Return of the King- A Personal Letdown

Okay. This is it. This is the post I've been putting off writing in which I try to explain why Return of the King is my least favourite of the Lord of the Rings movies. Note that I'm not saying it was a bad movie, or that I think it sucks. I'm saying it's my least favourite. It's a preference thing. I'm going to be talking about endings, the books, and differences between the movies and books so if you haven't seen and read them all and are going to get upset if you read something that gives away an ending please stop reading.

Anyway, here it goes.

Tolkien was an incredible writer with a knack for stirring the imagination. What made the first movie so powerful for me is that Tolkien was so good at describing things that Peter Jackson was able to put what I had imagined up on a screen. My first comment after seeing Fellowship was that it was spooky how closely it had matched what had happened in my head when I read the books. Everything was just as I had imagined it. I think everyone that I saw it with who had read the book agreed. So Fellowship blew me away in that respect. Plus years of wanting to see it as a movie were finally fulfilled.

Two Towers was an incredible movie for me because of three things- the battle scenes at Helm's Deep, Gollum, and the Ents. I loved the Ents in the books and I was pretty happy with how they were handled by Jackson. I was disappointed that they didn't show up at the end of Helm's Deep like in the book, but they were there in the extended version so that bit was overlooked. That was the one little thing about the movie that always bugged me though. The battle scenes were unlike nothing I'd ever seen and made Braveheart look almost second rate, and Gollum stole the whole thing, at least until they showed the Ents wrecking Isengard which remains my favourite part of the trilogy.

So what's my beef with The Return of the King? In each movie there were parts I was really looking forward to. That's the blessing/curse of having read the books beforehand- you knew what was going to happen. Sometimes it was great because you know when the cool stuff was coming, or what the major plot points were. Unfortunately in the final film it was a curse for me. There were exactly three things I was really anticipating in The Return of the King- the journey along the Path of the Dead, Sam sneaking into the orc tower to rescue Frodo after he was attacked by Shelob, and the scouring of the Shire.

The Path of the Dead wasn't what I was expecting and it was quite a bit different from the book in that there was one big confrontation rather than a gradual build up, but for movie purposes Jackson's way probably worked just as well. It certainly wasn't a let down and the effects were just plain spooky, so the impact was there. Good enough. I was satisfied. As for Sam's rescue of Frodo, this is where the movie started to fall apart on me. This happened in the second book but was moved to the third movie for timing reasons, so I think that made me anticipate it even more, especially the way things ended in the Sam/Gollum/Frodo story in the Two Towers. Jackson followed through with his vision for the Shelob attack but the whole rescue sequence was a huge letdown for me. I haven't read the books in a few years, so my memory could be shaky on this, but didn't Sam find the ring where Frodo had been laying, then use it to get past 'The Watchers' (a really cool concept left out entirely) and sneak up the tower to save Frodo? And remember in the book how all of the orcs were terrified that there was a giant elf on the prowl, because who else could have fought off Shelob? All of that was reduced to a 30 second (at the most) bit where the rocs run when they see Sam's shadow, and then Sam telling Frodo they had to find him some clothes. Then they put on orc clothes, only to be back in their regular clothes 2 scenes later with no explanation for why they had put on orc clothes in the first place. In the book it's so they can sneak through Mordor and blend in with the thousands upon thousands of orcs who aren't even there in the movie. That whole segment from the end of Shelob's attack to the arrival at Mount Doom was so disjointed to me that I have to think that Peter Jackson filmed a much longer version and decided to cut it down for the sake of time. If so it had better be on the extended version DVD.

Finally, the scouring of the Shire. I pretty much knew all along that this wouldn't be in the theatrical release of the movie but it still bugs me. The first time I read the Lord of the Rings books I almost cried when Saruman and his gang took over the Shire. I'm serious- I was in a funk for days. The Shire was so perfect, so special, so innocent, that to have that taken away devastated me, even though things were more or less restored in the end. For me it was the most emotionally powerful part of the entire series of books. You always expect good to beat evil on the big stage, like at Mount Doom. That's the way things work. But it's when evil sneaks into your daily life that it really hits home. For me the Shire reminded me of our family cottage where I spent every summer growing up until my early teens. Maybe it's just the way we remember our childhoods but that little bit of Canoe Cove was perfect to me. Eventually things changed and we had to get rid of the cottage, and now the whole area is over-developed to the point that it hardly resembles where me and my friends used to play. That was my Shire and there were some pretty strong parallels in my head between the two places when I read Tolkien's books. I knew full well Peter Jackson couldn't portray that in a movie, but I still think the scouring of the Shire was a lesson in the trilogy- don't be so caught up fighting the bigger battles that you ignore the small ones and the things that are close to you.

