The Return of the King (film)

Lord of the Rings: The Return of The King is the third and final movie in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.


 * This article is about the 2003 live action film. For the 1980 animated film, see The Return of the King (1980 film).

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) is the third part in the Lord of the Rings trilogy directed by Peter Jackson, based on J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

The film premiered in Wellington, New Zealand, on December 1 2003, was attended by the director and many of the stars. Further premieres took place in major cities around the world in the days leading up to the film's worldwide theatrical release on Wednesday, December 17, 2003 with a runtime of 200 minutes (that is, 3 hours and 20 minutes).

Globally, The Return of the King is one of the highest grossing film in cinema history. At the 2004 Oscars the film won 11 awards, equalling the record shared by Ben-Hur and Titanic.

The first two films were The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, although the film's story includes later events in the section of the book The Two Towers as well as most of The Return of the King.

Awards
On January 27, 2004, the film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards:
 * Best Picture,
 * Best Director,
 * Best Original Score (Howard Shore),
 * Best Adapted Screenplay,
 * Best Art Direction,
 * Best Costume Design,
 * Best Film Editing,
 * Best Make-up,
 * Best Music (Song),
 * Best Sound Mixing,
 * Best Visual Effects;

However, none of the ensemble cast received any acting nominations. On February 29, the film won all eleven Academy Awards, winning in every category for which it was nominated. It tied with Ben-Hur and Titanic for the most Oscars ever won by a single film, and broke the previous record for a sweep set by Gigi and The Last Emperor (See Movies with eight or more Oscars).

The film was the first of the fantasy genre to win the Best Picture award.

The film's win was also only the second time a sequel had won the Best Picture category (the first being The Godfather, Part II). (However, if one counts The Silence of the Lambs as the sequel to Manhunter, then it is the third.)

In the opinion of some critics, however, this accolade was not just for the merits of the individual film, but more a reward for the trilogy as a whole, given that the first two films had not won the major awards of Best Picture or Best Director.

The film won also four Golden Globes, two MTV Movie Awards, two Grammy Awards, nine Saturn Awards and the Hugo Award.



Synopsis
As confirmed in the feature on Gollum in the Extended DVD Edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Andy Serkis appears in person in a flashback scene playing Sméagol before his degradation into Gollum. This scene was actually held over from the previous film because it was felt that it would have a greater emotional impact if audiences had already seen what the Ring's influence had done to Sméagol. In his degraded state Gollum is "played" in the movies by a CGI character whose movements are sometimes derived from a motion-capture suit worn by Serkis, and sometimes from footage of Serkis interacting with the other actors and then digitally replaced by Gollum.

The city of Minas Tirith, glimpsed briefly in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, is seen in all its glory. The filmmakers have taken great care to base the city closely upon Tolkien's description in The Return of the King, Book V, Chapter 1. Close-ups of the city are represented by sets and long shots by a large and highly-detailed model, often populated by CGI characters.

This film contains key scenes that occurred in the middle portion of the novel The Lord of the Rings but were not included in the film The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. These include the scene in which the monstrous Shelob attacks Frodo and is wounded by Sam.

Other key events include the Siege of Gondor; the re-forging of the shards of Narsil into Aragorn's new sword Andúril; Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas' journey through the Paths of the Dead; the epic Battle of the Pelennor Fields, and the charge of the mûmakil (everything being carefully choreographed in advance, a process Jackson describes as like planning a real battle); Merry and Éowyn's role in the defeat of the Lord of the Nazgûl; the destruction of the One Ring and the final fall of Sauron; Aragorn's assumption of the throne; and the departure of several of the heroes to the Undying Lands.

The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy is highly unusual in that it is to date the only movie series whose separate installments were written simultaneously and shot all at once, so that it could be considered three parts of a single very long film. This ensured that all three movies were consistent in terms of story, acting, effects, and direction.

Plot


(The following synopsis describes the Special Extended Edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, not the original theatrical release.)

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King picks up the story from the end of The Two Towers. The film begins with a flashback sequence, wherein we discover how the character Gollum first came across the One Ring. As this sequence ends, we find Frodo, Sam and Gollum approaching the mountains of Mordor, with Mount Doom's eruptions disturbingly close.

The plot then switches back to Isengard. Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli and Theoden, the victors of the Battle of the Hornburg, there confront the traitorous wizard, Saruman. They are informed by Saruman that Sauron is readying his forces for a final strike. Before he can give them more information, he is attacked by his servant Wormtongue. He is fatally stabbed in the back, and plummets from Orthanc's top to be impaled on one of his machines, dropping from his sleeve a palantir, which Gandalf retrieves.

