The End (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Extended Edition, DVD))

Member Name: I Like Blue

Product:	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Extended Edition, DVD)
Date:	27/12/03 (730 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Brilliant end to the story, Superb action scenes, Feeling part of the adventure

Disadvantages: It is over

I watched the first one, Fellowship Of The Ring, but didn't review it. I watched the second one, The Two Towers, but didn't review that one either. I watched the third and final one, Return Of The King and just had to review it!

I started to read the Lord Of The Rings trilogy years ago but only got as far as half-way through The Two Towers, so when I found out the book was also being made into 3 films I decided to watch them instead. I really enjoyed the first two films although I found The Two Towers a little annoying the way it kept jumping about. However, Return Of The King surpassed all my expectations and is a very fitting end to the Lord Of The Rings trilogy.

Naturally Return Of The King follows on from where The Two Towers film ended however just to get you back into the swing of things, as it were, at the start of the film we are shown how the evil power of the Ring corrupts Smeagol and how he becomes Gollum and as soon as that is done we rejoin Sam and Frodo.

In Return Of The King there are plenty of issues to be resolved. Frodo and Sam continuing on their dangerous journey to Mount Doom, led by the treacherous Gollum, to destroy the Ring. Then there is Aragorn, who, as rightful heir to the throne, must overcome just a few obstacles, physical and mental, in his attempt to claim the crown and become King of Gondor. However, while trying to fulfil his destiny, Aragorn, with the help of Gandalf, must also try to unite the great kingdoms of Rohan and Gondor as well as the Race Of Men to defend Middle Earth, with the help of elves, dwarves and hobbits, against Sauron and his mighty armies.

For those people who persevered and read the Lord Of The Rings trilogy this film is the final chance to see if Peter Jackson has continued to stay as faithful as possible to the books. For others, like me who didn't complete reading the books or didn't even read the books at all then this is the chance to see the fina
l instalment of this epic tale that has had us, well me definitely, mesmerised for 3 years.

The film works well for both sets of people; as for those dedicated followers of the books it is their chance to see the pages come to life on the big screen, for the rest of us it is another, albeit final, chance to see the outcome of this very big adventure.

My 16 year old daughter (who has read Lord Of The Rings twice) has informed me that this film doesn't follow the book strictly and this is also the case with the other films in the trilogy. I have also read/heard this elsewhere but from that information it seems Peter Jackson has got pretty close and whatever is missing doesn't really detract from the overall story anyway.

In Return Of The King there are new creatures and enemies for our heroes to battle against and they appear on the big screen as I imagined them to be. For me, and I imagine many other people, Peter Jackson and his crew of many have faithfully brought to life just about every character from the book and the attention to detail is excellent. Admittedly, the CGI isn't faultless but it is pretty close and very believable.

The New Zealand landscape also represents Middle Earth in jaw-dropping detail. In short the scenery is stunning and adds an extra brilliant dimension to the film. Return Of The King, and the other two films in the trilogy, could have gone horribly wrong if not done correctly but Jackson, an avid Lord Of The Rings fan himself, has put everything into this to bring the trilogy to life and although he has brought Lord Of The Rings to the big screen in the way he imagined it I am quite sure, in my opinion, that this is probably how all Lord Of The Rings fans wanted to see it and is as we all imagined such is the way that Tolkein wrote the book.

Here we have a great end to a great story in Return Of The King and in addition to the brilliant scenery the battle scenes are too impos
sible to describe although out of this world would come quite close. For example, the battle at Helm's Deep in The Two Towers is a minor skirmish compared to what we are treated to in Return Of The King. Again, the attention to detail is magnificent and the integration of CGI and real characters is almost flawless. Another attribute of this film, well all 3 really, is the excellent music score which adds an extra dimension resulting in a brilliantly charged atmosphere that does not fail in stirring up the emotions.

The acting is superb and every character is utterly believable. I suppose this is quite natural when you consider all three films in the trilogy were made at the same time so it is safe to assume, and is evident from the performances, that all the actors/actresses really got into character which further enhances the film.

