Movie of the Week: ‘The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King’, Peter Jackson’s glorious epic
It feels like a lifetime ago that we were back in Peter Jackson’s world of Middle Earth, brushing our hands through the long grass, chowing down on a fragile slice of Lembas bread and coming face-to-face with several creatively-named orcs (our favourite being Gothmog). Sure, we returned in 2012 for The Hobbit trilogy, but the land we remembered was tarnished with overly lit CGI, scarring the beauty that Jackson formed in the original Lord of the Rings movies.
Crafting an undisputed fantasy masterpiece, Jackson’s Lord of the Rings remains the benchmark by which modern genre movies are made, constantly striving for the same majesty as the early 2000s classic.
Beginning initial production design in August 1997, Peter Jackson demanded total realism for his grubby take on Middle Earth, commanding every facet of production to complete his artistic vision. Hiring the special effects and prop company Weta Workshop, Jackson worked with the specialists to craft specialist pieces of armour, weapons, prosthetics and creatures that would each be used in the final film to give a sense of authenticity to the fantasy epic.
Giving himself the time to plan and execute his grand vision with the appropriate verve to match his lofty ambitions, Jackson already had spectacular props, costumes and miniature sets prepared well before the trilogy shooting. The resulting trilogy remains the best piece of fantasy cinema ever brought to the big screen, with The Return of the King providing the spectacular conclusion to the wild adventure.
After several years of preparation and expert execution, The Return of the King was the spectacular flourish of Jackson’s adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantasy, providing a movie that kept loyal to the source material whilst forging a new path forward for cinema. Truly no director had devoted so much time to such an intricate fantasy vision, with the scope of Jackson’s Middle Earth opening the possibilities of so much beyond the mere remits of the story at hand.
It was time that made the Lord of the Rings trilogy a vast success, giving the production team enough space to create the perfect costumes. Co-writers Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens had ample months to perfect the script. The organisation’s casting group got the time to bring the likes of Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Christopher Lee and many more.
Conversely, The Hobbit trilogy was filmed in half the time of Lord of the Rings and significantly paled in comparison. Jumping on the project once the Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro bowed out, Jackson was ready. He recalled at the time: “It was impossible, and as a result of it being impossible, I just started shooting the movie with most of it not prepped at all. You’re going on to a set and you’re winging it”.
Denis Villeneuve’s spectacular adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune came close to the epic scale of Jackson’s vision, as did HBO’s Game of Thrones series. However, the jury is still unsure whether Amazon’s latest series, The Rings of Power, from the mind of Tolkien, will be able to take us back to the glory days of Middle Earth. With the streaming service and enormous E-commerce company spending close to $1 billion on the project, studio executives will be hoping their efforts will pay off with an emphatic pop-culture victory.
Set to compete with HBO’s new Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon, Amazon is hoping The Rings of Power will provide some study competition, with both series ending on the same day, forcing a head-to-head fantasy showdown. Though, in the fight for sword and sandal supremacy, there can only be one series to rule them all.
