Hacker Cinema
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2003 · Film · 201 min
Part of The Lord of the Rings Collection
Directed by Peter Jackson
As armies mass for a final battle that will decide the fate of the world--and powerful, ancient forces of Light and Dark compete to determine the outcome--one member of the Fellowship of the Ring is revealed as the noble heir to the throne of the Kings of Men. Yet, the sole hope for triumph over evil lies with a brave hobbit, Frodo, who, accompanied by his loyal friend Sam and the hideous, wretched Gollum, ventures deep into the very dark heart of Mordor on his seemingly impossible quest to destroy the Ring of Power.
3 positive1 negative7 neutralfrom 11 commenters
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11 comments on Hacker News
Because I’m actually not going to lose much sleep if Apple revoke my license for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and given I’ve had digital purchases from them since [checks notes] literally two decades ago and not one of them has to my knowledge been revoked I’m reasonably comfortable that they’ll probably stick around for as long as I do, after which I’m going to rapidly cease caring about my collection of films and TV.
Hard disagree about declarative "X is Y". It's a failure of weakening attention span. There are plenty of excellent long movies:
- Once Upon a Time in America (1984) 3:49
- Lawrence of Arabia (1962) 3:47
- The Irishman (2019) 3:29
- Malcolm X (1992) 3:22
- The Godfather Part II (1974) 3:22
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) 3:21
- Schindler's List (1992) 3:15
- Gandhi (1982) 3:11
- The Green Mile (1999) 3:09
- The Deer Hunter (1978) 3:03
- The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) 2:59
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) 2:58
- Casino (1995) 2:58
- Braveheart (1995) 2:58
- The Godfather (1972) 2:55
- Django Unchained (2012) 2:45
What I most object to is lazy storytelling for lazy, second-screen audiences lacking in style and subtlety having a robotic, spoon-fed, infantile, unnatural, expository narration quality in every character like it's a commercial for an antacid.
How would that apply in the case of, say, Peter Jackson's 2003, $281 million "The Lord of the Rings" film series?
Does Jackson own the IP? Do actors own part of the IP for every scene they're in? What does Jackson offer to investors, to get the backing he needs to hire loads of horse riders or whatever? Do we do it Star Citizen style, giving Jackson a few hundred million upfront with no obligation to deliver anything?
When I watched Return of the King in a theater they had 10 or 15 min break in the middle, it was the first and last time I've seen such arrangement. It would be nice if Hollywood finally accepted such format and just went with 3-4 hour long movies with a break. Not for all movies of course, but at least for the more complex ones. I mean not making 2:30 long movie and then just pad it with irrelevant, often static scenes for some "Complete Movie Of the Year Directors Super Duper Cut Edition" clocking at 3:00, but having zero new content as compared to theater cut. That's just a dumb trend imho. But instead actually plan the story for 3 or 4 hours, with a proper increase of storytelling, characters and so on. Just for some top AAA movies.
These are also great in my opinion (book as well as film): The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and Jurassic Park.
There's something like this in the movie Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6LGJ7evrAg
I wonder if this method of communication was EVER used by any civilization.
The political intrigue was interesting. The zombie apocalypse was a singular lack of imagination - how many zombie movies has Hollywood produced? 200? 300? There are even multiple miniseries about zombies. There's simply nothing interesting about them.
Even Lord of the Rings just had to bring in a zombie army at the end, but fortunately didn't spend much screen time on it.
The only one I like was the Jason and the Argonauts one where the hero fights a group of skeletons. The herky-jerky Harry Harrison animation is a pleasure to watch. And it was original.
" coughing, talking, texting"
True, but also laughing, cheering, and applauding (on occasion). For a big midnight release a lot of the fun is waiting with other fans - I loved going to openings of movies like Return of the King (LOTR), even the last awful Star Wars prequel, etc. and waiting with hundreds of other excited people at the Fremont Theater - a grand old theater seating 1100. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremont_Theater
If you haven't seen Rocky Horror in a theater instead of at home, you ought to give it a try. Or The Room - bring spoons.
At first I thought this was an awful list, but then I filtered it by date up to 1995 and I felt that the list made a lot more sense. Is this an issue that it takes 15 to 20 years to get settle on what is truly worthy? Or is it an issue with the dawning of the Internet Age?
There are plenty of films made after 1995 that I think are highly deserving. But in 20 years from now, will we look and say Return of the King out ranks Star Wars? Or The Avengers is better than 12 Angry Men? (The Avengers was decent popcorn fun, but what was the plot?)
Microsoft is ahead of Sony in the console race right now, but I think that Sony will end up leading the current generation. The Wii novelty will fade, and the PS3 will ultimately dominate thanks to a deeper line up of exclusive titles. I have always felt that exclusives were the Xbox's Achilles' heel - even going back to the original Xbox. Most of the best XBox games are not exclusives. For example Gamespot's best 360 game award went to Assassin's Creed 2 this year, and to GTA 4 in 2008. Both games were also released on the PS3. In contrast, the best PS3 games of 2008 and 2009 were MGS4 and Demon's Souls, respectively. I was really hoping that the Rare acquisition would pay off this generation but it doesn't look like it will anytime soon, if ever. I own a 360, but I am planning to buy a PS3 by the time God of War 3 ships, as I feel that it will be home to a lot of fantastic gaming experiences that will not be available anywhere else.
To make an analogy with movies, there will be no shortage of 'Spiderman' or 'Batman Begins' on the 360, but only the PS3 will have 'Return of the King'.
I only skimmed after this paragraph.
The internationally most successful film of the decade was "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King." Harry Potter was the most successful literary character. Both are children's stories that are also enjoyed by adults. We are withdrawing into an infantile world, in which attractive heroes conquer evil. The modern fairy tale is our response to a harsh world.
Harry Potter, yes. But he thinks that The Lord of the Rings is a children's tale?? Sorry, but no. Fairy tales started as stories for grownups, and were made into children's stories when grownups stopped believing in them. However Tolkien was aware that the structure of the fairy tale lends itself to darker themes that aren't for children, and the LotR is a deliberate exploration of that dynamic.
Judging by my quick skim of the rest, he recited a lot of things I already knew without any real attempt at analysis, then called it perspective.