter in motivating them to read literature. Jackson’s saga serves us not only with entertainment, but with art that will inform the decisions of the wise and tweak the consciences of the proud and self-serving.

While it qualifies as the most violent film of an excessively violent cinematic year, its masterfully choreographed battle scenes are essential parts of the story, bringing us to the edge of our emotions as well as the edge of our seats. Losses pierce us like spears. Courage thrills us like an electrical jolt. The strain of battle sends us home suffering from a vicarious exhaustion, as though we ourselves fought alongside King Theoden in the Battle of the Pellennor Fields. And we walk away with wounds that will not heal, with a bittersweet wisdom and glimmers of hope.

Flawed heroes, a higher hope…

After the press screening, I overheard several critics complaining about “the Neverending Movie” and “the Movie with Seven Endings.” (They’ll probably hate this “neverending review” as well.) There seems to be an inexplicable disconnect between some people and Tolkien’s style of tale-weaving. (One woman complained that she still couldn’t tell the difference between “Merry and Trippy.” Go figure.) I have no explanation, just sadness that their skepticism stands between them and so many rewarding metaphors and characters. Did they at some point outgrow fairy tales, deciding that they are valuable only as charming flights of fancy for the naïve?

Most Tolkien fans will be enthralled by Jackson’s vivid depictions, unless their insistence on adherence to the text is too strong. Purists bothered by the diversions in Two Towers will find plenty to gripe about here.

Yes, the film’s quick dismissal of Saruman is disappointing. Sure, the removal of “The Houses of Healing” and “The Scouring of the Shire” chapters leave holes in the plot. But fans who have complained about these things on the Internet will probably forgive Jackson, as I did, when they’ve reached the 3-hour mark and the film still shows no signs of stopping.

Tolkien once wrote, “The failure of poor films is often precisely in exaggeration, and in the intrusion of unwarranted matter owing to not perceiving where the core of the original lies.” The Return of the King’s weaknesses do indeed stem from exaggerations and intrusions that betray the screenwriters’ misinterpretation of Tolkien’s convictions. Not professing to a faith of their own, they often avoid the story’s suggestions of higher powers. They instead shift their focus to how men endeavor to save the world. They think it is about finding the strength within ourselves to stand up and overcome evil.

Do not let any critic or viewer steer you wrong in interpreting the culminating scene. Jackson admits he tried to make Frodo’s final actions “deliberately vague,” hoping to please audiences who want valor instead of failure. But in that ambiguity, Tolkien’s ideas are still there for the taking. Those who read the book will understand: This is not a hero story. Tolkien insisted, “Frodo indeed ‘failed’ as a hero, as conceived by simple minds: he did not endure to the end; he gave in, ratted.”

While Tolkien certainly advocated courage in resisting evil, and while his story reflects his grief over the way people destroy the natural world, for him the book was about something different: “If the tale is ‘about’ anything (other than itself), it is not as seems widely supposed about ‘power’. Power-seeking is only the motive—power that sets events going, and is relatively unimportant, I think. It is mainly concerned with Death, and Immortality; and the ‘escapes’: serial longevity, and hoarding memory.”

But we must keep in mind, Tolkien was never opposed to a film version—even a simplified or “vulgarized” version. I think he would have been surprised to see how well it survived the transition. Nothing has been spoiled… only tarnished.

And do not take too seriously the misconstrued interpretations of the story given voice by actors to the press.

Ian McKellen tells us that what resonates most profoundly with him about Tolkien’s vision is that Hobbiton, the ideal society, has no church. He does not understand that the energy and profundity of the story stem from the very things that the Church declares to the world.

Andy Serkis tells CNN that if he had the ring, the first thing he would do would be to “Banish all religions.” That’s the attitude of wicked Denethor, who trusts only in feeble humankind; it is not the perspective of Gandalf or Galadriel, and definitely not Tolkien.

Middle-Earth’s master called his story “a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like ‘religion’, to cults and practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.”

We can be thankful that the truth shines through this finished work as brightly as it does. The triumphant epilogue offers tangible hope rather than mere Hollywood sentiment. We can look back now and see that, while this edition of Tolkien’s epic is a bit out of tune, it is still a rousing and redemptive cinematic symphony.

