Am I Betraying My Jedi Heritage by Falling in Love With LOTR?

Yesterday I was “finally” able to see “Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.” Less than a week after it came out, and yet an eternity of half-reading other peoples reviews to avoid spoilers, but trying to get a gauge of how people felt about it. The acclaim is nearly universal—and although I read the trilogy several years ago, time and a willful desire to erase the pain of all that Elvish History helped me forget how exactly things ended. And now that Peter Jackson has finished his own masterful take on Tolkien, I may never read them again.

As this trilogy of films has progressed, I’ve had a troubled heart. This is probably going to be the most acclaimed trilogy of movies in my lifetime, and with good reason. They’re based on an intricately written trilogy of books, instead of built upon successes of previous films and characters. So Peter Jackson knew the end from the beginning, and could work toward that end. They were able to shoot continuously, so the actors and sets were all available, evening out discontinuities that have appeared in other movie series. And although technology has progressed to the point where computer animation may be easier than more traditional methods, Jackson seems to have relied more on the traditional methods because of their more realistic look. Many of the effects shots being achieved with miniatures for example, instead of digital paintings. And with each thing that Jackson did right, he distressed me a little bit further. By creating the best trilogy, he was displacing one close to my heart—the Star Wars trilogy. Not this new prequel nonsense, but the classic one—the one I grew up with. “Star Wars” was the first movie I saw in the theatres, and the series affected my life enough that as a 30-year old, I’m still dressing up for Halloween as a Jedi Knight…and use “jedikermit” for my e-mail, Epinions moniker, and everywhere else I can squeeze it in.

So am I betraying my love of Star Wars by falling for this new, sexier, in many ways “better” movie series? No. Nor am I betraying my love of the first three Muppet movies (not a trilogy of continuing stories, but taken as a package nonetheless) or the Indiana Jones trilogy. I’m acknowledging that as time goes on, and filmmaking progresses, we’re going to see some wonderful things, and I’m hopefully mature enough to recognize what those wonderful things will be.

Instead of focusing on all of the effects and amazing battle scenes and “HOLY $#!**” moments in “Return of the King,” I want to focus on what I liked best about the movie. Beyond the dragons and the cities and the battlefields, what ended up sticking with me most were two of the more emotional aspects of the film. First, the many examples of leadership we see in the movie, and second, how each of the Hobbits became more crucial to the story than they’ve been up until now.

I think “Return of the King” could be used by leaders of every sort to evaluate their own performance. We see many different examples of leadership; the absolute authority of Gandalf, which he could exercise at any given point, but chooses to defer to other leaders. It’s only after those other leaders have either refused to act or have failed that Gandalf takes the lead. We have Denethor, the steward ruler of Gondor, who refuses to either give up his mantle of leadership or use it to save his kingdom. His son Faramir is another example of a leader—in trying to please his father he leads a whole army of men to their deaths, he does so nobly, but rather foolishly in my estimation. The older King Theoden of the Rohan also leads his men into battle, but does so wisely, gaining support from his allies as he goes. And finally, there’s Aragorn, the king whose return is foretold in the title, who fights as a warrior for his people before eventually accepting the crown. He ascended as a man of the people, fighting off every evil on his way to the throne, which he can finally rightfully accept. All of these different leadership styles left me thinking about my own places where I have authority, and how I choose to use it. It also made me evaluate various political leaders, and where I think they’d fall in this spectrum. Interesting.

The other part of the film that’s still resonating with me is how the four Hobbits: Merry, Pippin, Frodo and Sam, were all put to greater use in this part of the story than they had been before. We’ve known they were important from the time they were added to the Fellowship, but not known why—and they themselves probably didn’t recognize their greatness until now.

Merry and Pippin, together in every scene up until this film, are split apart as Pippin is carried to Gondor with Gandalf to warn the city there. Pippin, always one of my favorite Hobbits because he screams like a girl, here finds the hero within, and as he becomes the servant to Denethor, is the first to recognize the madness in that king. Pippin, perhaps the least likely Hobbit to be a hero, ends up with many heroic moments in this film—from being the person who defied orders to light the beacons unifying men to saving Faramir from immolation. Merry, probably my least favorite Hobbit (something about his eyes), finds heroism as well as he joins the riders of Rohan as a warrior himself; he rides into battle with the beautiful Eowyn, she herself a warrior and probably the only woman in this movie who I’d like to date. After she beat me up for saying it. We see much of the battle as Merry would have seen it, and he’s instrumental in the defeat of Sauron’s greatest warrior.

Frodo would be who you’d expect to be the hero of this saga—he’s carried the Ring from The Shire to Mordor, and fought off temptation and Smeagol and Orcs to keep it safe. And he is a hero, as he avoids the last desire to keep the ring for himself and then chooses to live instead of join it in the fires of Mount Doom. But it’s really Sam who’s the hero here—the simple “fat” Hobbit Samwise Gamgee, who literally carries Frodo at the end of their journey; perhaps the only character in the entire story who wasn’t ever tempted by the power the Ring offered…and who we see in an epilogue is the person who keeps the ways of the Shire and the story of the Lord of the Rings intact. With all the jokes I’ve made about Frodo and Sam being not-so-secret lovers, their bond of camaraderie and friendship had me in tears at the end of the movie, and I love Tolkien, Peter Jackson, and the actors for pulling it off. It was beautifully done.

So was it long? Oh yes. Was it too long? No. But there should be an intermission in these films to make them more tolerable. It didn’t feel long, the pacing was tight throughout the movie, and Jackson didn’t waste time where he didn’t need to devote it. I was surprised at how small the roles of some of the heroes of the previous installments were—Gimli and Legolas get short shrift here, and even Aragorn doesn’t have as much time as I thought he’d get. This story is primarily about the Hobbits, and they’re recognized after the battles as the truly great heroes of Middle Earth.

This series will never take the place of “Star Wars” in my heart—I grew up with that, and somehow the idea of being frozen in Carbonite is still more terrifying and real to me than being attacked by Orcs or a giant flaming eye. But this IS the movie trilogy for this generation, and deserves to be. This year we’ve seen “The Matrix” fail to live up to its potential…and we’ve seen Lord of the Rings succeed.

And I can’t wait for the DVD.