Lord of the Rings

Lord of the Rings~ Return of the King
2003

Once upon a time five years ago two little girls bet each other they could read the entire series of The Lord of the Rings before the other could. The loser had to supply the other with M&M's for the 12 hour marathon they were planning of LOTR. They raced and read and in two weeks the youngest won by just a smidgen. She gloated and rubbed it in the others face that she had WON! But you know what? That poor little child never got her M&M's for their marathon. Ever. Even for the many marathons they have had since then. Supposed M&M’s were bought this person swears, but this is not true, the little child knows. She was robbed. ROBBED. Even to this day she is still owed M&M's from a certain someone who's name starts with an R and ends with E and has an S and O in it. Not that I will name names.

I am one of the little girls in that story, the winner. The champion, the jipped. Ever since those years Lord of the Rings, or LOTR, has been a part of my life, both the movies and the books. This specific Oscar night is still engrained in my brain as it really angered me because it stole all the awards from Pirates of the Caribbean. Now I know better. Now I know how amazing these movies really are.

I say movies for a reason. You really cannot count these as separate movies. They all are one story and they flow together purposefully. In fact I have never seen one without watching all three.

The basic story, for those of you who live under rocks, is there is this ring of power. It's bad. It must be destroyed. So a group of a bunch of different creatures like hobbits and elves and men and dwarfs and Gandalf the wizard get together and travel to destroy it. But there is this evil dude named Saramon (All these names are WAY too hard to spell) who wants the ring himself and controls these gross blue monsters called orcs that he uses to get the ring from them. BUT!

The good guys win in the end after a bunch of super fantastic battles. The end. Pretty simple.

But it's SO GOOD. It has funny moments. It has romance. No I am not talking about between Aragon and Arwen for the record, Arwen sucks. I was referring to between Eoweyn and that other guy who is so much cooler than Aragon whose name escapes me. It has the "revelry" between Gimli the dwarf and Legolas. They count the people they kill in battle and have drinking contests and just in general pick on each other. But you know what makes this movie a best picture winner?

The special effects. Even still today, nearly a decade later (geez I am old), they are still mind blowingly awesome. The Oliphants. The orcs. Gollum the creepy schizoid dude. All computers generated. All spectacular. The battles are just, epically done. I love it. Even though this movie by its self is four hours and all together they are twelve, they don't feel like it! They keep you hooked and engaged. And this is coming from me, squirrel girl. So what does that tell you?

I will tell you right now, I am extremely biased. Return of the Kings is one of my favorite movies on the planet ever. I just love it. It totally deserved its spot on the Oscar Best Picture list. And I so need M&M's STILL. Not that I am bitter at all.