2003 – Peter Jackson
Re-Watched October 19,2019
An end (and another end and another end) to an action-packed and emotionally satisfying saga
I realize that Return of the King has about three endings too many, but I have gladly accepted them because they mean that I’m able to say in Middle Earth for a little while more.
I didn’t realize how much this series meant to me until I was able to watch them all over in the past week. I remember watching them every moment I could; playing the video games, buying the action figures (I always knew part of what I was getting for Christmas because LOTR boxes had such a distinctive shape); acting out key scenes with my friends at recess…watching them again brought me back to the simpler times of my life, an era before the muddled and dappled light of adulthood shone on my head. I remembered blue skies with perfect puffy clouds overhead; the red cliffs of the southern deserts in fall; friends whose faces I haven’t seen in years and how their mere existence in my life at the time was enough.
I’ll stop rambling about me; the conclusion of the series proves that the films are an ode to friendship. I have heard people make fun of the lines that are said, that they’re too sappy or stupid to ring true (I fear that some deep-seated undercurrents of homophobia color these comments). I feel bad for these people, to have never felt that kind of love for a friend in their lives, to know that their verse in life has been read and has value. To express those feelings for friend and loved ones is vital because one can never know what tomorrow may bring or who it might take away. I cry at the end of this film, not only in remembrance of time passed, but in gratitude for my life now, that I’ve weathered my storms and been made all the better for what has happened and who I have met. I love these movies and I love my friends and I love my family – watching films like this give me the opportunity to remember that.