"The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" Too Long/Short for it's Own Good?

 

    Obligatory reminder that this is me talking about both the film and the book in one review. Anyways, I wouldn't say Return of the King is my favourite book in the series, I think that definitely has to be The Two Towers. Funnily enough, a part of me thinks that the book and it's film counterpart have sort of the opposite issue. Return of the King, the novel is good, except it's basically "the siege of Minas Tirith," like three chapters of Sam and Frodo's journey, then over a hundred pages of just epilogue pretty much. Don't get me wrong, I don't think this was entirely the wrong decision, frankly everything but the actual journey to toss the ring into the fire was interesting at that point, and there's only so much you can do before they actually throw the ring away, hence it only being three chapters. Sadly, I just don't think the scouring of the Shire is a particularly compelling adventure. You don't really have much evidence of the hobbits being competent fighters at any point in the story, but it mainly exists just to tie up the Saruman thread and prove that they'll be okay without Gandalf and company around. 

    On the other hand, even the theatrical release for this final third of the trilogy is three hours long, yet it still feels like it's left a lot of good, important meat on the bone? It's like when you order food at an all-you-can-eat place, and the servers start handing your food to you all at once, instead of pacing it out and letting everyone at the table eat the dishes at an appropriate speed. You're liable to miss something and it's just a lot at once, even if the food's good. All of this to say that the film's still good, but sometimes you're watching them gloss over things and you wonder how much of it was Jackson needing to make sure he hit certain story beats and how much of it was time constraints they couldn't hit. Let's talk about it.

    The most immediate one is that Saruman only dies in the extended editions. I completely forgot this was an extended edition only thing and was patiently waiting the whole film for them to quickly get it over with, but it never really happened. Like they just never show him? They literally mention him by name and Treebeard is like "what do you want to do with him?" and Gimli is like "kill him" but Gandalf is like "he has no more power" so they just leave without even a cameo of him shriveled up. Like was another 10 seconds really going to kill you? I don't get why that was cut out. Another one would be the Palantir's, which is even more baffling because they do appear to have some importance at the beginning of the film only for it to be used as a plot device to send them to Gondor. Like you're not going to have Aragorn reveal himself? You're not going to reveal that Denethor?

    I mean I've already complained about Faramir being kind of comically evil but also you're not going to at least show Denethor using the Palantir? It just makes him end up feeling more absurdly evil. All he does it send his own son to death, cry when his last son dies, then burns himself to death. I could not imagine watching this part of the film without reading the book, because it would make no sense to me. Which is where the filmic counterparts to The Lord of the Rings trilogy kind of confuses me. On one hand, they're trying to make the characters feel a little less flat, making them a little more gray to be interesting, but at the same time often they just swing the pendulum completely the other way, and they still end up flat, but just less evil and less whimsical like it should in this specific fantasy world imo.

    Like I get what they were doing showing Sam get angry, but also you could have shown the ring's influence growing on  Frodo without making Gollum seem like some genius manipulator. Though I suppose it did allow Frodo to do slightly more in the sense that he escaped Shelob's lair by himself. Honestly, I don't mind them making the hobbits seem at least somewhat combat capable, even if Sam's victory against Shelob seemed pretty unlikely, because at least it gives them a reason to be there on the battlefield. Other than that I don't really have too many more complaints about the changes they made from film to novel. I enjoyed both greatly, but I think they both suffer from their own pacing issues. 

    Like I certainly enjoyed all of the downtime in between battles in the novel, whether it be Aragorn finally walking amongst his own people, healing them and revealing himself to them. Or him and Gandalf finding a new sapling to plant in Minas Tirith. But at the same time I can see why they were cut they would be nice to have's but weren't essential because this film was already teetering on the edge of dragging on too long. Though I think that's really a testament to the battles and how impressive they were. Even if they took up the majority of the film I loved every bit of the action., whether it be Eowyn slaying the Witch King, pretty much every scene Gimli, Aragorn and Legolas are in or even Sam and Frodo's fights.

Final Score: 85/100

    I mean it's a gorgeous film with great colours that does justice to the novel. I can't imagine it any other way, even with the changes I disagree with. I mean I'm literally complaining that the three hour film doesn't have more, I'm basically begging for the director's cut at this point, though I'm sure no one would agree to letting any director release a four hour film for mass consumption. I will say perhaps by the end I was becoming a little stretched thin like Bilbo near the end of his tenure at Bag's End. I have been quite intent on consuming this series, trying to give a little bit of a break in between to let everything breathe. Of course the only issue is that frankly the Sam and Frodo parts are just a step below the other parts so I just end up consuming them at a slower speed. Oh well it doesn't really matter if I ever have kids I'm forcing them to watch/read it all.