The Return of The King

Directed by Peter Jackson; screenplay by Frances Walsh. Starring Sean Astin, Sean Bean, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, Viggo Mortensen, John Rhys-Davies, Andy Serkis, Liv Tyler, Elija Wood, Christpher Lee and many many more.
We had a bit of a Lord of The Rings marathon in our house over Christmas! First of all we watched the extras on the new Return of the King dvd, then we went back and watched The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers before watching The Return of the King – all of which were extended editions. As you can imagine, we had a couple of late nights – 3am on boxing day! But it was worth it. I agree with those that have only watched the first film of the trilogy, that it is a bit boring, but it really was just setting up the story and in the second one it gets going and the third one is by far the best, so they’re worth sticking to.
I can’t compare the film to the book as I never got past The Fellowship. This film though is excellent and I am so pleased they swept the boards at Oscar time. The scenery continues to be stunning, the special effects are amazing and totally believable, and the acting is still perfect. There’s some touching and emotional moments between the characters, as well as all the action of the battles needed to be fought. A criticism could be that there are too many endings, and it does drag on a bit at the end, but when you have just watched all 3 films in a row, it doesn’t seem to take that long and I was glad that all the characters got their ending.
The additional features next: I love dvds that go to time and trouble for the buyer and make it worth their while, and the Lord of the Rings has to be the best ever for this. There are literally hours and hours of extras. My favourite part is usually the commentaries, but I haven’t even got to them yet. There’s interview after interview with the major people of cast and crew. From how they wrote the script, to the costume designs to the making of the creatures, to the miniatures and models, to the taming of the horses to the inspiration for the music to the goodbyes from everyone involved who had spend 3 years of their lives working on this massive project. It was so interesting and inspiring. I wish I’d trained to have some sort of career in film now. It would just be such a cool job to make sweeping dresses for elves or carve interesting shaped trees or glue on hobbits’ feet or even write a script. I suppose I could have a go at that last one, one day!