Bored by the king

"The return of the king" is the third Peter Jackson movie based on Tolkien's fantasy epic "Lord of the Rings" (LOTR).

I liked the two other movies, but by the time the third was released, I had become "bored of the rings", to use a phrase known to detractors of Tolkien and the LOTR universe. I got the same feeling when reading the novels. The second and the third novel are pretty much the same story, repeated twice! I know that's not *strictly* speaking true, but that's how I mentally felt like after digesting them.

In the same way, "The return of the king" feels like "The Two Towers" plus even more special effects, battles, monsters, and what not. I was excited by the effects in the first two movies, but started suffering from "special effect tedium" when watching the battle between the good guys and the Witch-king of Angmar outside Gondor. As usual, Gollum saves the day, but he isn't the centrepiece of attention as he was in "The Two Towers". And why is it so bloody important that Aragorn should become king of Gondor, anyway? I never got that part...

On one point, the movie version is actually worse than Tolkien's original epic. It leaves out the scourging of the Shire, which I take to be an important part of the plot. The scourging makes Frodo's decision to leave even more understandable, explains the ultimate fate of Saruman (the most visible villain in the story - Sauron never manages to rematerialize), and shows Tolkien's ecological concerns. Jackson apparently felt that the LOTR films were getting out of hand already, and decided to skip it (it's not included on the extended version either, although the fans hoped that it would be). Christopher Lee, who stars Saruman, was apparently so disappointed that he didn't even show up at the official premiere!

Only three stars for you this time, Mr. Jackson.