Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...

It’s over.

That’s hard to grasp right now. Intellectually, I can accept it. LORD OF THE RINGS was announced as three films. We’ve seen all three films. They’ve told the whole story. All of that makes perfect logical sense and isn’t the least bit emotional. Still, it feels like we’ve just settled into this amazing world conjured up by Peter Jackson and his collaborators, and saying goodbye at this point just doesn’t add up.

There’s no denying it, though. The ship has sailed for the Grey Havens, the Eye has gone dark, and Samwise Gamgee has returned to the Shire.

Sure, I know there’s an EXTENDED EDITION of RETURN OF THE KING coming out some time in 2004, but that doesn’t negate the strange sensation that hit me like a ton of bricks as I walked out of the DGA Theater on Thanksgiving Day. It was only amplified by my second viewing at BNAT over the weekend. As long as I’ve known Harry... as long as there’s been an AICN I’ve been involved with... there’s been the idea of LORD OF THE RINGS... the promise of the entire journey brought to life. And it was always this vague thing out there... this thing that was so much fun to speculate about and so much fun to cover and so much fun to imagine... this ridiculous notion that didn’t seem truly possible. And even with the release of FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING and THE TWO TOWERS, it still all was part of a build-up, an increasingly urgent rush towards one moment. One idea. One goal.

The destruction of the One Ring.

Just as all of the STAR WARS prequel trilogy essentially exists to service one moment, The Duel, J.R.R. Tolkien’s story is basically about the performance of this one task by Frodo Baggins. Which is not to say that the tapestry into which this story thread is woven is anything less than remarkable in terms of thematic richness and character depth. It’s just that... having seen what I’ve seen now... I find myself asking different questions about the entire series of films, sorting through a new set of reactions to the first two movies that springs from the new context I have in which to view them.

I’m actually glad circumstance kept me from writing about the film until I’d seen it a second time. It’s forced me to keep thinking about it. So often, film criticism is a quick reaction, a snap judgment, and I often wonder if critics would feel differently if they let a film set in for a while before putting pen to paper, so to speak. It’s certainly given me room to define some things that don’t sit well about the film’s construction.

It’s also fully sunk in now... these films represent a high point for genre filmmaking that will be nearly impossible to equal or surpass.

It made me laugh last week to see how every little chat room comment I made or brief remark in an intro got microanalyzed, but I understand. People have a lot emotionally invested in the films so far, and we live in an age where Hype almost always equals disappointment. I’ve been flooded with e-mail from fans who just want to know... is it good? That’s a bizarre question. I mean, you guys saw the first two films, right? You know whether or not you like those, right? There are people who are totally devoted to the books who have not been able to get past their adaptation issues. There are people who have never read the books who love the films on their own. And there are a whole spectrum of fan reactions between those extremes. I can’t speak for your experience, or your flexibility towards the original work. All I can do is discuss how the film overwhelmed me and why.

And make no mistake. It’s overwhelming. It’s incredibly powerful, with battle sequences that will sweep over you like virtual reality and emotional crescendos that would be impossible to hit in a single film. This movie has the unenviable task of summing up everything that still needs to be said about this world and these characters and the ideas behind the fantasy, and it has to do it within a certain running time. It’s a nearly-impossible juggling act, and it is to Peter Jackson’s enormous credit that he pulls it off. Truth be told, this film should be longer. No real fan would mind, but the general moviegoing public might. I can accept New Line’s decision to create a theatrical version, but that doesn’t mean I like it in this case. To my mind, FELLOWSHIP is still the best theatrical cut of the three films. I suspect that when RETURN OF THE KING is given the Extended Edition treatment in August, it will be the crowning (no pun intended) achievement of the series. For now, it comes maddeningly close, and how much you are willing to forgive the minor faults will determine how you personally rank it.

For the record... I am not a rabid book purist. In fact, I haven’t read the books since I was ten, and I don’t plan to read them again until after I see the final ROTK cut. All I care about is how they play as films.

