Peter Jackson’s epic ‘Tolkien trilogy’ revolutionised fantasy movies, starting with The Fellowship Of The Ring (2001), followed by The Two Towers (2002), and this closing chapter, THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING (2003). For this great Middle-earth saga to work on-screen, with original cinema versions and the full set of ‘extended editions’ many liberties were reportedly taken with JRR’s texts. As I have not read those books, my view of what’s widely acclaimed as the ultimate form of literature in its genre, and this adaptation, remains limited to an SF interpretation of the grandiose spectacle as a legend about disarmament.
It’s a triumph of genuinely noble wisdom over madness, and details valiant efforts to avert the possibility of catastrophic warfare simply by disposal of the doomsday weapon. Since the One Ring can only be un-made in the fires of Mordor, we can see this notion of a meltdown destruction putting an end to such 'evil', and so the ring becomes a prime WMD example. This notion is reflected in varied sci-fi works but, perhaps most tellingly, with the annihilation of the cyborg stealth weapon, in Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991), that saves the future for humanity.
Despite its glorification of warfare, referencing the crusades (as ‘halflings’ can be read as children), here, somewhat perversely, even the long dead are called upon to fight as ghosts. Whatever your views, this remains action cinema of repeatedly astonishing displays when levels of magical threat expands from shire (village), to fortress (city), to realm (the world). There are many grotesque fantasy horrors in Middle-earth's journey, but I always found that Shelob the giant spider is the most nightmare-inducing creature of them all. As for this movie's protracted string of awkwardly sentimental endings, I think Jackson’s ROTK should have shown the newly crowned monarch, with elf royalty, and other people, bowing to the heroic hobbits... and then a fade to black. That would have been a more sensible as the final scene.
