- News
-
Reviews
- Moonrise Kingdom
- Review
- Wes Anderson Does What Wes Anderson Does
- Men in Black III
- Review
- Third time isn’t quite the charm for Agents K and J, but a time travel plot opens up some new possibilities for these otherwise tired jokes and characters, reminding us that aliens can still be fun.
- Sound of My Voice
- Review
- A time travel story with no time travel, Sound of My Voice is intimate science fiction with only one concern: constructing a smart, incredibly acted puzzle for viewers to lose themselves in.
- Battleship
- Review
- Watch a "Transformers" DVD instead
- Upcoming
- Podcast
 |
Peter Jackson Director | previously directed The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers |  |
The final installment in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Frodo must destroy the Ring of Power while Aragorn rallies the armies of Minas Tirith, and Rohan in a last ditch effort against the Dark Lord's army.
Trivia:
Andy Serkis was not the film-makers' first choice to play the real Smeagol at the beginning of the film. However, once they started considering other actors, they realized that Serkis was the natural choice.
17 More Trivia
Quote:
Gimli
24 More Quotes[After Legolas single-handedly takes down an Oliphant] That still only counts as one!
|
Peter Jackson | Screenplay |
 |
Fran Walsh | Screenplay |
 |
Philippa Boyens | Screenplay |
 |
J.R.R. Tolkien | Novel |
The Plot
The story continues the plot of the first two Lord of the Rings movies but it starts out with how the creature Gollum first came into possesion of the Ring. In a flashback we see his friend Déagol finding the Ring on a river bed while fishing, Gollum (then called Smeagol) demanded the Ring as his birthday present. When Déagol refused, Gollum killed him and hid the body, taking the Ring for himself. From here we are brought back to present time and where the story concentrates on 3 different strands; Frodo and Sam, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, and Gandalf.Frodo and Sam
In the Return of the King, Frodo and Sam are continuing the quest of destorying the Ring. They
The Orcs declare that Frodo has only been poisened by Shelob and carry him away to their Tower at Cirith Ungol. Here Sam rescues Frodo, restoring both his sword, Sting, and the Ring to him. They disguise themselves in Orc armour and begin the final leg of the journey to Mount Doom, while being secretly followed by Gollum. After finally reaching the mountain, Frodo passes out
On the way to Mount Doom disguised in Orc armour
The Three Hunters
When we first meet out heroes they are traveling with Gandalf to Isengard to meet with the now imprisoned Saruman
Gimli, Legolas and Aragorn
As the 3 head into the mountains Gimli becomes increasingly uneasy at the idea of what they are about to do. Inside the mountains the hunters are attack by a group of The Army of the Dead, Aragorn deflects an attack from the King of the Dead with Andúri. The King realises that Aragorn is a heir of Isildur and Aragorn calls upon them to repay the debt they own after abandoning Isidur in the Last War to the Alliance. They then capture the ships of the Corsairs of Umbar, men allied to Sauron, who were supposed to launch a suprise attack on Minas Tirith. They quickly sail to Minas Tirith where Saurons forces are trying to capture the City. They help launch a surprise counter attack, joining the Rohirrim and the Gondorians, and the Army of the Dead quickly help win the battle. After the battle Gimli suggests keeping the Army of the Dead and not lifting their curse but Aragorn holds the Army's debt repaid and frees them from Isidur's curse. Gandalf realises that the rest of Sauron's forces are on the path between Cirith Ungol and Mount Doom, the path that Frodo needs to cross in order to destroy the Ring, so Aragorn leads all the remainiing men to the Black Gate to engage Sauron's forces and distract Sauron's eye atop the Dark Tower and allow Frodo to slip by unnoticed. The men face an impossible task as they are vastly outnumbered by Sauron's forces but fight on nonetheless. As the Ring falls into the lava at Mount Doom and the Ring is destroyed the Dark Tower and the ground around the Men of the West which the Orcs are standing on falls into a gaping chasm, kiiling the rest of Sauron's army.
