When last we left our heroes, Frodo fell down a bunch, Gimli was short and it was funny,
and Andy Serkis got snobbed an Oscar nod.
"Liar and a thief! It's mine! I won it! It was me!"
Wait, okay hold back. Metatextuality makes things even more complicated.
And you know what? With these movies, we could go on for hours and hours
and years about all of their influences and all of the outcomes and there's a lot to go through, but...
Return of the King.
It's really long.
And when we're talking about market, the length of a film is pretty relevant,
so I'm gonna pick up where I left off.
Last week, we talked about the Lord of the Rings and its impact on genre,
but that wasn't its only impact.
Before Lord of the Rings, it was pretty unheard of that you would film three gigantically-budgeted
movies to be staggered over three years at the same time.
Now with the right marketing strategy and the knowledge that it's a pre-existing property,
it's kind of a thing.
Lord of the Rings was unique in that they were all shot together from the start,
which tends not to be the case.
They usually wait till the franchise gets off the ground and then film two or three at the same time.
It's odd to think that we live in a world now where sequels,
especially to beloved fantasy adaptations, are guaranteed to make more money.
That was seldom the case before.
And they're also longer, and that recognizing a brand to a property you're familiar with
is more important in franchising than... anything, really.
Obviously there are two stars colliding in this story. It wasn't just Lord of the Rings.
But the key here to these adapted franchises is the recognizability to the consumer.
These three movies, especially Return of the King, normalized the 3-hour movie.
"I'm the king of the world!"
Before this trilogy, 3-hour movies were the exception, not the rule.
Then this incredibly-long monstrosity comes along,
and three and a half hours,
Return of the King was the only one of the three movies to be the top-grossing film of its year.
The other two only came in second.
And why have long movies?
After all, a really long movie reduces the number of show times you can cram in on any given day.
Then again, a really long movie also drives out any incentive or time to see the competition.
Just saying.
Alright, so we got six hours of movie behind us and a whole bunch of plot threads to wrap up in this, so,
the longest and the most peopled of the three movies, let's see where it takes us.
Return of the King is the end of the trilogy, and all the stuff gets wrapped up, and some doesn't.
It is a much more faithful adaptation than the Two Towers.
But, long as it is, a lot of threads just get dropped utterly in the theatrical cut.
Like Eowyn's relationship to Aragorn.
We haven't talked much about her yet, but she's coming.
He dumps her and then that's that.
"It is but a shadow of a thought that you love.
I cannot give you what you seek."
They introduced Gothmog, the big bad elephantiasis orc who ostensibly is in charge?
I don't like him, but he only gets an ending in the extended cut.
The extended cut of Return of the King is really, really long.
It's creeping up on five hours. But I mean, it's good! It's got a lot of good stuff in it.
It's probably just best to look at it like...
a miniseries, rather than a really, really long movie.
Most of what got cut was minor character stuff.
Faramir's best stuff is all in return of the King, and a lot of that gets relegated to the extended cut.
There's a scene between Faramir and Pippin that I really like.
"I didn't think they would find any that would fit me."
"It once belonged to a young boy, a very foolish one,
who wasted many hours slaying dragons instead of attending to his studies."
"This was yours?"
It also makes his later attachment to Faramir make more sense.
Like half of Eowyn's scenes get pushed into the extended cut.
Again, we'll get to her in a minute.
Oh, but Saruman!
[whispers] Sorry, dude.
[normal voice] Saruman in the theatrical is just like...
Whoop, he's out of the movie.
Byyee!
"But there is a wizard to manage here, locked in his tower."
"And there, Saruman must remain."
Originally this was not the case, and Saruman was going to have, you know, an ending,
but we only see that in the extended cut
so I don't blame Christopher Lee for being pissed about his treatment in the theatrical.
[sad thud]
But on a somewhat-related note,
Christopher Lee is kind of a badass.
Did you know this guy was a secret agent in WWII? His mother was a Contessa?
6'5", still doing action scenes in his 80s and 90s, speaks a bunch of languages fluently,
and was the only member of the cast and crew to actually meet Tolkien?
And I'm pretty sure is also like a literal vampire and that's how he stays young.
Yes, I know you wanted to play Gandalf, Chris, but damn you really are perfect in this role.
"We must join with him, Gandalf."
Part of that decision was because Christopher Lee was "too old" to play Gandalf,
while Ian McKellen was a "spry 60."
His words, not mine.
But you know what? I think when the news eventually does break
that Christopher Lee has "died of old age,"
I think we can take that as code for "went back to home planet."
Or "went into his coffin to sleep for a hundred years to regain power."
I buy it either way.
So speaking of dropped threads, there's a lot of this
in this movie, so, uh...
