Tolkien fans, this is what we feared

Rating: 8/10 (16 December 2004)

"The Return of the King" is certainly not the strongest of Tolkien's trilogy, "The Fellowship of the Ring" blows both of the others away, but it is, in the novels, a considerable step up from the slop of "The Two Towers." This film series is different--"The Return of the King" is the worst.
There are two gigantic, absolutely unforgivable and completely and utterly wrong changes made from the novel that absolutely kill this film: 1. Frodo's madness ends when Golem takes the ring and then Golem falls into the fire, but the film forces Frodo to continue his madness and push Golem in. WRONG. 2. Samwise would NEVER leave Frodo, but the film has him head back down the mountain. WRONG. Not only are they differences from Tolkien, but these are changes that work against the story in which they fit and that is why they are so egregious.
The production is mostly the same as the previous two in other aspects, with the exceptions that Ian McKellen's performance of Gandalf the White is annoying and nowhere near as good as Gandalf the Grey and that as he is given more to do, Sean Astin completely outshines the rest of the cast. It's also notable that this film has no appearances by Saruman, which cuts out the wonderful, charismatic performance that Christopher Lee has otherwise given--he was, in my opinion, the best casting choice of the entire series, with the only possible exception of Viggo Mortensen's perfect Aragorn.
It's still a fantastic film, because Tolkien on a less-than-perfect day wrote a novel far beyond what most writers will even dream of being capable of writing, but this production's changes are absolutely unforgivable. The worst of the series, contrary to what the Oscars said.
And how in the world can Howard Shore deserve two Oscars for one score that really wasn't all that impressive to begin with? And how can Peter Weir be denied AGAIN?