Hasitha Fernando on The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King as it turns 20…
Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings is a trilogy that requires very little introduction. Based on the much beloved fantasy novels penned by J.R.R. Tolkien, this trifecta of movies went on to redefine large scale, genre filmmaking in a big way, revolutionizing visual effects driven Hollywood extravaganzas in time to come. As the critically acclaimed third instalment celebrates its 20th anniversary, we look at some of the things that went on behind-the-scenes…
Peter Jackson was an indie filmmaker who had a lot to lose
When one talks of Peter Jackson now, he is often mentioned in the same breath as Christopher Nolan, Denis Villeneuve and Martin Scorsese. But back in the late 90s when production on The Lord of the Rings had just commenced, Jackson was one nervous Kiwi with only a handful of indie flicks like Heavenly Creatures and Frighteners under his belt.
Although shooting movies back-to-back is somewhat commonplace now, back when Lord of the Rings was being shot such things were unheard of. So, a lot depended on what Jackson had crafted and how the first instalment of the trilogy performed. Luckily, when The Fellowship of the Ring arrived it proved to be a bona fide hit and the rest, as they say, is history.
A trilogy of movies were shot back-to-back in New Zealand
To say The Lord of the Rings was the Mount Everest of risks, was something of an understatement. Peter Jackson was an as of yet unproven filmmaker, a majority of the cast members were relatively unknown character actors, and the trilogy was going to be shot back-to-back. How crazy is that? And yet, all of these disparate factors coalesced to create the perfect trio of epic fantasy that the aforementioned risks have now become something that people have forgotten about.
The Return of the King was shot during the year 2000 and some of the earliest scenes shot for the movie were in fact shot last. Hobbiton, the home of the Hobbits, was shot in January 2000 along with early scenes from The Fellowship of the Ring. The shoot at Rangipo Desert, where the Battle of the Black Gate were filmed, was an especially risky enterprise as the desert area was a former minefield. To ensure the safety of the cast and crew guides were hired to be on the lookout for potentially unexploded mines.
As with The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers additional pick-ups were also shot for The Return of the King a few months prior to the film’s release in 2003, and these shoots continued for a period of two months.
The screenwriters took liberty with the source material
Peter Jackson along with Fran Walsh and Phillipa Boyens were the talented creatives who took on the burdensome task of adapting J.R.R. Tolkien’s sprawling epic for the big screen. From the get-go the trio were keenly aware that adhering slavishly to the source material was not the way forward. Instead, they took some creative liberties and artistic licenses to ensure the very essence and soul of Tolkien’s tale was preserved and the best possible version would be put to screen for audiences.
As with the previous two instalments many timelines, major events and geographic distances were either compressed or simplified. Jackson & co. preferred to follow the timeline of the book’s Appendices instead of following the sequence of events featured in the book’s main narrative in order to streamline things more. While most major events from the books were included, some were significantly altered, and new material not seen in the books was also included. An omission of note from the film was the Scouring of the Shire, the penultimate chapter of The Return of the King which saw the evils of Isengard creeping on Hobbiton’s doorstep and the dark aftermath that followed.
Middle-earth was primarily designed by two conceptual artists
Of course, with an undertaking as ambitious as The Lord of the Rings the size of the crew was also equally epic in size but there are two conceptual artists who played a pivotal role in realizing Jackson’s Middle-earth and they are Alan Lee and John Howe. Both Lee and Howe were world renowned artists who have been illustrating J.R.R. Tolkien’s literary works over the years, so much so that their efforts have become synonymous with The Lord of the Rings even prior to Jackson’s stab at the property.
One of the first things the duo did when handed the daunting cast of crafting Middle-earth was to instill a strong sense of culture and history with each of the unique races existing in this fantastical realm. For example when crafting the armor of the Gondorians 16th Century Italian and German armor were referred for inspiration, and an ancient/medieval Mediterranean Basin look was used to bring to life the civilians appearance.
A special software program was developed specifically for crowd simulations
For Jackson & co., trying to figure out the logistics required to create massive armies consisting of hundreds of thousands of individuals was a huge stumbling block. Sure, they could do it by hiring a large number of extras, but this wasn’t practical from a financial or logistical perspective. Enter computer wunderkind Stephen Regelous, of Weta FX. Regelous saw a computer-based solution to the issue posed by the film’s requirement and came up with the high-end computer animation and artificial intelligent software package called MASSIVE (Multiple Agent Simulation System in Virtual Environment). The program’s primary feature was its ability to create large groups of agents that can act as individuals, each with their own unique behaviors and actions.
The Return of the King contained 1,489 visual effect shots, nearly three times the number of The Fellowship of the Ring and almost twice that of The Two Towers. For the sprawling battle of the Pelennor fields, Weta FX recorded 450 motions for the digital horses and also had to deal with late additions in the film, such as Trolls bursting through the gates of Minas Tirith as well as the dark creatures that pull Grond to the gates. Some notable blockbusters that have successfully used MASSIVE in their productions since then are: 300, Life of Pi, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, World War Z, Aquaman and Avengers: Endgame.
Howard Shore outdid himself for The Return of the King
Many cast their doubts when composer Howard Shore was hired to craft the music for the universally loved Lord of the Rings trilogy, overlooking such talents as John Williams, James Horner or Jerry Goldsmith. But Shore proved all the naysayers wrong by creating some of the most stunning musical compositions to be featured in the fantasy genre, as well as the 2000s era as a whole.
