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The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Despite it's titanic scale, the siege of Minas Tirith is somehow a lower stakes battle than Helm's Deep. It's won too easily and we are never given any extra Gondorian characters to give a damn about in the siege, like how Theoden, Eowyn and Eomer gave us a way into the new land of Rohan in the last movie. Faramir is great but he's largely absent from the city, or out of action and Denethor is (rightly) not somebody we are rooting for. We've got Gandalf and Merry to fall back on but it's mostly a mass of generic men in silver armour. Maybe if they'd kept Prince Imrahil in the script and/or added a crusty old Tower Guard Captain to take Pippin under his wing and wax lyrical about the city he loves (and of course sadly die in defense of his home), it could've helped this aspect. Much of the runtime is spent building up the seemingly insurmountable threat from the vast Orc army and then they are swept away in a few minutes by the charges of the Rohirrim and the ghost forces, without anybody in Minas Tirith needing to lift a finger. Frodo and Sam seem to get from Cirith Ungol to Mount Doom very quickly and a little too easily.
None of those narrative quibbles really matter though because 'The Return of the King' is such a thrilling, emotional and spectacular adventure. The lighting of the beacons, across sweeping shots of mountains backed by Howard Shore's heroic music is a majestic sequence. The speech by Theoden before the horse charge is so well done. The inter-cutting of Pippin's lament, Denethor's gluttony and Faramir's sacrifice is visual poetry. Legolas taking down the Oliphaunt single-handily is a classic (surely inspired by the AT-AT battle in Star Wars). All the scenes with Frodo and Sam are so beautiful played by the two actors. The Sharkey ending is wisely removed, I never liked it, The Shire should remain this unchanging blissfully ignorant idyll, for our changed Hobbit heroes to return to. On the subject of endings, I was surprised that people raised the length of it (a 45-minute coda) because I was familiar with the book (it was drastically shortened, if anything). With no knowledge of how this story concludes, I can see why people would find it tiresome because Jackson keeps fading to black/white, adding bits of voiceover featuring the word "ending" and many long pauses featuring swells of music. What a staggering achievement these films are, never to be repeated. Even the same team reuniting for The Hobbit couldn't quite recapture that magic.
Despite it's titanic scale, the siege of Minas Tirith is somehow a lower stakes battle than Helm's Deep. It's won too easily and we are never given any extra Gondorian characters to give a damn about in the siege, like how Theoden, Eowyn and Eomer gave us a way into the new land of Rohan in the last movie. Faramir is great but he's largely absent from the city, or out of action and Denethor is (rightly) not somebody we are rooting for. We've got Gandalf and Merry to fall back on but it's mostly a mass of generic men in silver armour. Maybe if they'd kept Prince Imrahil in the script and/or added a crusty old Tower Guard Captain to take Pippin under his wing and wax lyrical about the city he loves (and of course sadly die in defense of his home), it could've helped this aspect. Much of the runtime is spent building up the seemingly insurmountable threat from the vast Orc army and then they are swept away in a few minutes by the charges of the Rohirrim and the ghost forces, without anybody in Minas Tirith needing to lift a finger. Frodo and Sam seem to get from Cirith Ungol to Mount Doom very quickly and a little too easily.
None of those narrative quibbles really matter though because 'The Return of the King' is such a thrilling, emotional and spectacular adventure. The lighting of the beacons, across sweeping shots of mountains backed by Howard Shore's heroic music is a majestic sequence. The speech by Theoden before the horse charge is so well done. The inter-cutting of Pippin's lament, Denethor's gluttony and Faramir's sacrifice is visual poetry. Legolas taking down the Oliphaunt single-handily is a classic (surely inspired by the AT-AT battle in Star Wars). All the scenes with Frodo and Sam are so beautiful played by the two actors. The Sharkey ending is wisely removed, I never liked it, The Shire should remain this unchanging blissfully ignorant idyll, for our changed Hobbit heroes to return to. On the subject of endings, I was surprised that people raised the length of it (a 45-minute coda) because I was familiar with the book (it was drastically shortened, if anything). With no knowledge of how this story concludes, I can see why people would find it tiresome because Jackson keeps fading to black/white, adding bits of voiceover featuring the word "ending" and many long pauses featuring swells of music. What a staggering achievement these films are, never to be repeated. Even the same team reuniting for The Hobbit couldn't quite recapture that magic.