I like the way the film draws you back into the world of Middle-Earth. Just like the wonderful opening sequence of THE TWO TOWERS, this movie assumes you’ve seen the first two movies, and it makes no apologies for dropping you right back into the midst of things. This time, we start far from the main action of the films, away from the days of war and growing shadow. In fact, we start before any of the major players of this Great Conflict are even involved, picking up with two cousins fishing a peaceful river. Smeagol (Andy Serkis) and Deagol (Thomas Robins) are just sharing a quiet afternoon until Deagol gets pulled overboard and underwater. That’s where Deagol finds a simple gold ring buried in the mud. So much of this series has to do with the impact of individual choice on the larger world, and that’s never more clear than in this film. If Deagol had never picked up that ring, then Smeagol never would have seen it. He never would have been tempted. And he never would have murdered Deagol to get hold of the ring, a decision that led to his devolution into Gollum. That sad and horrific gradual change bridges the opening scene to Sam (Sean Astin) and Frodo (Elijah Wood), perched on the edge of Mordor, true despair finally settling in. Gollum’s with them, leading them, and the entire prologue taken as a whole has an interesting effect. The hard-won sympathy we felt for Gollum by the end of THE TWO TOWERS is suddenly underscored by suspicion and disgust. That’s important, considering the journey in this final film.

One of the things that makes LORD OF THE RINGS so wonderful as a film series is the way each picture has its own feel, its own focus, even as they manage to tell one tremendous story. Although Peter Jackson shot most of his epic in one fell swoop, with the same cinematographer and the same costumers and the same designers and FX teams and stuntmen and composer. In all the major departments, only one thing changed from film to film, and I think that’s what really gives each one an individual identity. John Gilbert cut FELLOWSHIP, Michael (ONCE WERE WARRIORS) Horton cut TWO TOWERS, and Jamie Selkirk edited this final chapter. Walking into this entire enterprise, Jackson identified ROTK as the “big” picture, and he’s right. No question. This is the film that has to bring it all together. As a result, Jackson put Selkirk on this picture from the very start, keeping him focused on the climax of all things. This is, after all, one of Jackson’s oldest collaborators. Selkirk cut THE FRIGHTENERS, HEAVENLY CREATURES, BRAINDEAD, MEET THE FEEBLES, and BAD TASTE. He’s one of the guys who helped Jackson define his overall style as a filmmaker. There are a million things I’m sure I still have to learn about filmmaking, but one thing I know for sure is that if you want to succeed, you need to surround yourself with people you trust, especially when it’s important. Jackson’s been blessed with strong collaborators across the board on these films, but it’s Selkirk who has to stick this particular landing. One of the tricks in building this film is knowing when to cut from story to story, how to build the rhythms of each particular subplot, how to pay things off, and what order to do it in. There’s a stretch of about an hour and a half in the middle of this movie that is flawless, an education in action filmmaking, emotionally draining and visionary, rousing in a way that left me shaking both times I saw the film. For that section of the film alone, Selkirk and Jackson deserve Best Editing and Best Director at this year’s Oscars.

People will complain about the ending. Or, more specifically, they’ll complain about the endings. There are about five conclusions in a row, places where you could stop the movie. Each one would be dramatically satisfying for the audience. The first time I saw the film, it felt like a very long final stretch. Once the fate of the Ring is resolved, it felt like there was still a lot of movie left, and I’ll confess... I’m so fucking conditioned by Hollywood’s preferred structure that I found myself a little impatient. Some might argue that this stretch is shamelessly emotional, an excuse for Jackson to crank up the waterworks. But I think that’s backwards. What happens once the Ring’s been taken care of is essential, important, and some of the truest material in the entire trilogy. If Jackson chose to stop after the emotional celebration on top of Minas Tirith amidst that overjoyed crowd, there in the shade of the White Tree in full bloom, it would have been pure elation, the happiest of happy endings. Audiences would have floated out of the theater, drunk on it, and that would have been fine. It would have been better than fine.

But what comes after... well... that’s what matters. Tolkien went to war and came home, and he saw other young men come home, all of them changed. Remember, he fought in WWI, and most of the infantrymen who managed to survive that war felt it to be futile, a waste of life. Many of them never really fit back into their old lives again. The ones who did were typically the ones who had something to come back to, the ones who held precious pictures in their hearts, driven by them, determined. When we see The Shire in this film, it’s like coming up from underwater, just this side of drowning, and finally getting that much-needed lungful of air. It’s impossibly beautiful, unspeakably sweet. And as soon as we see familiar faces again, and we see how nothing’s changed, how it’s still pure and quiet and alive, the real importance of everything we’ve seen gets underlined. This is what was worth coming home to. This is what kept Pippin and Merry (oddly, Merry’s emphatic “We will see the Shire again” line from the trailer is nowhere to be found) and Frodo and especially Same have all been fighting for and holding on to.

More on Sam later. Remind me.

