TORn staffer Arathorn typed up part of the Mail on Sunday magazine special for our reading enjoyment. Some very interesting RoTK information in this article … and, of course, spoilers!
You ain’t seen nothing yet
The final part of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Return of the King, promises to be the most thrilling, says Karyn Miller (Mail on Sunday reporter, I presume).
When The Return of the King, the final and most spectacular film in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, is finally released in December next year, it will have been eight years in the making. It promises to provide a fitting finale to the series.
There will only be a few new characters in the first film, including Denethor, the Steward of the Kingdom of Gondor and the father of Boromir, who is played by respected Australian actor John Noble.
“Denethor resents never being king, and Boromir inherited that bitterness,” says Noble. “It’s what led Boromir to try to steal the Ring in the first film”
When Gondor is besieged by enemy forces, Denethor, who has fallen under Sauron’s influence, becomes desperate and deranged.
“It is my job to show the humanity of the man,” says Noble. “He is literally driven mad by grief and fear.”
Sauron’s henchman, the Mouth of Sauron, also makes his first appearance, although his head is covered by a large helment and all that can be seen of his face is his nose and gaping, decomposing jaws.
We may also see more of Sauron himself. “You can’t reduce him to being a big guy striding around in black armour, but he cannot be limited to a flaming eye, either,” says Jackson.
“The Sauron in the books is sketchy at best, which makes it hard to turn to turn him (sic.) into a screen villain. But imagine not really seeing Darth Vader for all three Star Wars films. You just can’t do it.”
This is from an old interview we think, see our earlier report here.
Despite such qualms, Jackson has high hopes for The Return of the King.
“The battles will be the biggest you have ever seen,” he says. He can make such a claim with confidence thanks to the help of his special effects company, Weta.
“We have poilted a piece of software that allows us to have 200,000 computer-generated extras fight each other,” he says.
“You simply press a button, sit back and watch these enormous battles unfold before your eyes.”
The incredible effects can be seen during the opening scenes of The Fellowship of the Ring, and again during the Battle of Helm’s Deep in The Two Towers. However, it is in the concluding chapter of the trilogy that this ground-breaking software will be utilised to create the most incredible effects.
Jackson has already earmarked the film’s final scene, which takes place amid the sweeping landscape of the Grey Havens, as his favourite.
“To me, it’s a culmination of the entire story; it represents what it is to give and what it is to lose,” he says. “That scene is probably the most powerful part of the entire film.”
