Movie Thoughts: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

• Released: 17 December 2003
• Directed by: Peter Jackson
• Running time: 4 h 11 min
• Rating 5/5

Synopsis

After the defeat of Saruman's armies, Sauron's forces are gathering to attack Minas Tirith, all the while Frodo, Sam and Gollum are climbing the final stretches to Mount Doom in order to destroy the Ring.

My Thoughts

Well, this is it. My favorite of the three. If I were to rank them, it would be Return of the King as my favorite, followed by Fellowship of the Ring, with Two Towers coming in last though still being amazing as well. It's just the weakest of the best. 

Does Return still hold up? Abso-fucking-lutely. If you were to ask me what my favorite trilogy was, it would obviously be Lord of the Rings, but this one is just hands down my favorite. It has the most epic battles, many of my favorite moments, and everything comes together so perfectly. 

I do absolutely recommend you watch the extended edition of this one. Yes, it is very long, but Saruman deserves to be wrapped up and addressed after his presence in the second movie. That, and it just deserves to be enjoyed this way. It wraps up some questions (such as what happened to Gothmog) and is just allround awesome.

The characters all are just so great in this, I love all of them (or hate them, in case of the villains. Either way I'm very passionate about them). Frodo's and Sam's relationship is tested and prevails, Smeagol/Gollum enacts his dark plan, the friendship between Gimli and Legolas comes full circle, Aragorn gets not only his throne but also his love, Eowyn and the other Hobbits get their moments to shine, it's all just so perfect. I just feel so much for these people, you want them to succeed so badly. 

The CGI still holds up rather well, as there's only one Warg in this and the rest pretty much looks fine or even great in Gollum's case. I also haven't brought up how much I just love the practical effects and makeup in this. The Hobbit movies really made me realize how much I miss non-CGI Orcs. They don't even look that good over there. 

The Battle of Pelenor Fields is my absolute favorite battle in quite literally anything. It's so grand and epic, nothing quite rivals it so far that I've seen. I just continuously am engaged during the entirety of it and it just has such variation, unlike Helm's Deep which was pretty much straightforward "Uruk-hai attack fortress" with little to no variation in enemies. In Pelenor, we have the Orcs, the Trolls, one Warg, the Nazgul and their Fell Beasts, various peoples and their Oliphaunts/ships, the undead army, the Rohirrim, etc. It's just a whole lot going on with a lot of variation in locations and forces. Yes, it goes on for a long time, but it's so worth it to see the most epic battle I've so far seen in film.

Are there really too many endings, like so many people say? Honestly, I'd say, no. These movies are so huge (especially if you watched the extendeds) that they deserve a big wrap-up. I'm personally happy that the Scouring of the Shire was left out, and love the way the epilogues are concluded as it is. We needed to see the Fellowship re-unite, we needed to see Aragorn's coronation, we needed to see the Hobbits arrive back at the Shire, we needed to see Frodo leave for Valinor. The only one that arguably could've been cut was the very last scene of Sam with his family, but even that I feel adds a lot to see that Sam now will continue his life in the Shire with his new family and move on, though he won't forget his friend Frodo. It's a good conclusion if you ask me, especially with the closeup on a homely Hobbit-hole door. 

And that's it. My favorite movie of my favorite trilogy. I feel emotional every single time I watch this trilogy, and this re-watch has been no different. I could go on forever about how great it just all is. If fantasy isn't your thing, maybe these films aren't, either, but at least give them a go once.