If Jackson ended the film with the scene at the Green Dragon, or even at the festivities right after, that would have been another level of meaning added, but still just as happy as the previous ending. Viewers still would have been able to leave cushioned by that happy dream, and, again, that would have been fine. Better than fine.

And it’s what comes after, Frodo’s ending, Gandalf’s ending, Bilbo’s ending... these are the moments that push this series from great to the greatest. We will discuss and debate these moments as long as we still discuss and debate movies. This is where Jackson changes the mood, shifting the film from the hazy golden joy of summer to the richer autumnal splashes of melancholy. These moments are about the ones we lose, the ones who never learn to taste the strawberries again, the ones who can’t adjust or connect. This ending makes the series. And if that’s where the film stopped, it would be a masterpiece.

So it all comes down to what comes after, the one last crane shot that starts high above a home in Hobbiton and ends with a final push-in on a door, where we finally see those words, so hard-won, so richly earned – “The End.” It’s the signature, the thumbprint that reminds us that no matter how beautiful and perfect this all is, no matter how grand the fantasy, this is ultimately a human story. The greatest art is messy around the edges, shaggy, slightly untamed. By making sure to end his films on this precise beat, Jackson lays bare his own Hobbit heart. It’s fucking beautiful, and it makes me wish for more superlatives to hurl. It is not the happy ending of childhood, in which the return to the status quo is all we desire. It is the happy ending of someone who has lived and loved and lost, someone scarred and beaten by life but unbroken. It is a happy ending we all have within our grasp. It is the happy ending of finding a place in this world that gives us peace.

I love that this film ultimately belongs to Sam. I’ll say this clearly: give Sean Astin an Oscar. If you’re reading this and you’re a voting member of the Academy, then I implore you: give Sean Astin an Oscar. Heroism wears many faces in Middle-Earth, but none more heroic than Samwise Gamgee. His powerfully good heart carries the day in every way. He doesn’t fight like Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) or Legolas (Orlando Bloom). He’s not able to make sport of battle the way they are. And he’s not a merciless machine like Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) either. The foes he faces are terrifying, but he never hesitates. In particular, his confrontation with Shelob is remarkable, a display of reward-worthy valor as great as any other single act in the trilogy, heroic and suicidal and inspirational. His sense of mounting frustration in the film’s first half is what makes his devotion to Frodo so touching. I was recently working on a project where the studio hooked me up with a military advisor, and we were talking about a combat scenario. He asked me who was braver, the first person into a room, or the second? He explained that the first person in has no real idea what they’re facing, while the second one in knows exactly what they’re facing, but goes in anyway. Samwise knows exactly what Gollum’s planning, and he knows what Mordor is, and he looks Shelob square in the eye, and he fights anyway. This movie had a number of emotional high points for me, and one of the most emphatic gut punches is a line spoken by Sam on the side of Mount Doom. “I cannot carry it for you... but I will carry you.” There’s such simple, selfless heroism in that line that it broke my heart. And at the very end, seeing Sam hold a little girl and knowing it’s really Sean’s daughter, there’s something beautiful and fitting about it, a collision between the fantasy and the real that seems particularly poignant and resonant.

But if you’re worried that this film’s going to be all about hobbits hugging and tearful goodbyes, don’t be. The big emotional beats are used as punctuation, moments of quiet grace amidst the staggering spectacle that marks the battle scenes. I love the way the siege on Minas Tirith seems to gradually heat up. There’s no formal start to things. There’s just this one creepy Orc that looks like a genetic mix between a pig and a potato, but riddled with tumors, leading a ton of other creepy Orcs right up to the gates of the city, where they toss the severed heads of the men who rode with the mortally wounded Faramir (David Wenham) over the walls to terrorize the people gathered there. Then their trolls start packing the catapults so they can just beat on the walls of the city for a while and loosen things up. The conflict continues to escalate. Day turns to night. By the end of the sequence, it turns back to day again. More and more warriors join the fight on all sides, and all sorts of incredible weaponry is brought to the fray. Oliphaunts, an Army of the Dead, the Nazgul, a Witch King, the Riders of Rohan, all sizes of trolls, a powerful white wizard and two hobbits filled with unlikely courage all play their parts in this battle. Both Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd) comes to further prominence in this film, and they both get great material to play here. The interplay between Merry and Eowyn (Miranda Otto) is lovely and wistful and, eventually, heart-poundingly exciting. Pippin and Gandalf (Ian McKellan, rounding out the trilogy with his best performance yet) prove to make a great pair, and when Gandalf explains death to Pippin, it’s as powerful a moment as you’ll see in a film this year. King Theoden (Bernard Hill) doesn’t have as much to do in this film, but every moment he’s onscreen is pure joy. He’s the revelation of this series for me. I already felt Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Viggo Mortensen, Ian McKellen, Ian Holm, Hugo Weaving, and Christopher Lee were great performers before this film series began. Bernard Hill was an incredible surprise in THE TWO TOWERS, and the moment where he speaks to his riders before the charge on Pelennor Fields is perhaps the single greatest call to arms I’ve ever seen in any movie.