That night, after a post-battle party in Edoras, Pippin, fascinated by the seeing stone, takes it from Gandalf, ignoring Merry's urgings to leave it alone. Whilst gazing into the crystal ball, Pippin is spied by Sauron and through a psychic link, the dark lord attempts to interrogate the hobbit. Barely able to resist the Eye's power, Pippin is nearly broken into submission, but Gandalf and Aragorn wrest it from his tortured fingers. Pippin is left deeply shaken, but lives.

Gandalf is now certain that Sauron will come after Pippin, thinking he has the Ring. Pippin's vision, however, has revealed that Sauron's plan is to attack Minas Tirith, the capital city of Gondor. After enigmatically urging Aragorn to use the "Black Ships" to come to the aid of Minas Tirith, Gandalf departs for Gondor with Pippin on Shadowfax, leaving a heartbroken Merry behind.

Meanwhile, Arwen is traveling with a company of Elves (including Figwit) toward the Grey Havens. On the journey she has a vision of Eldarion, her future son by Aragorn, which convinces her to turn back to Rivendell. There she urges her father Elrond to reforge Narsil, the sword of Elendil, so that it may be given to Aragorn. Elrond is resistant until he realizes that Arwen is becoming mortal. He sadly watches as Narsil is reforged by Elvish smiths.

Gandalf and Pippin arrive in Minas Tirith, where they discover that Denethor, the Steward of Gondor and father of Boromir, has nearly been driven mad by grief and is unwilling to ask for help in the defence of Gondor from Theoden and the Riders of Rohan. Pippin nonetheless pledges his service to Denethor in gratitude for Boromir's heroic death saving himself and Merry. That night, Gandalf and Pippin look out from a balcony in Minas Tirith toward the evil city of Minas Morgul, the point which Frodo, Sam and Gollum have reached on their journey. The army of Sauron marches out of Minas Morgul toward Gondor, led by the fearsome Witch-King of Angmar, the chief and most powerful of the Black Riders. Frodo, Sam and Gollum begin to climb toward the high pass of Cirith Ungol.

In the pre-dawn hours Sauron's army, under the immediate command of Gothmog, reaches the ruined city of Osgiliath. Faramir leads a heroic defence of the city, but he and his men are forced to retreat toward Minas Tirith. Meanwhile, however, Gandalf has sent Pippin to light Minas Tirith's beacon. The signal passes along Gondor's chain of beacons in the White Mountains, swiftly reaching Edoras, where Aragorn tells Theoden that "Gondor calls for aid". Theoden orders the Rohirrim to muster at Dunharrow, and Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Merry, Theoden, Eowyn and Eomer leave Edoras.

At Dunharrow, Aragorn is visited by Elrond who presents him with Anduril, the reforged shards of Narsil. Aragorn finally accepts his destiny to be the king of men. Accompanied by Legolas and Gimli, he takes the Path of the Dead in the mountains behind Dunharrow and finds the legendary ghost army that dwells in the immense caves. He confronts them directly, showing their leader Anduril, and orders them as their master, to join him on the battlefield at Minas Tirith. The ghosts refuse and Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli are driven from the caves by an avalanche of skulls. As they exit the caves, the arrive at Anduin and see an armada of Black Ships, piloted by the Corsair army. As they watch the ships leave a burning village the ghost leader suddenly appears from inside the mountain and agrees to join Aragorn in battle. Aragorn seizes the Black Ship fleet with their aid.

As Faramir and his men retreat to Minas Tirith, they are attacked by Nazgul on winged dragons but saved by Gandalf, who rides toward them and drives the Nazgul back with a beam of white light from his staff. Inside the city, Faramir's reaction to seeing Pippin reveals that he has recently seen two other Hobbits: Frodo and Sam. Gandalf is alarmed to hear that they are heading toward Cirith Ungol. Denethor, ashamed of Faramir's loss of Osgiliath, orders him to retake the city. Faramir's cavalry marches proudly out of Minas Tirith as Gandalf tries to convince Faramir that his father is quite mad. Faramir's detachment charges Osgiliath and are massacred.

As Sam and Frodo climb toward the pass, Gollum plays on Frodo's mind, trying to convince him that Sam desires the Ring. Frodo falls for the ploy and tells Sam to leave. Sam does so, saddened and reluctant, as Gollum leads Frodo towards Shelob's lair in the catacombs near Cirith Ungol. Frodo cautiously enters the caves and encounters the great spider. He frees himself from one of her webs, keeping Shelob at bay with the vial of Elendil given to him by Galadriel. As he makes his way towards the stairs to Cirith Ungol, Shelob attacks again, stinging Frodo and wrapping him in webbing. At that moment, Sam arrives, having returned after finding evidence that Gollum betrayed Frodo. He retrieves Frodo's sword, Sting, and the vial and severely wounds Shelob, leaving her blind and bleeding. While Sam tries to determine if Frodo is still alive, a small company of orcs approaches. Hiding nearby, Sam overhears them say that Frodo is still alive. They take Frodo to the tower of Cirith Ungol, imprisoning him in the highest room.

