Movies I’ve Seen – LotR: Return of the King

Alright, first things first. Full disclosure: I’ve never read the Rings trilogy nor do I ever expect to. Fantasy has never been very interesting to me. Swords and sorcery, knights and maidens, magic and mystery and all that bollocks doesn’t appeal much to me. My mother asked the other day why something like Tolkein’s masterpiece doesn’t appeal to me while I’ll eagerly devour every word of any pulpy Star Wars related book that gets put up on the shelves. I had to think a minute but I think the answer is: because it’s possible. Star Wars is largely possible, I think, given time and technological development. No amount of wishing by morbidly obese gits in tights and ill-fitting tunics is going to make a time of wizardry and fair maidenheads come true but there’s every reason to think one day we’ll have laser guns and faster than light travel. So much for Tolkein.

Nevertheless, I have enjoyed the Lord of the Rings flicks so far. I think I actually liked The Two Towers more than The Fellowship of the Ring. It had more action, more things I could understand and get behind. I did not particularly like The Return of the King though and I’m still not sure why.

I don’t know why the rest of the known world thinks RotK is the greatest piece of cinema since Edison’s Black Maria was retired and I don’t. I agree with them that the Matrix sequels are crap. Hell, I thought the first Matrix flick was crap. I agree the Star Wars prequels are crap. Why don’t I see what everyone else sees in RotK?

The best I’ve been able to come up with is that there was no mystery to the last film. In the first two, especially to someone with barely a passing acquaintance with the books, there were always new things to be discovered, new characters to be introduced and a world full of possibilities. You knew how it would all end, of course, you just didn’t know how they’d get there. The third flick had no anticipation to it at all. We all knew the main characters would live. We knew Aragorn would be King. We knew Frodo would pull it off, etc. RotK ended up just being an amalgam of the other two flicks. Big battle scene – oh well, been there done that. Nutty/evil king/protector – yep, saw that one too. Orcs, goblins, assorted nastiness and more Gollum – bloody *yawn*.

I’ve also just read an article which says Jackson Lifetime-ized the books when he made the flick. They say the whole scene where Frodo sends Sam home is bollocks, never happened, it was just tossed in to add “psychological tension.” Horseshit. I suppose showing a poor fellow carrying around the most evil object in the world and being buoyed up by his pal’s near-worship of him didn’t create enough tension. What a dink.

Pity. The LotR series did have the possibility of going down in history as the greatest trilogy of all time. It’s still in the running but I think the whole thing stumbled with the third flick. It was fine, a good enough way to pass an afternoon but it didn’t deliver the emotional high that one expects of a great climax.