Which brings me to one of my problems. The title of this film is THE RETURN OF THE KING. Viggo Mortensen’s performance as Aragorn is one of the lynchpins of the entire trilogy. In the first two films, I’ve been deeply impressed by his low-key naturalism. Here, though, it felt like Aragorn was a little passive, all things considered. He’s good, don’t get me wrong. But when he finally gets around to giving his big speech to stir the troops, they’re already standing on the edge of Mordor. They’ve already marched into battle. They’ve already survived Minas Tirith. Admittedly, when those black gates roll back, it’d cause even the bravest of men to clench up a bit, but still... it comes so late in the game that it feels like Aragorn is less of a leader than Gandalf or Theoden, both of whom play major roles in this film. The greatest obstacle for Aragorn to face in this film is getting the Army of the Dead to fight for him, and it’s a fairly easy thing. He just shows off his sword a bit and they sign right up. As much as I wanted to be blown away by Aragorn’s final transformation into the King of Gondor, it never really happened. It seems like something that takes place offscreen, a personal moment we don’t see. It doesn’t derail the film for me, but it’s definitely been a sticking point as I think back on it.

The handling of the Denethor (John Noble) storyline is the other big problem for me, and it’s a crying shame. One of the greatest scenes in the movie deals with Denethor, after he’s sent his son into a hopeless battle, knowing full well he’s going to be killed, listening to Pippen sing a mournful song. It’s exquisite filmmaking. Actually, most of Denethor’s individual moments are well-handled, including the operatic release of the film’s ending. The problem is that they don’t make sense in the context of these films. We don’t know enough about Denethor to explain his madness. We certainly don’t know enough about him to justify his ultimate actions towards Faramir involving the funeral pyre. More than any other storyline in the films, this one feels truncated by this theatrical running time. It ends up being frustrating because, if it makes this little sense, it might have been better to scale it back even further and make room for material regarding the stories that were working well and could have used the extra time. If there’s anything I’m looking forward to on the eventual restored DVD edition for this film, it’s seeing how Denethor was meant to be handled. I can’t imagine this is the exact story Jackson and his co-writers set out to tell, and as frustrated as I was by it, they must be doubly so.

In the end, though, even these complaints aren’t enough to subtract from what is a masterful experience, a sort of master’s class in fantasy filmmaking. I know I’ve mentioned the dreaded “O” word a few times in this piece, but I don’t really care if this film wins awards or not. I’ve had my experience with it, and I got to look Peter Jackson in the eye last weekend and say “Thank you.” That’s good enough for me. What I hope is that somewhere out there, some eight-year-old is seeing these movies with their parents, and something’s been lit inside of them... a fire as bright as any of the beacons between Gondor and Rohan... and they’re going to carry that fire with them as they grow up so that some day, they can make something equally as effective and powerful. If Peter Jackson has awoken even one future filmmaker... and I suspect he’s done a lot more than that... then these films aren’t just fantasy. They will have reached into the real world and sent someone out on a real quest, a great adventure, and we’ll all be the richer for it.

Thank you, New Line. Thank you, Peter Jackson. Thank you, Fran and Philippa and Howard Shore and Richard Taylor and Randy Cook and Joe Latteri and Alan Lee and John Howe. Thank you to each and every person who poured their blood, sweat, and tears into making these films live and breathe. Thank you to the cast. Thank you to the crew. Thank you to J.R.R. Tolkien for being an untrained writer who didn’t know how to formally structure something. Thank you to all those filmmakers who tried to make LOTR over the years and failed, because you might have kept this version from happening. One paragraph hardly seems enough to sum up how much I appreciate this reminder of what it is that we all strive for as storytellers, but it will have to do. Right now, I want to wrap it up and get to work on my own stories. I feel energized by my exposure to the LORD OF THE RINGS, as I have for the last three years, and now, I have no choice if I want this sort of feeling. I have to go out and make something of my own. I have to have my own adventures. The time has come, and it’s really sinking in...

It’s over.

But, oh... what a wonderful ride.