I know, I know. This is three movies instead of one.
Yet as the very overused meme would say, “one does not simply pick one of the films in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.”
I am far from a Tolkien head (or whatever they are called), so I don’t want to hear from all the hardcore fans if I mess anything up in the lore. Honestly, I never even heard of the books until my older brother mentioned them to me around the release of the first film (which coincided with the release of the first Harry Potter film). In the case of both of the franchise’s first films, I devoured the books afterward.
As far as I can tell, what Peter Jackson did with this trilogy was something unheard of before: He filmed all three at the same time. I can’t think of any film series that had done that to that point, but it is something that happens more and more now (That is how the two Wicked films were shot, as well as Avatar: The Way of Water and the upcoming Avatar: Fire and Ash). This meant that each film was truly an event film, with the third (The Return of the King) being one of the most eventful films in my lifetime (the only one that comes close would have been Avengers: Endgame).
The casting was pretty much all spot on, with a cast too vast to name right now. Looking back, it is hard to believe only one of the cast members got a nomination for an Oscar (Ian McKellen for Supporting Actor in The Fellowship of the Ring). One could make a case for either Viggo Mortensen or Sean Austin in The Return of the King or Andy Serkis in The Two Towers (he basically set the benchmark for motion capture roles as Gollum/Smeagol). Even those that spend a majority of their time in one film are memorable, perhaps none more so than Sean Bean as Boromir in the first film, giving what is arguably the best Sean Bean death ever filmed (sorry for the spoiler, but it is Sean Bean, so it is bound to happen).
Each of the three films has its own moments that stay in your heart after the first watch. I still remember the last time I hid behind my seat in the theater, when Bilbo lashes out to grab the ring from Frodo in The Fellowship of the Ring. The awe-inspiring battle at Helm’s Deep in The Two Towers would never be matched until a year later with the battle of Pelennor Fields in The Return of the King. With a combined time of nine plus hours, there is more than enough room for memorable moments, most of which is due to Peter Jackson.
Of course, Hollywood could not leave well enough alone, and we were forced with another trilogy in The Hobbit films (which never needed to be more than two films at max). We then got The Rings of Power series on Amazon (which I admit to enjoying). This (along with Harry Potter) also introduced to me the idea that the movies did not always have to be 100% faithful to the book: sometimes the results worked, and others not so much.
While there were franchises before the turn of the century, the idea of a film franchise exploded in the 21st century. We were not just served the aforementioned Harry Potter (and its Fantastic Beasts spin-offs), but Star Wars, three different versions of Batman and Superman, Planet of the Apes, and a bunch of Disney sequels. Yet when it comes to a solid execution of a trilogy this century, there is only one to truly rule them all.
(As of this writing, all three films are available on HBO Max and are available to rent on VOD, Amazon, and wherever you rent digitally.)
Nothing else to say 