Naturally, if you haven’t read the book and want to be surprised how it ends…bail out now.
If you were Peter Jackson, what would be the last scene, or last shot, of Return of the King? There are lots of candidates:
Frodo, Bilbo, Gandalf at the bow of their ship, with their first glimpse of the Undying Lands.
Sam returning home from seeing Frodo off, saying “Rosie, I’m home” (or words to that effect).
Legolas & Gimli hopping in their rowboat for the Undying Lands (since Legolas had to build his own boat, I always pictured it this way.
The death of King Elessar, with Arwen prostrate with grief at his grave.
Sam leaving for the UL.
Chronologically it should be 4, and I’m pretty sure they’ve filmed this scene (Liv Tyler showed off her Elvish to David Letterman by reciting some lines from this scene). But this is such a downer.
I would go with 2, then cut to 1—with a voice over from Cate Blanchett describing what happens to the rest of the Fellowship (kind of an American Graffiti ending).
I think it best to end with Sam Gamgee returning home. As long as he condenses the last hundred pages to five minutes of screen time with, as you suggested, Cate Blanchett doing the “American Grafitti” thing.
The group capturing Saruman in a wacky elf trap and unmasking him to see…gasp…Arwen Undómiel!!!
As she is led off by the cops she shouts “I would have gotten away with it too if it hadn’t have been for your nosy Fellowship and your little dwarf too!”
Then a shot of Gimli draining a mug and saying “GIMLI, GIMLI, SON OF GLIOOOOOONNNN!”
Personally? I’d go with a tearful farewell at Mithlonde, Sam waving off the ships, and coming home to his wife. “Well, I’m home.” Don’t show the Undying Lands at all; we’re supposed to be seeing this from the point of view of those who stayed behind.
The biggest problem with this is that for Sam to come home to Rosie, they have to be married by then. And while you can get away with “And then a year passed, and meanwhile Sam and Rosie married and had a kid” in a book, I’m not sure how that would work on film. Then again, though, we did get the setup with Rosie in the first one, and there is a cast listing for http://us.imdb.com/Name?Astin,%20Alexandra"]Elanor (Sean Astin’s daughter), so PJ may have done it.
I’ll agree that the death of Elessar is a very emotional scene, and I’d like to see it, but it’s even harder to integrate into a movie. Heck, it couldn’t even be integrated into the book proper: If it’s hard to do “Meanwhile, a year passes”, how much harder when it’s over a century?
The death of Aragorn will be covered in a flash-forward scene in The Two Towers, according to this report on 16 minutes of TTT footage recently screened (to who or where, I’m not exactly sure, which might cast doubt on its authenticity).
As for the end of the movie trilogy, I’d like to see something incredibly epic and sweeping, followed by something simple as the very last scene. Something like a 10-15 minute montage of what happened next for all the main characters - sort of like what Lucas tried to do to the ending of Return of the Jedi in the Special Editions of the Star Wars trilogy, only much much bigger and better.
This would include the departure of Frodo, Bilbo and Gandalf, the writing of the Red Book, the passing on the Book to Rosie, the departure of Sam, the deaths of Merry and Pippin, the death of Arwen, and a last lingering shot of an aged Glimli and a young-as-ever Legolas reaching the sea and setting off to the undying lands. And then, perhaps, a very final brief shot of Rosie (or her descendants - I’m not sure how the chronology would work out), reading over the final pages of the Red Book, and shutting it.
Wait, wait! No Scouring of the Shire?! You know, so far I have had no problems with the way that Jackson has done anything, nor do I see myself having problems with anything that I’ve heard of him planning for the next two films. But removing the Scouring is something I do have a problem with.
This is no Tom Bombadil, kind of silly, easily ignored. The Scouring is the true resolution, the end of the trail. It’s the death of Saruman, the end of Grima, the illustration of what evil is, in Tolkien’s world, condensed into everyday scale, and also the everyday version of what good is when it rises up to triumph over that evil. It brings this whole massive, dramatic, wide-open epic down to a scale that has more to do with most people’s lives than anything that’s gone before.
jayjay, couldn’t agree more. Loss of the Scouring would be terrible.
I too have no problems with Jackson’s interpretation, although I was looking forward to seeing the Fellowship’s fight with the wolf pack before they go into Moria.
Following on from this, indications are that Saruman’s death has been moved forward to The Two Towers. This makes sense, since he doesn’t get up to much else besides the Scouring, after the siege of Isengard.
I had heard that the more likely scenerio is a TV series which would pick up after the third movie. The basic feeling being that the movies are epic and based on the original books, but rather than try to deal with the inevitable expectations of the fourth movie not being based on a JRR Tolkein novel, tis better to slink away to the small screen for the future adventures.
I like this a lot. I would have the last line of dialog be “Well, I’m home.”, followed by montage as you describe, with voice over. The last shot should be, though, Gimli & Legolas from the POV of the shore, facing into the West (setting sun, preferably).
I absolutely agree that the Scouring of the Shire is very important thematically to the book. It shows us that things have changed, that the story didn’t just wrap itself up in a neat little package, that the hobbits have not returned untouched.
Unfortunately it’s also very anticlimactic. Picture the movie going audience who are not familiar with the story watching Return of the King. Frodo trudges through Mordor and only through a twist of fate does the ring plummit into the Crack of Doom saving the world. Hurray! Now there’s still an hour and half of movie left as they deal with the Scouring of the Shire as well as the other concluding portions. Those audience members are going to be sitting there checking their watches.
It’s yet another thing that works for text but would completely derail a movie.
Oh, I didn’t think they need to show the Scouring in real time or anything. But I would like Jackson to at least acknowledge that the Shire has changed and been ruined completely out of spite by Saruman, and to show how far Saruman the White has fallen from semidivine spirit to the point where he’s ecstatic to play tinpot dictator over hobbits just to get petty revenge. Moving his death to either the Ents’ invasion of Isengard or some form of suicide immediately afterward takes away that character development (or devolution, perhaps).
Besides, don’t you want to see Christopher Lee play Mad Wizard Reduced To Terrorizing Halflings? I’d pay just for the textual death scene.
Well, we have some agreeing with me, but the line is not: “Well, I’m home.”, the line is definitely “Well, I’m back.” The name of the book for hobbits is “There and Back Again” for a reason. There is a theme of repeating in all Tolkien’s works of fantasy, and thus coming back is coming home.
