(CAUTION: YOU ARE ABOUT TO ENTER A SPOILER-RICH ENVIRONMENT)
The Return of the King was astounding.
And these types of movies usually have disappointment built in. For example, I haven’t even bothered to see Matrix Revolutions yet. And I wasn’t even one of the people who hated Reloaded. It’s just that it can’t possibly be as good as it should be. Return of the King was every bit as good as it should have been and more.
Oddly, despite its even-longer-than-usual running time, it still felt like the most heavily edited installment. There’s just so much that goes on in ROTK that I guess Jackson could only fit so much into a theatrical release. But Minas Tirith/Gondor isn’t nearly as fleshed out, in terms of getting a feel for the people and their plight, as was Edoras/Rohan; the battle plan on the Pelennor isn’t as clear as the one at Helm’s Deep; Theoden’s death didn’t get followed up on even as much as his dialogueless son’s did in The Two Towers; no Mouth of Sauron to taunt the army at the Black Gates; the journey through Mordor was really truncated; the Orc armor that Frodo & Sam was never used; the Easterlings that marched through the Black Gate in TTT didn’t show up here; no Two Watchers scene; no Woses (which, incidentally, would have been a good way for Jackson to deflect the idiotic accusation that Tolkien is racist, not to mention employ Maori actors); Gothmog, the lead Orc, doesn’t get his comeuppance on screen despite having been built up as a personalized menace for the whole film; no confrontation between Gandalf and the Witch-King at the gates of Minas Tirith, despite the WK’s Dolph Lundgrenesque declaration that he would break the wizard; Eowyn’s absence from the Last Battle isn’t explained (if Merry made it, why couldn’t she?); Eomer’s grief at the loss of his uncle and near-death of his sister, and his subsequent need to put it aside and lead his men to almost certain death, aren’t depicted at all; obviously Denethor could have used a little humanizing; and there was no Houses of Healing romance between Eowyn and Faramir, which I think was needed for their respective character arcs.
But these are all mere quibbles, really–I think much of this will find its way into the Extended Edition, which in spite of Peter Jackson’s express wishes is going to be considered the definitive version just like its two predecessors. We’ve still been given the most human, most moving, most frightening, most awe-inspiring epic action film ever. After that it’s just icing.
Some favorite moments:
* The charge of the Mumakil, obviously. It’s the part everyone talks about (that and the lighting of the beacons, which was also gorgeous, something I never would have thought of doing that way), and for good reason. At some point during this sequence my jaw literally dropped. This is not something that happens to me, you know. It dropped and stayed open for the duration of the scene. I simply could not get over how incredible what I was seeing was. It was as though someone had cracked open my head and poured the contents of my mind onto the screen. It’s not that I couldn’t have filmed it better myself–it’s that I could barely have imagined it better myself.
* The Smeagol & Deagol flashback. ROTK is likely to become the highest-grossing motion picture in history, and it begins with one of the most viscerally disturbing murders you’re likely to see on screen. It reminded me of nothing so much as a similar killing in Jackson’s brilliant drama Heavenly Creatures–the awkwardness, the brutality, the intimacy. Perfectly chilling and tragic, it makes you feel that loss of life, that senseless, purposeless evil.
* Grond, the battering ram. This was when my Tolkien-obsessive genes kicked into overdrive. When I started hearing the Morgul-army chant “GROND… GROND… GROND…”, I just giggled. I couldn’t believe I was seeing Grond on screen, at long last. Because that’s what I was seeing, no doubt about it.
* Eomer. Even though, as I said, his emotional arc goes unexplored, he has maybe the best war face in cinematic history. I got those giggles again every time I saw him charging.
* Shelob’s Lair. Did I expect a live-action version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterpiece to include a fairly explicit homage to the bone-room scene in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre? No, no I did not. Boy, was I pleasantly surprised!
* The Olog-Hai. I was really, really pulling for the big, mean, smart, well-trained trolls to show up. I was not disappointed. No sir.
* The cries of the Nazgul. Up until this point I had been a little underwhelmed by the Ringwraiths’ cries. The filmmakers have said how proud of them they are–Fran Walsh, co-writer and wife of Peter Jackson, contributed them–but I didn’t feel they had the overwhelming power that is described in the book. This time around, however, I just thought, “Holy shit.” Watching the soliders grab their ears and scream in fear–yeah, I could understand that.
* Minas Morgul & the Winding Stair. A perfect nightmare. Well done.
* The Orcs. I was unsure how Jackson & Co. could top the Uruk-Hai, who after all were pretty much perfect, and were much bigger than your average Orc to boot. But they managed, essentially by making them look like something out of a Heironymous Bosch painting. The hardcore S&M tinge to their armor was a welcome touch, too. And was that a Goonies homage in the design of the lead Orc?
* Faramir’s charge. Since seeing it, I’ve been listening to “When the Tigers Broke Free” by Pink Floyd a lot. Same basic idea.
* The absence of “The Scouring of the Shire.” Don’t get me wrong–it’s one of my favorite parts of the original book. But I didn’t miss it here. Jackson didn’t need it, ultimately; he was still able to drive home the fact that you can’t go home again, simply and effectively, in that silent scene at the Green Dragon. Moreover, leaving this out (and Bombadil, and the Barrow-Wights, and Butterbur, and Glorfindel, and the extra stories at the Council, and the spectral wolf attack, and the slime Balrog, and the march of the Huorns, and the voice of Saruman, and Aragorns palantir showdown with Saruman, and Denethor