I know there was never really any doubt, but still: Return of the King was amazing. If it doesn’t win Best Picture and a whole bunch of other awards, they’ll have been flat-out robbed.
This does, however, bring up an interesting debate question: which of the three movies was your favorite? There are so many neat scenes from each of them, I don’t know how to pick. I tend to lean towards the first one, actually, because I love the sense of newness and discovery that runs through it, but there were so many brilliant bits in the third one (such as the brilliant sequence with the signal fires lighting), that it’s a tough call. And, and, the second one had Helm’s Deep and Treebeard, for cryin’ out loud… How do you pick a favorite?
So, yeah, to say I’m bummed to see the trilogy end is an understatement. On the upside, next year we’ll see the Extended Edition DVD and its extra hour-and-change of footage for ROTK, and that will be fantastic. And then there will inevitably be the Uberedition, where they splice all three into one mammoth movie/boxed set, with all the extra clippings and whatnot… Sigh. Actually, I hope they don’t go that route. I’m hoping the Extended Editions are the definitive versions and they leave it at that… Please, none of this Lucasian crap from you, Mr. Jackson. (Of course, if you wanted to go on and shoot, say, the Simarillion, you would be more than welcome to my money…)
So, yes. Which one’s your favorite?
PS: A good buddy of mine just gave me a copy of The Two Towers on DVD for a late birthday/early Christmas present. Thanks, man – you rock!