The Lord of the Disappointing Trilogy

I can remember the first time I saw each of the Lord of the Rings films. I hadn’t read the books, but my family convinced me I would love them so I went to the cinema. They were right. I fell in love with the franchise: the scenery was beautiful, the villains were scary and I genuinely cared for the protagonists. For me, it was perfect.

Many years later- and after several viewings- I cannot believe these films are considered amongst the best of all time. It’s still impossible to find any list of the best films of all time without one of these cringe-inducing pictures hitting the top twenty. It is mind-blowing that a vapid series of films depicting a short person on a mystical quest to throw a piece of magical jewelry into a volcano to stop a big bad king is considered the pinnacle of filmmaking. These films are my litmus test in taste. If I discover your favourite franchise is Lord of the Rings then I will disregard everything you say about films from then on. You may wonder why I have such a strong opinion, so I will explain.

I will not bring the books into this discussion. The films deserve to be judged on their own merits so let’s forget about the awful Tolkien novels for a bit. A simple way of doing this is to isolate the characteristics a film needs to be ‘good’ and examine them in relation to LOTR: good dialogue, good characters, good cinematography and an immersive plot.

The dialogue in LOTR is objectively bad. It’s over the top, the jokes are predictable and- worst of all- it’s disgustingly cheesy. The worst example occurs in the disappointing final battle of Return of the King when a bad guy, who must be evil because he has a deep voice and wears a pointy black helmet, is about to kill a woman but feels the need to pause and inform her no man can kill him. When she’s in a position to kill him she stops to yell out dramatically, “I AM NO MAN.” That is awful. There’s no other word to describe that line. If a line of that quality was in Citizen Kane, then Citizen Kane would be a bad film.

As for the character, every one is stereotypical: Frodo has a huge amount of responsibility, even though he’s never left his quaint town; Sam is his bumbling sidekick who ends up being crucial to the quest; Aragorn is the muscular hero destined for greatness. While we’re on this topic, it makes zero sense to give Frodo the ring. It makes far more sense to give it to an experienced warrior, or, hey, how about you send more than eleven people on a journey that the world literally depends upon. OR, you could not ask them to walk into the most dangerous place in the world and use magic or something instead.

There is character development: Frodo goes from being a nice guy to a total dick in a few minutes (it’s ok because the ring made him do it – snooze); Gollum goes from being schizophrenic to not schizo-oh no wait, he’s back to how he was before; then there’s Legolas and Gimli, who go from not liking each other to being bestest friends immediately; finally there’s Gandalf, who changes the colour of his clothes.

The one thing nobody can criticize is the cinematography, but a film needs more than visuals for it to be good. The best films manage to be visually stunning, while showing intelligence and meaning. Lord of the Rings is not intelligent or meaningful. It hits you in the face at every turn: THESE PEOPLE ARE GOOD, THESE PEOPLE ARE BAD, GIANT SPIDERS ARE SCARY. A four year old can grasp these films.

For me, it speaks volumes that Peter Jackson has not directed a single good film. If you think King Kong is good, you’re wrong. If you think Tintin is good, you’re wrong. And if you think Dead Alive is good, just… stop. He isn’t a good filmmaker, and these are not good films.

Images courtesy of explodingtickets.com, dorkly.com and zekefilm.org