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The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King (Widescreen Edition) Customer Reviews (67 - 69 of 70 Reviews)

To all you haters off CGI out there.... FULL SKULL BABY!

Why is the fact that LOTR contains CGI shots an excuse for some people giving it a low rating? Imagine you were Peter Jackson, and you are called to direct a scene where twenty 50 foot high elephants are charging at the camera, with 6000+ horsemen charging from behind. How could you possibly film that without CGI? Imagine directing the Battle of the Pellenor Fields without CGI. What would you have the director do? Cast 500'000 extras to stand in formation for weeks of shooting, or create the whole scene in an hour using the 'sinful' computer?

I would like to see all the people who rated this film 1-star because it used CGI try to film a tower the size of Barad-Dur collapsing with a 1000ft volcano erupting in the background in real life, without a computer. It CANNOT be done, so don't have a go at the directors for using CGI methods.

ps. To all the insanely politically correct people who moan at the film because there are no 'goodies' who are black. I happen to find the scene where Saruman the WHITE goes over to the dark side EXTREMELY offensive, because it insults my race, and had such an effect on me that I cried in a darkened room for days.

pps. (The previous sentence should be read with the maximum degree of sarcasm physically possible.)

Chaos, Pure Chaos. FULL SKULL BABY!
If I were called to describe the three chapters of the Lord of the Ring Trilogy in one word, I would probably call The Fellowship of the Ring Serine with it's peaceful shots of the Shire, elf villages, and forests. The Two Towers, I'd call Hectic, with our heroes dashing to and fro trying to accomplish
multiple tasks. As for The Return of the King, that one word that explains it perfectly is: Chaos.

If asked to explain the plot, I'd simply reply Chaos, pure Chaos, with Aragon, Gimli, and Legolas, along with the Wizard Gandalf preparing, then engaging in multiple battles, with multiple armies, some of whom, aren't even of this earth. Chaos explains the journey of Frodo Baggins, and Sam Gamgee as they seem simply to craw along mountain tops in agony, desperately trying to reach their destination, as every second seems like an eternity. Or as they try to deduce the true motives of the multiple personality impaired Gollum, who makes their journey all the more daunting.

Chaos explains the cinematography of the film. In the first film, most shots contained the green hue of tree leafs and grass. In the second chapter, the hue was now gray with rock. Now that hue has changed to the blood red of fire and lava. The amazing landscape shots look as though they should be plastered on the ceiling of a Roman Church. That's how good the camera work is in this film. The cinematographer has seemed to transcend film from being merely a bland, uneventful window into a story world, to being an actual art form.

Chaos explains the attitudes of all the characters, whom through the film seem as though they've been beaten to a bloody pulp, both physically, and mentally. Not to sound mocking, but in every scene in which he is present, Frodo seems as though he is half dead, every word spoken seems painful, every movement seems agonizing. Likewise for Sam, who's always-look-on-the-bright-side attitude is battered throughout the film. The rest of the cast's demeanors are all taunt and intense, obviously because through the course of the movie, they fight at least three major battles.

And as for the battles, guess what. Chaos also explains them as well. Giant elephants, ghost armies, dragon-like birds, and giant (equipped human intelligence) eagles, not to mention the hob-goblin-like Orcs, all are involved in skirmishes in this movie. All these grandiose spectacles add to all of the battle scenes making them even more (guess what!) chaotic then one would think possible. What more could you possibly want?

Something I like to ignore in reviews I simply must mention in this one: special effects. As I said, I really don't like to talk about SF because they are used just too much these day, and usually, are not important at all in the movie. But, and this is a big but, this film proves my two beliefs wrong, with a character like Gollum, the SF does become a storyline, and with hard-to-tell effects and blending, ROTK doesn't become over-reliant on effects, making the movie's SF extremely enjoyable.

The musical score is good to, having several strong and enjoyable main themes, that are delivered at opportune times in the film. Though, as my one criticism of the film, I have to wonder if the score would have been better if, say, John Williams was drafted to do the score instead of Howard Shore...

But really the best thing about this film, is how all the necessary sections come to together perfectly: acting, story, cinematography, special effects, musical score, and just overall heart and sincerity, make what this movie is; one of the best ever made...

Oh, and just in case you were wondering; yes, The Return of the King does deserve every single one of those eleven Oscars. It should have been twelve even; Why it wasn't nominated for Cinematography, I'll never know.

Absolutely Mind Blowing FULL SKULL BABY!
For many of those who aren't already aware, J.R.R. Tolkien was a Roman Catholic and even lived under the giudence of a catholic priest. There are many elements in this story that are taken from the bible, especially the book of Revelations. The Return of the King is an analogy to the return of Christ. The battle in Return of the King is a representation of the final battle between good and evil described in the book of Revelations. I found Return of the King to be ultimately inspiring and uplifting, especially watching Barad-dur finally come crashing down. This movie, along with TTT and FOTR, reflect the constant conflict we have with the forces of darkness, and depicts the scale on which they operate. I find it to be a testament of my faith that Christ will come back, and evil will be destroyed.

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