Utilizing the musical talents of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Voices, the London Oratory School Schola and the breathtaking efforts of vocal soloists such as Ben Del Maestro, Renée Fleming, Sissel Kyrkjebø and James Galway, the musician conjured a rich, multi-cultural tapestry that would be representative of all that was Middle-earth and then some. Shore wrote seven minutes of music per day to keep up with the Jackson’s busy schedule and used an assembly cut of the movie as reference. And that wasn’t all, Shore he even had to compose additional music for the trailers and the numerous TV spots as well.
A box office smash of unparalleled proportions
The Return of the King was produced on a production budget of $94 million but by the conclusion of its theatrical run went on to make a whopping $1.156 billion, which was an unthinkable amount to achieve for a genre movie. It became the second film after 1998’s Titanic to cross the $1 billion mark becoming the highest-grossing movie 0f 2003 and the second highest of the 2000s behind the box-office juggernaut that was 2009’s Avatar.
Although more and more flicks have surpassed $1 billion at the worldwide box office since, thus reducing the achievement’s overall impact, there is no denying that what The Return of the King achieved twenty years ago was nothing short of amazing.
Universal critical acclaim & award wins galore
Like its two predecessors, The Return of the King was released to universal critical acclaim. Alan Morrison of Empire gave the film a perfect score of five stars. In his review, Morrison called the film “the resounding climax to a landmark in cinema history” and praised how Peter Jackson had “kept the momentum of the series rolling on and on through the traditionally ‘difficult’ middle part and ‘weak’ finale, delivering a climax to the story that’s neater and more affecting than what Tolkien managed on the printed page.”
Even world renowned film critic Roger Ebert wasn’t immune to its charm giving the movie three and a half stars out of four, saying that it is “such a crowning achievement, such a visionary use of all the tools of special effects, such a pure spectacle, that it can be enjoyed even by those who have not seen the first two films.” Talking about the whole trilogy, Ebert said that he admired it “more as a whole than in its parts”, and that The Return of the King certified The Lord of the Rings as “a work of bold ambition in a time of cinematic timidity”.
Although both The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers received multiple Oscar nominations including Best Picture neither was able to nab any of the major awards, save for the ones won in the technical categories. Because of this New Line Cinema launched an all-out, multi-million-dollar campaign to bring home Oscar gold and by the conclusion of the 76th Academy Awards in 2004, the film won all the categories it was nominated for, including the coveted Best Picture and Best Director for Peter Jackson. It shared the record for highest Academy Awards total along with Titanic and Ben-Hur and also recorded the highest clean-sweep beating out the nine Oscar hauls of both Gigi and The Last Emperor.
A legacy that would stand the test of time
Genre filmmaking, fantasy and horror in particular have always been sidelined by Oscar voters since its award’s inception. Horror had a better streak of luck by garnering nominations early on with 1973’s The Exorcist and 1976’s The Omen, but fantasy was somewhat ignored until Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings came along. As mentioned earlier, although the first instalments of the franchise performed quite well at the box-office and got a bit of awards love it was The Return of the King that really sealed the deal by nabbing both prestigious awards of the Oscar ceremony – Best Picture and Best Director.
In spite of this achievement it would be well over a decade that another fantasy movie, with horror overtones, would duplicate the success of the aforementioned. That film was Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water released in 2017. The chosen one to take over the reins from Jackson to helm The Hobbit movies, until he relinquished the responsibility back to Jackson, del Toro’s effort was yet another feather in the cap of genre filmmaking.
Thankfully, we didn’t have to wait long for the next game changer which hailed from South Korea – 2019’s Parasite. South Korean cinema had been slowly gathering acclaim with efforts like Oldboy, Memories of Murder and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, so it was only a matter of time before they started showing up in major awards ceremonies too. But one can argue that all this became possible because of what The Return of the King accomplished two decades prior. I mean this was the same year that Mystic River, Lost in Translation, City of God and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World received their share of Oscar acclaim. So, to say that The Return of the King had all odds stacked against it would be quite correct. But in spite of all that, Peter Jackson and his team pulled off the impossible by practically sweeping that year’s Oscar ceremony with style and panache.
The Harry Potter saga, whose first installment was released alongside The Fellowship of the Ring, also proved to be a great crowd pleaser but for some reason it was unable to replicate the success the original Lord of the Rings trilogy could. In fact, no group of fantasy films since (not even Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit) have been able to capture that magic and sense of awe which these movies were able to. Peter Jackson & co. also taught filmmakers that it was completely okay to stray away from the source material – even if the original IP has a devoted fanbase – as long as you stay true to the essence or the beating heart of the narrative.
The films were also a major influence on visual effects driven blockbusters which became more or less the future of cinema, with the boom of superhero actioners. Software programs like MASSIVE, which were invented for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, ended up revolutionizing the industry through their extensive usage in large-scale Hollywood productions. But the most important lesson for directors helming such big-budget affairs is to not lose sight of the story and the characters that populate the story. Because no amount of hollow spectacle or CGI wizardry can ever take the place of good storytelling and real human emotions.
As evidenced by the resounding success of this year’s Godzilla Minus One and the fantabulous crash-and-burn failures of recent superhero flicks, it is high-time to take a leaf from the pages of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings and focus on developing character driven stories, as opposed to senseless visual effects heavy ones.
Hasitha Fernando is a part-time medical practitioner and full-time cinephile. Follow him on Twitter via @DoctorCinephile for regular updates on the world of entertainment.
