Official Synopsis
The Magic Ring has now become The Ring of Doom and the only way to re-establish harmony in Middle Earth is to destroy it using the raging fire from which it was made. Chosen for the daunting task, Frodo, and his faithful servant Samwise Gamgee, come face-to-face with grave perils, the worst of which is the ring’s terrible power to possess its wearer.
You can see the elements of the books inside this story, and I fully respect that the material, while rushed, was at least given effort to assimilate into the structure that directors Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin built for it. As has been proven prior to Peter Jackson whipping it all into shape with a gigantic budget, it’s rather difficult to take Tolkien’s works and translate them into something respectable in a small amount of time. Jackson’s versions of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings takes nearly 3-4 hours a piece to get the story across, and purist still nail those to the wall.
There is no hope for that kind of intricate detail in this release, which was more of a television time format than theater.
While the core story of The Return of the King is very much intact in this animated version, it is constantly disrupted by needless diversions to other portions of the previous stories within the LOTR universe. People watching this don’t require a flashback, as Ralph Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings (which covers the first two stories) can provide such a thing. Sadly, The Return of the King is hellbent on keeping people informed with the past, so it kind of disrupts the flow of the story at hand. What becomes of the last story, which most people consider the greatest of the trio, is that it doesn’t ever find ground in coherently completing what should be a solid ending to a trilogy. I know that the last, tragic struggle for poor Frodo and Sam up the hill of Mount Doom is epic in nature and emotionally riveting, but the film can’t find its footing to allow its viewers to fully dive into the material.
What’s worse is that outside of the constant flashbacks, and general flipping back and forth with the material, the songs in the movie really kill the flow of it all. I’m not sure what deal was struck with the musicians, but the ratio between song and actual story/dialogue is around 1:1. Half of what you hear in The Return of the King is ballads from a singer who things vibrating vocal chords are fun to listen to all the time. The singing was incredibly distracting from the story and probably should have belonged at the front (intro) and the back (credits), but nowhere in the middle. I was thirsting for consistent dialogue from this film, but it didn’t deliver it thanks to said singing.
I know this review might sound overly negative, but this film’s flow is just a hot mess. I have read across the interwebs that the production of The Return of the King was rushed and didn’t meet the expectations that Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings delivered (that was panned as well), but I had no idea that technical reasons kept the story from fully blooming onscreen. Had they nixed the music and backstories, they might have pulled this last animated feature off perfectly. You could certainly see the story’s pieces in the mushy mess, but there were simply way too many distractions to make this fun to watch.
Anyway, the shining star in this movie, outside of the brilliant cast that put their heart and souls into their characters, is the animation. It certainly screams 1980, but it’s not too far off from the looks of the live-action films from Jackson (sans the gigantic heads of the hobbits). There are some subtle differences here and there, but again they really aren’t too far off. The only huge difference between character designs are the orcs, which look a bit more menacing in the live-action, and Golem – more of a frog creature in this one and less of a hobbit. Just like Bakshi’s films, the looks really do meet up with the story pretty darn well. That’s a huge plus and helps to try and suck the audience into the story. Though ultimately not enough to keep things together, the creative interpretations of the creatures and life in The Return of the King is appreciated.
Also, the remastering that WB’s folks did on this deluxe edition helped to shave some of that age off the animation, which made it a bit more visually appreciated. The emotions of the characters certainly shine through because of it and this movie needs all the help it can get in that department. Anyway, you won’t be disappointed with the looks, though I would actually like to see all three movies upgraded to Blu-ray sometime in the near future. They’re not perfect, but they deserve a place in Tolkien history for the attempt in bringing his words to visuals. Nothing says ‘good try’ like an HD upgrade and a fine film cleansing.
As for the features of the The Return of the King Deluxe Edition release, here’s what you’re looking at:
– Tolkien and Filmmaker Highlights
– Good Knight Droopy
– Jerry Hook and his Merry Meeces
I’ll be honest, I have no clue why the two cartoons are attached to this, but they’re entertaining nonetheless. The Tolkien and Filmmaker highlights are solid, but I wish there had been some sort of commentary attached to this, if only to explain the intentions of the film. Sometimes such things help a bad movie become a bit better. Anyway, there’s enough here to keep you entertained and intrigued, though not a full abundance of goodies.