The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King


The Lord of the Rings - Return of the King
The Lord of the Rings - Return of the King Poster
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The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King - Aragorn
The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King - Aragorn Poster
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Synopsis: While Frodo & Sam continue to approach Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring, unaware of the path Gollum is leading them, the former Fellowship aid Rohan & Gondor in a great battle in the Pelennor Fields, Minas Tirith and the Black Gates as Sauron wages his last war against Middle-Earth.

Rating: PG-13

Run Time:

Director: Peter Jackson

Dvd Extra's:
Disk 1 & 2: Commentaries: The Directors and Writers, The Design Team, The Production / Post production Teams, The Cast. Subtitles: English and Spanish.
Disk 3: Introduction, J.R.R. Tolkein: The Legacy of Middle-earth, From Book To Script, Designing and Building Middle-earth, Home of the Horse Lords, Middle-earth Atlas, New Zealand as Middle-earth.
Disk 4: Inroduction, Filming "The Return of the King", Visual Effects, Post-Production: Journey's End, The Passing of an Age, Cameron Duncan: The Inspiration for "Into the West".

Hidden Features: Semi-hidden DVD credits are found on the last disk of the 4 disk set. Access them by highlighting the 'Index' option and pressing the RIGHT arrow button on your remote. The little flower like symbol with become highlighted. Press ENTER to select and reveal the hidden DVD credits.
From the Main Menu, access the 'Scene Selection' option. Go to the last scene, and press DOWN on your remote control. A "gold ring" will appear. Press ENTER. This reveals a hidden interview by Dom Monaghan pulling a prank on Elijah Wood as a German reporter.
Similar to the other extended DVD's, access the 'Select a Scene' option Disc 1. Highlight the final scene (scene 36) and press DOWN to make a hidden "ring" appear. Select the "ring" by pressing ENTER. This will reveal the hidden MTV Movie Awards segment for Return of the King!
On Disc 2, access the chapter index. Scroll to the last scene. A "ring" now appears in the bottom on the screen. Select it and you'll find a hidden interview with director Peter Jackson!

Nudity Factor: None

Of Note: Peter Jackson is arachnophobic and based the Shelob design on the types of spiders he feared the most.

Recommendations: The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring

Review by: Jason James
Rating:
Once again this is an epic film. The battle in Gondor is one of the best scenes I have ever seen. When I got the DVD I went to this chapter and watched it, then watched the whole DVD after. One of the only things that bothered me with this film is the music score. Don't get me wrong, the music score is great, at times though it takes over the movie and drowns out the dialog. I also think that something could have been done a little different with the Sam and Frodo part of the story. I always fast forward through them and get back to the action. Now that I got that out of the way, once again if you have not watched this yet, turn you computer off for a day go get the trilogy and watch them. This should be in your dvd collection and the extended edition is well worth the extra few dollars. This film and the trilogy is on a different level and really not scale used can do justice to it.
Review by: Shooter
For space saving reasons and to keep my fingers from cramping up I'm going to only write one review for these three movies as they are really one epic movie anyways and always meant to be that way.
I was chomping at the bit and waiting and waiting for Fellowship to come out. I was so excited that I went to see it on opening day and I almost never do that. Luckily I wasn't disappointed and as Jason said this film and series set the bar to which all other fantasy films will be judged. The biggest problem I had after watching this movies was waiting for the DVD to come out, and then waiting for the extended edition to come out and then waiting for "The Two Towers" Why are these movies so good? Because of the extensive back story that was already there for Peter Jackson to draw from. J.R.R. tolkien created a world with his books that is so detailed a director would have to work to screw it up. Just to give you an idea of the detail set forth in these books and movies Tolkien was a linguist among other things and even invented the languages that are used. That's right, Elven is a real language and Rohan has it's own language based on Old English; in fact, all of the languages in middle earth were created by Tolkien. Peter Jackson did a good job by staying as true to the books as possible and I've yet to meet a LOTR fan who didn't like both. The epic scale of these three movies, wonderful scenery, acting, and plot are second to one in my opinion. I especially liked Ian Mckellan as Gandalf. He played the part perfectly and as in the book was the glue that kept the fellowship together. These movies lacked the cheesiness that the fantasy genre is notable for and made it all believable, no matter how fantastic.
My only quarrel would be the ending of "Return of the King" I would have rather it been more true to the book but I think it would have been a 4 hour movie then.
My recommendation is to buy all three of the extended versions. Instead of the usual useless extra's and a few more minutes of footage some of the extended versions add 45 minutes or more to the movie and put in many more things from the book. the scenes are finished, not black and white or unrendered, and fit seamlessly into the movie. If you like fantasy at all you will love these movies.