What up, Faramir? How did your subplot end in the last movie? I forget.
"You know the laws of our country.
The laws of your father.
If you let them go, your life will be forfeit."
What? Thou shalt hand over rings of power thou should happen to run ac-...
never mind.
"If you let them go, your life will be forfeit."
Or I guess your life isn't actually forfeit at all. That's cool
Yeah, we're gonna just completely ignore that line in the next movie.
Like why throw that in there at all?
Like why throw that line in there at all?
Just have it be
"If you let them go-"
[Lindsay dubbing in dialogue] "your dad will be really pissed."
"Then-"
[Lindsay] "let him be pissed."
And I like Faramir a lot more in this movie.
His more compelling story was always in the third book,
but, his father, the increasingly crazy-fying steward of Gondor, Denethor,
sends him on a suicide mission because he's bitter that the beloved son died instead of Faramir.
"You wish now that our places had been exchanged,
that I had died and Boromir had lived?"
"Yes."
And no, this does not count towards this:
"If you let them go, your life will be forfeit."
Faramir goes on the suicide mission of his own free will,
Gandalf even tries to talk him out of it.
"Do not throw away your life so rashly!"
He could have said no, and he didn't.
It does not apply to this stupid, bogus line.
Denethor, the Steward of Gondor.
He's not the king.
"The line of kings has failed.
The rule of Gondor was given over to a lesser man."
Yeah, that's also kind of an iffy concept in the Lord of the Rings.
You see this a lot, this idea of "this genetic stock is inferior to this genetic stock
because reasons and divine right and yadda yadda,
coded Arabs and Asians are the bad guys.
Hail Britannia!"
But I love the shit out of John noble. You know, in general.
He has a penchant for intense, Shakespearean roles, and he plays Denethor cray!
"Abandon your posts! Flee! Flee for your lives!"
Such to the point that his intensity is so much that Peej felt the need to break it.
Honestly? Wha- ok.
Denethor is pretty much the batshit-craziest role outside of Gollum,
which of course makes him one of my favorites.
Although it does make it kind of awkward when he dies because Gandalf f***ing kills him.
Hey guys, we could like drag him off that pyre right now?
Like, he's still ok- guess not.
[Denethor screaming]
"So passes Denethor, son of Ecthelion."
He sure does. He passes all the way into the courtyard,
and then into the quad, and all the way down like five hundred meters away up over this cliff...
I mean, f***'s sake, I'd have a hard time making that sprint not immolated.
Incidentally, that shot got a huge laugh at the midnight showing I was at in 2003.
Oh, I remember.
But the real set piece of this movie, more than the other two, are the battles.
This one is so much more the war movie
and the battles start early and they go long.
So, fortunately there are a lot of emotional threads going on here,
or else, why care about three hours of battles?
Eowyn and Theoden, Faramir and his father,
Gandalf and Pippin, Merry and Pippin,
Eowyn and... everyone.
It is high fantasy, and while there are some elements that are kind of simplistic
to the point of being irrelevant to us in the real world,
like the bad guys being irredeemably, irrevocably, genetically just evil,
it still deals with a lot of complex themes.
Issues of loyalty under a leader who's losing his mind,
of the truest sacrifice for your friends and loved ones,
how to deal with your friend's violent outbursts.
"That's a filthy lie!"
So you need stakes in order for us, the audience, to care about all this action and fighting stuff.
So let's take a look at our breeding pair.
"This is a dream."
"Then it is a good dream."
[sarcastically] Oh, the burning passion.
In the Two Towers, we see what's at stake with Aragorn and Arwen,
and how she may like him a lot, but he is gonna die and she's not,
and the funny thing is, especially when you get to the extended cut,
you kind of get the impression that Aragorn's just not that into her.
"It was a dream, Arwen. Nothing more."
Or Eowyn for that matter.
He's just not really into anyone.
But we got to find a way to keep Arwen in the narrative and get us some stakes in there,
so are you ready for some buuuuullshit?
"I come on behalf of one whom I love.
Arwen is dying."
What?
Why?
No, seriously, what?
What?
In the book, it's,
'Aragorn you had better be the king of men to be worthy of my daughter,'
but just dying...?
"The life of the Eldar is leaving you."
And the cure for this is beating Sauron and winning the war, apparently,
'cause she shows up at the end after three hours of not being in the movie at all like,
'I'm fine, let's get married!'
Your reward has come.
And while we're in Forced Peej Conflict territory, let's talk about Sam.
"Crumbs on his jacketses. He took it!"
Huh. That wasn't in the book.
[Sam] "You stinking, two-faced sneak!"
"Sam!"
[Frodo] "Stop it!"
That really wasn't in the book.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it to go so far.
