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Peter Jackson had the amazing opportunity of having his dream job. He had the chance to direct the Lord of the Rings, the book series by J.R.R. Tolkien, one of the greatest authors of all time. This was a dream that he never imagined would ever happen when he first read the books at the age of 18. Peter Jackson was also the first director to film three major feature films simultaneously. Peter Jackson had many endless nights when filming the Lord of the Rings movies but the ultimate result was well worth the time and effort. After the Return of the King was released the total award count for the trilogy was incredible. Lord of the Rings was nominated for 13 Academy awards, and won 4. Jackson’s award for best director was an honor. His hard work and dedication to Lord of the Rings and the views of J.R.R. Tolkien had paid off.
In the creation of Return of the King, Peter Jackson had the monstrous task of creating a film above all others. The Return of the King was the most important of the trilogy as it brought the adventure to a complete closure. Jackson had to face numerous screening and filming challenges but the greatest dispute was with himself. Jackson was a perfectionist constantly changing and altering scenes. He knew this would be his great filming masterpiece and he wanted it to honor J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and a man he respected without even knowing. Jackson had many difficulties to face in regards to filming, scene selections, ect, but some of the most prominent problems Jackson would have to overcome was mentioned by Tom Shippey in his article “From Page to Screen,” who wrote his article before the Return of the King was filmed.
According to Tom Shippey, Peter Jackson had a lot of challenges in order to successfully produce the final Lord of the Rings film, Return of the King. Shippey mentioned Tolkien’s world views in his article as a problem that even he was puzzled about. Tolkien had a brilliant mind and in his final book he incorporated his world views on life. In the book Return of the King, Tolkien used his narratives to portray his world views. Jackson did not have this advantage and had another obstacle to overcome. This major obstacle was commercial cinema.
Commercial cinema is primarily a heroic genre in which good must prevail over evil and those who are evil must face their unavoidable fate. One of Tolkien’s main world views was that good did not always prevail over evil. Tolkien did not believe that being good automatically guaranteed victory or triumph. Jackson had to maneuver this obstacle and determine the best route to take without jeopardizing the success or integrity of the final film.
Tolkien’s world view was narrated in Return of the King with the scouring of the Shire. At the end of Return of the King, the hobbits returned to their beloved Shire to find that it was in shambles. This was an effort by Tolkien to show his reader that good is not indestructible and bad things can happen in the most fairy-tale like places. Jackson chose to omit this scene which must have been a very difficult decision. With the omission of the scouring of the Shire, Jackson lost a great deal of Tolkien’s world view. From the dedicated reader’s point of view, Jackson lost the meaning that Tolkien was trying to portray. From the view of the audience, they did not know the difference because they did not have the privilege of reading Tolkien’s novel first hand.
In order to compensate the loss of this world view Jackson incorporated others throughout the Return of the King. The final ending that Jackson chose was of Frodo leaving for the undying lands. He was going away from his friends and it was uncertain whether or not he was going to his final death or to a land of paradise. In this scene Jackson preserved a small aspect of Tolkien’s world view. Although the ring was ultimately destroyed, Frodo was still scarred for life, keeping the idea that good does not always prevail as Tolkien had believed.
Jackson did not stop at one effort to compensate for the omission of the scouring of the shire. Tolkien’s script “On Fairy-Stories,” describes Tolkien’s view on evil. He states that evil is “engulfing” and can make “fairies” do crazy things. In this script, Tolkien’s description of fairies was similar to his description of hobbits. Jackson used the evil and strength of the ring to incorporate Tolkien’s view on evil. This mainly took place with scenes including Frodo, Sam, and Gollum. Jackson even created a scene in which Gollum threw the remainder of the hobbits food over the cliff. This scene led to Frodo abandoning Sam, which was an indirect result of the power of the ring. The ring affected Gollum, who in turn manipulated Frodo to desert his best friend.
Jackson was also able to portray the evil and the strength that the ring had in Return of the King by directing his actors and maximizing their abilities. Without words, only gestures and facial expressions, it was apparent the affect the ring had on Frodo. This was an important concept for Jackson not just to compensate for the loss of Tolkien’s main world view, but to lead up to the main climax. This climax was the destruction of the ring and fall of Sauron.
At first it can be difficult to understand Tolkien’s world views. While creating Return of the King, Jackson had to research the history of Tolkien and the reasons for some of his decisions made while writing Return of the King. Lord of the Rings was writing during the World War II era. This was a hard time for Tolkien and broadly explains his views on evil and his thoughts that good does not always prevail. The idea that good does not always prevail is a real world perspective and Tolkien was a man who wanted to follow his dreams and do everything his way. Jackson had to pick and choose which guidelines were more important to follow, the commercial cinema or the great J.R.R. Tolkien. Overall, Jackson had a good blend of cinema and Tolkien world views in Return of the King.
Another difficulty that Jackson faced was the incorporation of Arwen into the Return of the King. Although Arwen was an important character and played a major role in the Return of the King, she had a very small part and was mentioned briefly in the book. Jackson thought that with the incorporation of a more romantic, in depth love scene, he would appeal to a larger audience. Jackson had several tactics to incorporate Arwen into the film but he soon realized that Arwen was a strong character on her own and did not need additional screen time to strengthen her character.
Despite this, Jackson made the decision to incorporate Arwen briefly in the re-forging of the sword scene. Elrond re-created the sword then brought it to Aragorn with helpful advice. During this meeting between Elrond and Aragorn, Jackson showed a flash of Arwen dying and Aragorn knew that in order to be with Arwen and save her life, he would have to become king. This brief scene gave the audience a glimpse of the romance. This tactic by Jackson was effective and overall successful. He appealed to the audience without losing integrity. The meeting of Elrond and Aragorn was a scene that strengthened the film and was also a stepping stone for Aragorn’s decision to take his rightful place as king.
After the re-forging of the sword, Aragorn went to muster the Dead men of Dunharrow. Jackson had little to work with for this scene because it was mentioned briefly by Tolkien in the. Although it was briefly mentioned and easily overlooked, it was very important to incorporate this scene to keep the flow of the movie and lead up to the defeat of the enemy at the Battle at Minas Tirith. Jackson had many instances while filming the trilogy to use computer animation but the fight scene in Return of the King was the only scene in which computer animation was used to bring fictional characters to life on a large scale. Of course he had to deal with large scale creations of the orc army, but that was an issue for the trilogy as a whole and not just Return of the King. The scene with the dead soldiers and the Battle at Minas Tirith used computer animation to a large extent. Jackson’s images of the ghosts and the battle scene in particular were a great success. With the technology available in modern times one would not think this task was difficult, but trying to achieve perfection is always difficult.
Jackson had many difficult situations to deal with and overall, he did a magnificent job directing Return of the King. There will always be problems that critics claim were not handled properly but when a movie is the second largest grossing movie of all time, Jackson must have done something right.
Works Cited
Shippey, Tom. “From Page to Screen: J.R.R. Tolkien and Peter Jackson.” World Literature Today: A Literary Quarterly of the University of Oklahoma 77 (2003): 69–72.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Extended Edition. Dir. Peter Jackson.
Tolkien, J.R. R. On Fairy-stories. Ts.
Tolkien, J.R. R. The Return of the King. New York, NY: Random House, 1994.
