In 2004, the Academy decided to honor The Return of the King, the third entry in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings epic, with their Best Picture vote. Peter Jackson also won Best Director, and the film bagged nine more awards that year. Is it truly the best of the three? Critically, the films are almost neck-in-neck, having been passionately endorsed by reviewers all over the world. Though many say it suffers from an over-long ending and cuts an important message from the book, The Return of the King was still a fitting end to a legendary film series.

Did You Know?

Peter Jackson insisted on having the world premiere of The Return of the King in his hometown of Wellington, New Zealand. 100,000 people showed up - roughly 1/4 of the town’s population.

A sequence in the novel The Return of the King involves Frodo and the Hobbits returning home to the Shire, to find it laid waste by the evil wizard Saruman. Peter Jackson avoided this lengthy sub-plot by killing Saruman off.

When filming wrapped, Andy Serkis (Gollum/Smeagol) and Elijah Wood (Frodo Baggins) were each given a prop of the One Ring. Peter Jackson told each of them that they had the only one.

Several hundred members of the New Zealand army were brought in as extras to film the Battle of the Black Gate. They battled so enthusiastically that they routinely broke the prop weapons they were given.

How about trying your hand at more The Return of the King movie trivia? And maybe the rest of the Fantasy genre as well?

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