I don't really think there is any one main character even though the main gist of the story is about Frodo getting to Mount Doom to destroy the Ring, as all the principal personalities get a fair share of the screen, and again hats off to Jackson for developing the many characters so well from the book. However, in Return Of The King if I had to single out one person for their efforts then it would have to be Sean Astin as Sam who was brilliant as Frodo's loyal minder, travel companion and life-long friend.

Further, because each character has been brought to life on the big screen so well I found I both identified and empathised with them all. The credibility of our heroes and the magnificence of the story oozes from the screen and as the film captured my imagination before long I felt was in the story with them fighting the same battles, sharing the same hopes and the same despair. It is just like that feeling you get when you become entranced while reading a really good book, turning each page without realising such is your need to find how the story unfolds. This is, for me, the same feel
ing I had while watching Return Of The King, waiting with excitement and some trepidation for the next scene.

However, just like reading a good book, whilst hoping the heroes see it through triumphantly to the end, there are those feelings wondering what each new page will bring but also a kind of sadness that before long the story will end even though we don't want it to and this is exactly the same in the film. No matter how much we want the adventure to continue inevitably it must, and does, come to an end.

At 210 minutes Return Of The King is by far the longest of the trilogy, and whilst my bum survived the near 3 hour marathons of Fellowship Of The Ring and The Two Towers it was going to be severely tested for the 3½ hours of Return Of The King. The magnificence of the first two films though, for me, meant that watching the climax of this great story wasn't going to be so daunting and in fact the time seemed to go quite quickly.

Although this final instalment is very long there is a lot packed into that time. At the Cinema we went to there was an intermission about half-way through the film. A timely break to stretch the legs for 10 - 15 minutes, go to the toilet and restock oneself with drinks and something to eat. Surprisingly though not that many people took advantage of the intermission and the majority of the cinema goers stayed in their seats eagerly awaiting the restart of the film.

There are a number of endings in Return Of The King and while there has been some debate where Jackson should have ended the film I feel all the endings shown are very relevant and would leave a lot of people cheated as to the outcome of certain sub-plots and what happened to the principal characters if they were not included. I'm trying really hard here not to give anything away but to try and emphasise the importance of the endings I will give one example where one particular ending had slightly more impact on me
than others.

Without using any details all I will say is that in the ending I am referring to the characters involved have time to reflect on what they had achieved, how it had affected and
changed them whilst trying to fit back into 'normal' life, or the life they had before this quest. It is a very poignant moment and it kind of shows the kind of mood often felt by Military personnel after conflict or anybody who has experienced something that has such a profound effect on them.

On another level I feel in some ways it also reflects us, the viewers, in that we have experienced this great masterpiece of a film, lived the adventure with these characters and now there is the realisation it has come to an end, and for a while at least, there is a kind of emptiness, a loss and the feeling that it may never be replaced. This, in my opinion, is how powerful the story really is. For the past 3 years I have followed this story, been caught up in the adventure and eagerly awaited the next instalment but now it's over.

There is something else I must tell you about this film and while I am slightly embarrassed to do so I am not ashamed to say that at one particular point, in one of the endings to be precise, I welled up, such was the enormity of the moment and I'm sure I am not alone in that, am I?

Peter Jackson has done a brilliant job bringing the Lord Of The Rings to the big screen and I think it has been a tremendous success and in doing so has set a new high standard that will be very hard to match indeed. The Lord Of The Rings film trilogy is a masterpiece that will stand the test of time and be a classic epic for many years and I dare anyone, in the future, to try and remake it because I feel it will fail and not measure up to the standard set here.

For those of you reading this review who have already seen Return Of The King then I hope this review makes sense and perhaps you understand and identif
y with what I am saying. For those of you who haven't seen this film yet then I urge you to do so as I can't recommend this film highly enough.

It is known that Jackson has plans to bring The Hobbit to the big screen, and for one I can't wait for that, but legal rights issues have delayed any plans to do so yet, and, apparently, Jackson is contracted to remake King Kong before he can even think about starting to film The Hobbit.

So my fellow dooyooers it is time to finish this review and I will do by repeating the words I didn't want to see after watching Return Of The King...

The End.

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