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the return of the king
The soldiers of Gondor and Rohan.
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“Pelennor Fields is such a huge battle scene,” notes co-producer and editor Jamie Selkirk, “with 600,000 Orcs and 6,000 Rohan horsemen. You would never imagine from the little piece of action that was shot on location that it could develop into the scene that it is now. You’re getting back to the way Pete’s vision is. He sees everything so clearly - how he wants the path of the film to travel and how it should look. His vision has gotten bigger, and he is more and more able to create the effects that he wants to do as the technology has become available. He can now pretty well do anything.”
But what of the big issues with which The Return of the King deals? Well, how about Death, Destiny, Power and Friendship - not the kind of themes you habitually find in popcorn pictures or bubblegum blockbusters.
Friendship - particularly that between the two pairs of Hobbits, Frodo and Sam (Sean Astin), and Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd), who have been following separate paths since the end of Fellowship - is brought into sharp focus by Frodo’s final challenge: to reach Mordor helped only by Sam and the not entirely trustworthy Gollum. With the Ring itself increasingly taking control of Frodo and Gollum even more firmly compromised by its power, it’s Sam who becomes the driving force behind the final fulfilment of the quest.
“It gets to the point where Frodo can’t physically walk on his own and Sam must carry him,” says Wood. “In a lot of ways, Sam is a true hero, because he is the one that is actually able to hold it all together and take his friend, who is unable to see what is right and what is wrong, and almost drive him to do what he must do. As much as Frodo is the hero, it is Sam that maintains his own strength and clarity to allow Frodo to carry out the task.”
“What gives him comfort from Sam is his everyday strength and ordinariness,” explains co-writer Boyens. “For someone who has begun to be overtaken by an extraordinary evil and who is battling this thing every day, Sam becomes Frodo’s touchstone to reality, to normalcy, to decency, to goodness. And that’s something that he cherishes.”
“He starts out as Frodo’s sidekick, a jovial guy who is also an extremely loyal friend,” adds Osborne, “and by the end he becomes the rock. He is the person that Frodo can rely on. He drives him forward on their mission, and this humble friend actually takes on heroic proportions.”
The theme of power, meanwhile, is split between Frodo and Aragorn, both of whom have it within their grasp and, at the same time, experience its fatal attraction. “Frodo is becoming much more influenced by the Ring than we’ve seen him yet,” says Wood. “He can’t think for himself. He’s confused by the influence of the Ring and can’t remember the Shire. He is essentially losing all the characteristics that make him who he is. It almost strips him of his soul.”
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