The siege of Minas Tirith begins when the orc army launches its assault using troll-driven catapults. In a panic, Denethor cowardly tells the city to flee from the mounting onslaught. He is rendered unconscious by Gandalf who counters the order with a call to defend the city. The Gondorians respond by launching their own catapult attack, using the smashed walls of towers demolished by the orcs. The orcs, determined to break through the gates of the city, advance on the gates with Grond, a giant, wolf-shaped battering ram.

Denethor, in his most extreme moment of madness, retreats to the Tomb of the Stewards, intending to burn himself to death along with the still-living body of Faramir. Pippin runs to tell Gandalf, who races to the tomb to stop the obscene funeral pyre. As Gandalf fights off Denethor's guards, Pippin jumps onto the pyre and manages to push Faramir out of the flames where he regains consciousness. Denethor realizes at that moment that his son is still alive, but by then he is too late to stop himself from burning. He runs from the tomb and jumps from the bow of the city.

The Witch King and the Nazgul attack the city, killing many men and inflicting heavy damage. There is a face-off between the Witch King and Gandalf. It is then that the Rohirrim, led by Théoden, arrive at Pelennor Fields and charge the orc army. They inflict heavy damage on the orcs but many are quickly subdued by a cavalry of oliphaunts. During this phase of the battle, Théoden is thrown violently from his horse and severely injured. Éowyn, who has disguised herself as a Rohirrim warrior and engaged in the battle against Théoden's wishes, comes face-to-face with the Witch King, poised to finish off Théoden. He turns his attention to her and she stands her ground but is injured. As the Witch King moves in to kill her, Merry stabs him in the leg with his sword from Rohan. As the Witch King shrinks from the blow, Éowyn approaches with her sword drawn. He arrogantly tells her that his power prevents any man from killing him. Removing her helmet, Éowyn defiantly counters that she is no man and stabs him through his face. The Witch King implodes and is destroyed. Éowyn rushes to her uncle but he dies of his injuries after telling her he is proud of her effort.

Aragorn arrives with the Black Fleet. The ghost army charges onto the battlefield, slaying the remaining orcs. Gimli and Legolas continue their competition in battle and engage the orcs. Legolas manages to kill an oliphaunt and its riders. Gothmog attacks Éowyn and is killed by Aragorn. The battle ends when the ghost army destroys the remants of the orc army and Aragorn releases them from their bondage. The injured are tended to in the Houses of Healing in Minas Tirith. Pippin searches the battlefield for Merry and finds him near the corpse of a dead oliphaunt. The two are joyfully reunited. The forces of Gondor and the remnants of the Rohirrim gather in the throne room of Minas Tirith to decide how to finish the war against Mordor.

At the tower of Cirith Ungol, Frodo is still in the hands of the orcs. Two of them begin fighting over his mithril vest. One of them falls through a trapdoor, instigating a brawl amongst the other orcs in the tower and most are killed. Sam arrives and kills the rest in a moment of intense courage. He rescues Frodo, who is distressed because he has lost the ring. Sam produces it from his pocket, saying that he'd taken it from Frodo's unconscious body so the orcs wouldn't find it. Sam begins to hand it back to Frodo and momentarily pauses, having been mesmerized by the ring's power. Frodo brings him back from the ring's spell and Sam returns it to Frodo.

Aragorn and his allies decide that Sauron's armies must be drawn out of Mordor through the Black Gate of Morannon. This will empty the plains of Mordor of Sauron's orc army and allow Sam and Frodo the chance to reach Mount Doom. Aragorn uses the palantír to tempt Sauron. The ploy works and the fields of Mordor empty.

Sam and Frodo, disguised as orcs, make their way into Mordor. They are found by a large detachment of orcs and are forced to march with them. During an inspection, Sam starts a fight with Frodo and in the ensuing chaos they escape. They continue their grueling trek to Mt. Doom.

Aragorn's army marches to Morannon. Aragorn, Gandalf and Éomer demand that Sauron come forth. The Black Gate opens and the Mouth of Sauron emerges. He tells the company that Frodo is dead (after being tortured), the proof being the mithril vest he produces. In a fit of rage, Aragorn decapitates him. The final battle between Gondor's army and Mordor begins when the gate opens all the way and the orc army surrounds the host of Gondor. The Winged Nazgul descend upon the battle, but are engaged in midair by the Eagles of the Misty Mountains.