Gandalf the White
Gandalf is first seen on screen when he rides with Aragorn, Legolas, Gimili and King Théoden to Isengard, which is now under
Gandalf the White
On the 7th level Pippen sees the white tree from his vision and Gandalf tells him that Gondorians believe that it will flower once again when the King of Gondor returns. Gandalf tries to convince Denethor, the steward of Gondor, to call to Théoden and the Riders of
Pippin being interrogated by Sauron whil holding the palantir
In the End
After Frodo destoyed the Ring and Sauron was defeated, Frodo and Sam are rescued by Frodo and the Great Eagles. They wake up in Minas Trith where Aragorn is coronated as King of Gondor and is reunited with his true love Arwin. Everntually the Hobbits return to The Shire,
Frodo leaving
Special Effects
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King employed similar special effects and techniques introduced in the first two films.To portray the difference in size between the Hobbits and Dwarves in comparison with the Humans, Elves and other taller races, the filmmakers employed several different techniques. Firstly, they created two different scales of sets for some locations - such as Bag End - and shot the scenes with taller characters in the smaller set to make them appear bigger while separately filming the Hobbits in the bigger set, making them seem smaller. They also used a technique called "forced perspective," making the Hobbits kneel down or stand or sit further from the camera to make them seem smaller.
The creators also had a miniature team in order to construct 1:4 miniature models of certain sets that were used for grand-scale shots. In total, 72 models were produced including models of Helm's Deep, Minas Trith, the Dark Tower and the Black Gate.
Serkis in his motion capture suit
Animation was also used throughout the movie to create the various beasts. Beasts created included the Great Eagles, Shelob, Wargs and Olephaunts. Animation played a key part in the creation of Gollum throughout the entire series. Two shots were taken of every scene in which he is featured. In one, Andy Serkis played Gollum when filming while in another he wasn't portrayed in the scene. Then he was motion captured to create the basis for the Gollum character. Often due to the other actor's better performances in the scenes with Serkis portraying Gollum on set, Jackson chose those scene and had the technical team remove him from the scene and put the animated CG Gollum in his place.
Box Office
The Return of the King currently stands 3rd in the list of the highest grossing films of all time behind Avatar and Titanic. It became the second film, after Titanic, to break the $1 billion mark. Its earnings helped make The Lord of the Rings the most successful trilogy of all time, earning just under $3 billion. This put it ahead of other famous trilogies such as the original Star Wars and Godfather trilogies.Awards
The Return of the King is one of the most succesful movies of all time in the Academy Awards. It was nominated for 11 awards - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Song, Best Visual Effects, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Desgin, Best Make-up, Best Sound Mixing and Best Film Editing. It won all 11 awards putting it equal with Ben Hur and Titanic for most Academy Awards won for a single movie. It is also the only film, of those three, to win an Oscar for its screenplay.
Peter Jackson winning the Best Director award at the Oscars.
While the film as a whole was an astounding success at the Oscars, none of the cast earned a nomination. This was the first time in eight years that the Best Picture winner didn't receive an acting nomination.
The movie didn't only enjoy success at the Academy Awards, it recieved worldwide recognition, winning 4 Golden Globes, 5 BAFTAs, 2 MTV Movie Awards, 2 Grammys, 9 Saturn Awards among others. Worldwide, it won 117 awards and recieved 68 other nominations, making it the most successful fantasy movie ever.
-
94 -
A- -
4.5 -
8.8
General Information
Edit
| Name | The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King |
| US Release | Dec. 17, 2003 |
| UK Release | Dec. 17, 2003 |
| AUS Release | Dec. 26, 2003 |
| Runtime | 200 |
| Language(s) |
Add a new language
|
| Genre(s) | |
| Theme(s) | |
| Rating | PG-13 |
| Alias(es) | Lord of the Rings 3 Lord of the Rings ROTK LOTR 3 |
Top Rated Lists
Create a list
Top 40 Films of The Decade
a list of 40 items by RHCPfan24
Best Movies Year by Year
a list of 72 items by Adrenaline
Favourite Films
a list of 99 items by Icon
Similar Movies
Edit
Related Pages
Edit
-
edit
Box Office
Domestic $377,845,905 Foreign +$742,083,616 - = total worldwide gross $1,119,929,521
- - a reported budget of $94,000,000
- = a 1,091.4% net profit of $1,025,929,521
- show in today's dollars »
-
By Rating 5/5 4/4 3/3 2/2 1/1 0/0 - edit Links Around the Web
-
In today's dollars
Domestic $377,845,905 Foreign +742,083,616 - = total worldwide gross $1,119,929,521
- - a reported budget of $94,000,000
- = a 1,091.4% net profit of $1,025,929,521
Top Editors
-
Ferg
1,628 points
- Aarny 924 points
- Winston 75 points
- Redemption 68 points
- FriendlyMarshmellow 46 points