Not to mention that Saruman was completely cut from the movie, leaving film-goers who didn't know any better to think that Tolkien just left him up in his tower to be guarded by Ents for all of time. And we weren't told what became of Gimli and Legolas. There just too many loose ends for my liking in Return of the King, and when you add that onto my personal disappointment at seeing my favourite parts of the second/third book changed drastically or left out the movie just failed to live up to my own expectations.

We're told that Saruman will be dealt with in the extended version but to me that's a cop-out. It's saying his role and his story aren't important enough to be included, and it's a bit insulting to me as a consumer that I have to watch a later version of the movie to have my basic questions about key plot points answered. The final theatrical release should be able to stand on its own without anyone having to say "don't worry, it'll be in the extended version." For me Return of the King was a letdown and least capable of standing on its own as a solid film. I know the extended version will clear some of that up, and I know the battle scenes were fantastic, but I really think Jackson sacrificed a lot of the storytelling for the sake of the battles. That might be fine for a lot of people, but to me a battle scene is, to a point, a battle scene, and once I saw the Battle for Helm's Deep the wow factor was gone.

In short, nothing in Return of the King blew me away, and much disappointed me.

Comments

[RingBearer]

I am in general agreement with your take on the third film, but it was always my favorite book of the three and the film has become my favorite of the three.

But I need to be in total agreement on endings. From Shelob to Mt Doom was disjointed. What did happen to Gimli and Legolas? Didn't Faramir hitch up with Eowyn? No Scouring of the Shire? Balderdash. Sam goes to Hobbiton and lives happily ever after....NOT! He heads west because he too was a ringbearer, which you rightly inform us was left out.

But the worst indignaty of all was that it ends with Frodo, Bilbo, Gandalph and host leaving Middle-Earth. The true end of the Lord of the Rings is Frodo's arrival at the shores of the undying lands...the realization that there was a reward for all the pain that he had to endure to take the Ring to Mordor.

[Ben]

Rod, I agree that the differences between the second book and movie were probably more drastic than in the third. The difference is those changes didn't matter much to me, although I would have liked to have seen more of the Entmoot. On the other hand, the changes made in the third movie were the things I were really looking forward to. That's the difference.

[Glasseyerod]

OK, I will not be the first to disagree with you. In my opinion Return of the King was the best of the 3 movies closely followed by Fellowship. I could understand you being a little disappointed with changes and omissions in Return of the King , but I think they were more drastic in Two Towers.

Your favorite characters, the Ents, scenes were changed drastically. The entmoot was supposed to end in a descision to attach Isengard. The hobbits did not need to trick Treebeard into attacking Isengard. Which means they left out the Ent March. Much like the song in the Prancing Pony was an ealier version of a modern day song, I always liked to think the Ent March inspired the childrens song "The Ants are Marching". They also left out Quickbeam who became good friends with the hobbits also.

The wild men were attacking the riders in the book on their way to Helms deep, but not Aaragor and the King. Oh and Eomer was travelling with them to Helms deep not wandering around in the fields.

In the Book: The elves never showed up at helms deep. The women and children never went to helms deep. The wildmen battled at helms deep with the orcs and Urak Hai.
In the movie the Orcs and wildmen did not get lost in the Shadow of the Forest (although they did in the extended version).

I would understand if RotK was not you favorite, but I find it shocking that it is your least favorite of the three. I think they the parts that were left out were possibly all they could leave out without making the movie 4 and a half hours long. LotR probably would not mind sitting through a movie that long, but the average movie goer just would not go to a movie that long.

Reading your post has made me want to go back and read the books again.