Sam and Frodo reach Mount Doom and begin to climb. They approach the door to the Crack of Doom and Gollum attacks. While Sam struggles with Gollum, Frodo slips away and runs inside. Sam throws Gollum down the mountainside and follows Frodo. Frodo is standing on a cliff overlooking a river of lava. Sam pleads with him to drop the Ring in, however, Frodo declares that the Ring is his. Gollum attacks again, knocking Sam unconscious and Frodo uses the ring to disappear. Gollum determines Frodo's location and leaps upon him. He bites off Frodo's finger and the Ring is his. As he leaps about joyfully at being reunited with his prized possession, Frodo pushes him over the edge. Gollum falls into the lava with the Ring, Frodo is left hanging by one hand onto the cliff. Sam convinces Frodo not to let go and pulls him up over the edge. The Ring sinks and melts, destroying it forever.

Aragorn, who is about to be killed by a troll, is saved when the army of Mordor is distracted by the destruction of the Ring. The eight surviving Nazgul fly toward Mount Doom, but are destroyed by lava from the volcano. Sauron's tower of Barad-dur, built with the power of the Ring, collapses, and the Eye of Sauron explodes and disperses. The towers and gate of Morannon collapse, and the earth opens and swallows up much of Mordor's army. Frodo's friends react with joy to his success, but their happiness turns to grief as they see Mount Doom erupting and realize that Frodo and Sam must be doomed...

Sam carries his wounded master out of Mount Doom and onto the mountainside, where the two of them are surrounded by lava. Frodo, freed from the power of the Ring, expresses his joy that Sam is with him at the end. But the unconscious Frodo and Sam are then rescued by three Eagles, Gandalf riding on Gwaihir.

Frodo awakens in the Houses of Healing and is overjoyed to see Gandalf, whom he had thought dead. One by one, the other six surviving members of the Fellowship enter the room, Sam last.

Aragorn is coronated as King of Gondor in front of his cheering subjects. During the ceremony, a delegation of Elves arrives, including Elrond... and Arwen, who emerges from behind a banner. Aragorn kisses her passionately. Then Aragorn and his people pay homage to Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin.

The four Hobbits return to the Shire, where they realize that no one else will ever understand what they have done. Sam, however, marries Rose Cotton. Frodo begins to feel that he will be unable to continue his old life. He continues Bilbo's memoir, calling his section of it The Lord of the Rings, but breaks off writing a few pages from the end of the Red Book.

Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin and Gandalf accompany the now-frail Bilbo to the Grey Havens, where the last Elven ship is waiting to depart Middle-earth. There they find Elrond, Galadriel and Celeborn also waiting to board the ship. The Hobbits are surprised to learn that Gandalf will sail with Bilbo and the others, and even more shocked that Frodo is also sailing. Frodo gives the Red Book to Sam and bids farewell to his three friends -- Sam last. Then he boards the ship to sail into the Undying Lands west of the Sea, turning back to give his friends one last smile.

Sam returns home to Bagshot Row, his wife, and his first two children.

Deviations from the Book
According to British newspaper reports appearing on November 13, 2003, Christopher Lee was unhappy to learn that a seven-minute scene featuring a confrontation at Isengard in which Gandalf casts Saruman out of the order of Wizards, would not be appearing in the finished film, and he decided to boycott the premiere as a result. Peter Jackson confirmed that this scene, although not in the theatrical release, would be included in the extended VHS and DVD editions. These were released on December 10 2004 in the UK and December 14 in the U.S., with an expanded length of 250 minutes (4 hours, 10 minutes) (slightly shorter in PAL versions). The final ten minutes of the extended DVD comprises a listing of the names of the charter members of the official fan club.

Christopher Lee apparently reconciled his differences with Peter Jackson because he appears on the behind-the-scenes documentaries and Cast Commentary on the extended DVDs.

The release of the theatrical edition had originally been scheduled for worldwide release in late August but actually appeared on May 25. The early release of the standard edition had led some fans to hope that the extended edition might be released as early as August, but the release was actually put back from mid-November, presumably because of the amount of work involved in preparing the extra footage and bonus material.