“I know, of course, that I never stood at the Cracks of Doom and watched [these events],” says writer Orson Scott Card. “But that faith in the distinction between my own actions and the actions of fictional characters is merely another story I tell myself. In fact, my memory of that event is much clearer and more powerful than my memory of my fifth birthday.”

Fortunately for moviegoers, they now have a trilogy filled with fantastical moments that may profoundly influence their daily dealings with “reality.” Perhaps Gandalf’s voice will come to them in their moments of discovery and distress. Perhaps they will think of Gollum or Galadriel when faced by temptation. They may see Sauron in the news, and the kingdoms of men struggling with issues of courage and conviction. They might experience the loss of their own childhoods, their own innocence. They will see humankind tested… and they will see humankind fail.

They will also ultimatley learn that the fate of the world is not entirely up to them—a plan both higher and deeper is at work, in which the compassion of one man redeems us, while the darkness collapses upon itself.

Review by Joe Morgenstern, in the Wall Street Journal, 12/19/03.

Now That's an Epic: Jackson Conjures Magical Ending To 'Lord of the Rings' Trilogy From Grand Battles to Tiny Details, It's a Study in Magnificence
"Show us the meaning of haste," the white wizard Gandalf tells his white stallion Shadowfax as they gallop off to one of the many enthralling encounters in "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King." Haste is a relative thing when it comes to a battle-heavy production with multiple endings that's 200 minutes long. Yet it isn't a crucial thing, for the invisible wizard Peter Jackson makes use of every scene to show us the meaning of magnificence. Never has a filmmaker aimed higher, or achieved more. The third and last installment of the screen epic based on J.R.R. Tolkien's literary classic redefines -- steeply upward -- the very notion of a major motion picture.
Nothing less than the fate of humanity is at stake as the action begins. Middle-earth faces a final onslaught by Sauron's vast forces, which were seen in an earlier era as mythic stand-ins for the Nazis. Aragorn, the velvet-voiced king-to-be, organizes a defense of civilization's last stronghold, a gleaming citadel called Minas Tirith that seems to be a cross between the Mont Saint-Michel and Hoover Dam. The scale of the coming struggle can be gleaned by a series of annunciatory beacons -- a sort of Alpine telegraph -- burning across the mountaintops in a gorgeous sequence that looks as big as all New Zealand, where this masterpiece was made.
But the film operates just as powerfully on a human scale, or, in the case of the madly malign Gollum, an inhuman one. While the battle lines are being drawn, the scuttling little monster with the Peter Lorre wheedle leads Frodo and Sam toward a trap in order to steal the Ring before Frodo can finally return the damned thing to Mount Doom. Although we've marveled at Gollum before, it's still astonishing to see how completely this digital creation has been integrated into a story that's chockablock with compelling men and women. "Frodo lives," declared the flower children's buttons in the 1960s, but everyone here lives vividly, from Viggo Mortensen's Aragorn, Ian McKellen's Gandalf, Orlando Bloom's Legolas, Sean Astin's Sam and Elijah Wood's Frodo to Miranda Otto's radiant Lady Eowyn, who delivers, with joyous understatement, the movie's most rousing line: "I am no man!" (Oddly, Aragorn's big Henry V moment, his exhortation to his troops before battle, is truncated and unaffecting.)
"The Return of the King" turns out to be even more ambitious than its remarkable predecessor, "The Two Towers," though it's obviously not as compact (another relative thing), what with dramatic convolutions within its several plot lines and a stupendous martial passage that manages to dwarf the battle of Helm's Deep. Here again, live action merges seamlessly with digital artistry -- human horsemen by the thousands riding against swarms of Sauron's orcs, whose ranks are augmented by mountainous, mastodonish creatures called Mumakil, plus Fellbeast dragons that swoop down on their prey like Stuka bombers. And Mr. Jackson and his own army of support troops push their special effects to new levels of complexity, continuity and visual logic. When, for example, Legolas leaps onto a Mumakil, it's not just one spectacular shot but a swiftly intricate set piece that focuses on the elf archer until he has figured out how to bring the gigantic beast to the ground.
To write about this culminating chapter of "The Lord of the Rings" is to risk gushing in a public place. Still, I've never seen a movie like it, or been so struck by a filmmaker's generosity and the prodigality of what he has done. Yes, the running time is long, and yes, those many endings in a slow, dreamy coda left me feeling spent -- better spent than I can ever remember.

Hey, Mikey...I think he likes it.