I was just so... so angry."
Isn't that what people in abusive relationships say?
Ok, Sam and Gollum, both in the book and in the movie,
have an antagonistic relationship from the word go,
but it doesn't really manifest past some justified mistrust in the book.
The worst thing Sam does to Gollum there is call him a stinker.
In the third movie, Sam starts getting violent.
Like, like really violent.
"Sam!"
Okay, in the Two Towers, yeah, I can see the violence. He is kind of biting you.
Here, uh.... little iffy. He was completely defenseless,
but I guess you did overhear him plotting your demise, so fine.
But his most violent outburst in all three movies comes from being accused of stealing food.
"He took it!"
And then, boom, goes all Chris Brown on him.
Wow, yeah, Frodo, I would send Sam away, too.
He is clearly an unstable person who will probably snap on you somewhere down the line.
"I'll kill him!"
See the thing is with this little bit of forced Peej conflict,
in order to make it make sense for Frodo to send Sam away at all,
you have to push Sam so far away from his starting place that he's practically
not the same character anymore.
"Go home."
Or at the very least has some terrible anger problems that are never addressed.
I personally think the reason that the forced Peej conflict has become such a distinctive and easy-to-identify thing
is the fact that Peter Jackson hasn't directed anything that was not an adaptation
since before Heavenly Creatures.
The closest thing would be District 9, which he neither wrote nor directed.
He's become a sort of auteur of adaptation.
And, oddly enough the book that he adapted that was the most faithful to the source material
was the Lovely Bones, which everyone hated!
So I'm not saying he's bad at adding conflict for the sake of adaptation. Clearly he isn't.
Clearly he's very good at it. He's made a career out of it.
It's just sometimes the conflict he adds is...
a little over the top.
Yeah, so, let's talk about Eowyn, who I think they actually did a really good job with.
...in the extended cut.
In the Two Towers she just sort of pines for Aragorn, whishes she could go off and fight,
and she doesn't really do anything until Return of the King where she decides to fake being a man
so she, too, can ride into battle. And she sneaks Merry in with her.
And in doing so, they basically sneak around this loophole in this prophecy
that says no man can kill the Witch-King of Angmar.
"You fool, no man kill me."
"I am no man!"
Cliche? Yes.
Awesome?
[whispers] Fuck, yes!
[normal voice] So while it is nice to have at least one lady presence in an army of sausage,
and I honestly find her story and performance very compelling, especially in the extended cut,
Eowyn at the end just kinda gets shoved off on Faramir which, and, uh...
"Behold, I will be a shield maiden no longer, nor vie with the great riders,
nor take joy only in the songs of slaying.
I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.
No longer do I desire to be a queen."
I'm gonna settle!
You know who she should have ended up with?
"Sorry."
The relationship between Eowyn and Merry is way better set-up than Aragorn and Arwen,
and certainly Eowyn and Faramir.
I mean look at these two. She helps him prepare for battle, she believes in him,
"You should not encourage him."
"You should not doubt him."
they ride into battle together,
they bond over love for their friends,
they slay the witch-king together!
If an elf and a human can get together and breed, why not a hobbit and a lady?
That's all I'm saying.
"You were fair and brave, and have much to live for,
and many who love you."
That is not subtext. That is text!
Even in the book, the Faramir thing is just kind of jammed in there at the last second.
And, you know, don't get me wrong, I like them both as characters,
and Faramir's a nice guy. He's a lover not a fighter.
But, come on. Stupid rigid societal expectations.
This! This is a pure love!
"Ride with me."
"My lady!"
A lot of Eowyn's subplot got pushed into the extended edition,
which is kind of a shame because she's got a lot of compelling and interesting stuff,
but in the context of the whole trilogy, ehh,
there's not a lot of payoff.
Her real arc is pretty much only in movie three, and you've still got a lot of threads
from movies 1 & 2 left dangling.
So in a way that strength about movie 3 turns into a weakness.
You introduce new, compelling stuff, but end up having to cut it because you have to
tie up dangling threads from 1 & 2.
...or not.
[sad thud]
Gaaah, oh my God! I've got so much crap to get through in so little time. Hey...
Did you really just spend most of this review defending your one true ship?
It wasn't MOST of the review, no, I mean, you know, I spent all this time complaining about,
like, you know shit they did end up changing, and maybe stuff they should have changed,
and you know, like, in terms of the screenplay, things actually being set up well,
where it is in this case and not in others...
What was that about you still having a lot to actually get through to wrap it up?
Wait, where have you been in the last 2?
I was in the last 2. Oh, but I'm in the extended cuts.
Does that mean this is an extended cut?
Yep.
Well aren't extended cuts usually cut in ha-