Other rumours suggested that the extended DVD might be a five or six-disc set, with the movie occupying three discs rather than two, and that the extended cut might be as long as six hours. In January 2004, Peter Jackson indicated that the then recently completed extended edition is actually four hours and ten minutes long. He mentioned the inclusion of the "Mouth of Sauron" scene, as well as Frodo and Sam running with the Mordor orcs. He also stated that not all of the unused footage shot for the movie would necessarily appear in the extended cut. (In the Director and Writers' Commentary on the extended DVD edition he jokes about including some scenes in a 25th Anniversary edition, provided he is not too senile to remember by then.)

The extended DVD is actually a 4-disc set like its predecessors, with the movie and commentaries occupying Discs 1 and 2 and the behind-the-scenes material on discs 3 and 4. A Collectors' Box Set was also released, which also included a sculpture of Minas Tirith and a bonus 50-minute music documentary DVD, Howard Shore: Creating The  Lord of the Rings Symphony: A Composer's Journey Through Middle-earth.

Fans also hoped that the extended discs would feature deleted scenes and outtakes, but none are included except for a few in the behind-the-scenes documentaries. There are further rumours of an even more spectacular Lord of the Rings Trilogy box set in the future, and Jackson has half-seriously mentioned the possibility of re-editing the trilogy into a TV miniseries, along the lines of the Godfather movies.

A sequence that did not make it from the book into the film at all despite the hopes of many fans, was the "Scouring of the Shire", in which the Hobbits return home at the end of their quest to find they have some fighting to do, owing to Saruman's takeover of the Shire. Jackson felt that it would tax the audience's patience to mount another battle scene after the critical conflict, the defeat of Sauron, had already been resolved.

In the book, the fall of Saruman takes place at the end of the scouring, but in the film's theatrical release Saruman is left trapped in the tower of Orthanc by the Ents. In the extended edition Saruman appears on the roof of Orthanc bearing a Palantír and taunts Gandalf and his company with hints of a darkness in the heart of Middle-earth which will destroy them. (This is apparently a reference to Denethor's madness.) Saruman is finally stabbed by Gríma Wormtongue (which in the book occurs at the end of the Scouring of the Shire) and Gríma is shot by Legolas (in the book he is shot by a Hobbit). Saruman falls from the tower and is impaled on a wooden stake projecting from a mill-wheel. (This is an homage to Lee's Dracula movies; Peter Jackson wanted to be the last director to drive a stake through his heart.) The Palantír then falls into the water where it is found by Pippin. In the theatrical version there is no explanation as to how the Palantír fell into the water. In the book Gríma simply throws the Palantír at the company, not realising its value.

Fans hoped that several other key scenes from the book would be included in the extended cut, although inevitably not all of them were.

Box office records
After two years of attention and acclaim since the release of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, audience anticipation for the final installment of the trilogy had reached a fever pitch when the movie was finally released to theatres on December 17, 2003. New Line Cinema reported that the film's first day of release (a Wednesday) saw a box office total of $34.5 million&mdash;an all-time single-day record for a motion picture released on a Wednesday (until Spider-Man 2 came along and grossed $40.4 million). This was nearly twice the first-day total of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (which earned $18.2 million on its first day of release in 2001), and a significant increase over The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers as well (which earned $26.1 million on its first day in December of 2002).

The substantial increase in initial box office totals caused optimistic studio executives to forecast that The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King would surpass The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers in total earnings. If this proved to be true, then this would be the first blockbuster movie trilogy for each successive film to earn more at the box office than its predecessor, when all three films were blockbuster successes. (The general opinion in movie circles in 2003 was that a movie had to earn more than $150 million to be considered a "blockbuster").



These forecasts proved accurate. According to Box Office Mojo, between the time of the film's release, its winning the Academy Award for Best Picture on Sunday, February 29, 2004, and Thursday, March 11, 2004, Return of the King had earned approximately $1,052,547,293 in worldwide box office revenue&mdash;$368,875,000 in North America, and $683,649,123 in sixty countries worldwide. The final North American box office stands at $377,027,325, and the worldwide take is $1,118,888,979 (about $741 million overseas). The worldwide revenue is slightly enhanced compared to the earlier movies when converted to US Dollars because of the decline in the dollar's exchange rate in 2003. It was the second film in history to earn over $1 billion in box office revenue in its initial release (the first being Titanic in 1997). This compares favourably to the first two films of the trilogy: in their first 35 weeks of theatrical release in North America, the gross income of the first two movies was $313,364,114 and $339,789,881.

These figures do not include income from DVD sales, TV rights, etc. It has been estimated that the gross income from non-box office sales and merchandise has been at least equal to the box office for all three films; if this is so, the total gross income for the trilogy would be in the region of $6 billion, a very respectable return for a $300 million investment (although not by any means the best profit ratio ever seen in Hollywood - that prize belongs to The Blair Witch Project).