Adapted from the novel The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien, and also technically from the novels The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers by Tolkien, and the screenplays The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers by Boyens, Jackson, Walsh, and Stephen Sinclair
This is the third installment of Frodo Baggins the hobbit's quest to destroy the One Ring and save Middle Earth from the darkness. Frodo ventures into Mordor with Sam and Gollum, while the other remaining members of the Fellowship rush to defend Gondor.
For the most part, this is a remarkably faithful adaptation, given the length and complexity of the source material. The story is very much the same, although it unfolds quite differently. The first half of the book is entirely from the perspectives of pretty much everyone except Frodo, Sam, and Gollum, and then the second half picks up with those three where their story left off at the end of the second book. The movie, on the other hand, switches back and forth between different characters' stories much more frequently, which works well in the film. The way the book does it works on the page, but I think it would have been annoying to have to wonder what Frodo's up to for the entire first half of the movie. I did find it interesting that the last three chapters of The Two Towers were not in the Two Towers movie, and instead are incorporated into this movie. I'm not entirely sure why they did that, since this movie certainly did not need to be any longer than it already would have been, but I think it probably has to do with the way the story was restructured. Frodo's section of the Return of the King book is much shorter than the section about everyone else, so adding some of his Two Towers story into this movie helped the switching back and forth feel more balanced.
Beyond this, and some omissions and simplifications as are always required when adapting a novel into a feature film, the main difference I noticed is that the movie makes things a lot more obvious than the book. It's clearer what certain characters' motivations are in the movie much earlier than in the book, which I think is partly a timing thing (again, the movie is plenty long without having every character reveal their intentions gradually), but also it's harder to keep the audience in suspense when you're showing things to them rather than describing them. For example, when Éowyn rides to battle in disguise, in the book Merry doesn't recognize her, and the reader doesn't find out that it's her until much later, whereas in the movie Merry does recognize her, and the audience knows it's her the whole time. It would have been difficult to disguise her enough to hide her identity from the audience while still allowing her to reveal herself quickly when she needs to, so this change made a lot of sense. Most of the other changes were similar to this.
When I blogged about this movie for my Best Picture project, I was annoyed at its departures from the novel. This time, however, I was impressed by how well the story was adapted to the screen. I think this project has changed my perspective on film adaptations. Back then, the Harry Potter movies were still coming out, and I was still being constantly disappointed by them, so I think I felt that epic books like these were sacred, and trying to put them on screen was akin to tearing them apart and burning them. But having read and watched so many page-to-screen adaptations recently, I now feel I have a better understanding of what is reasonable to expect from a film adaptation of a novel. Obviously things need to be omitted and changed, it's just a question of which things to omit and change. Yes, there are parts of The Return of the King the book that I would have liked to see in the movie that were cut out, but I think overall this movie does a relatively good job of keeping the heart of the story intact, and for a story like this, that's really the most important thing.
I'm glad I had an excuse to re-read and -watch The Lord of the Rings, but I'm also glad to finally be done with that so I can move on with this project. Next up is a movie I've never seen before based on a book I've never read before: Sideways, based on the novel by Rex Pickett.
