"Return of the King: Lord of the Rings III" 2003


What we said in our review of the earlier 
installments of "Lord of the Rings" mostly applies 
to the last installment as well, so we will just 
add a few notes. "Lord of the Rings III" won 11 
Oscars in February 2004 thus equalling the 
previous record for one movie, but from our point 
of view, it was an epic effort on behalf of a 
fairly ugly idea.

Perhaps 500 years ago, when ideas of monarchy 
dominated, it would be progressive to show a king 
ruining his kingdom with a bearded wizard showing 
up to set things straight. Too bad a wizard can't 
just show up and set things straight in the White 
House. Encouraging such notions only promotes 
political passivity and that's our main beef with 
the "Lord of the Rings" hocus-pocus.

Yet, "LR3" even waters down the message on how 
kings have to be critically evaluated, by picking 
on someone who is merely a caretaker standing in 
for the real king's line. Perhaps in some ancient 
time it would be a necessary compromise to engage 
the audience unable to see why they should 
evaluate the jobs their kings are doing. Today the 
message that a real man has to show up and set off 
a war against the legions of evil is mostly 
reactionary--especially in imperialist countries 
like the united $tates.

We can also contrast this with Sergei Eisenstein's 
movies about kingdoms hundreds of years ago. With 
the Germans shortly to invade the USSR in 1941, 
Eisenstein created a film titled "Alex
ander Nevsky" about a time hundreds of years 
earlier when the Russian people defeated Germanic 
invaders. Hurray for Eisenstein and the Soviet 
film companies.

In contrast, the effect of "LRIII" is militarist 
and criminal. As in the earlier installments, we 
have one elaborate excuse for scenes of gore. Most 
of the military opponents are dead bodies brought 
back to life, and so we learn that there is no 
reason not to make a war. The opponents are deemed 
unworthy of life to begin with. These are 
dangerous ideas to be floating around in a country 
already rampaging around the globe from 
Afghanistan and Iraq to Haiti.

The issue of trust among the various species of 
Middle Earth interests us, but "LR3" raises the 
question in a rather simple way. Again and again 
the question arises why each species should stand 
with the other species to fight against evil when 
there was lacking a prior history of common 
struggle. "LRIII" comes out against such 
speciesism (read nationalism) again and again and 
shows it to be a lack of courage in the face of 
evil. "LRIII" reduces the question of cross-
cultural cooperation to a question of the 
gallantry of the men fighting. The lack of 
development on this point is one reason that the 
good does not outweigh the bad in "LR3."

Finally, the one thing we liked about "LR3" is 
that it showed mere mortals boldly storming the 
gates of hell. The mortals win thanks to a fight 
within the squad of three sent on a special 
mission to drop a ring in hell's fire. Had not one 
greedy, schizoid power-seeking mortal jumped on 
the hero of the story to steal the ring of power, 
the mortals of Middle Earth would have failed in 
defeating evil. So in essence, the mortals won in 
spite of themselves--through a lucky break. So 
much for the notion that it is futile to struggle 
because of anarchist-nihilist notions that "power 
corrupts." The message is to struggle in the face 
of apparent doom. "Power corrupts," but there are 
other things going on as well.

On this point of struggle in the face of apparent 
doom, we find the "LR3" useful. Sometimes the 
choice is between the impossible (communist 
revolution and organizing people to be more 
harmonious and peaceful) and certain death 
(letting things slide as they are). With tens of 
thousands of Orcs about to invade Middle Earth, to 
say this or that military or political mission has 
little chance of success becomes meaningless, 
stupid and immoral. We have to choose the missions 
with the greatest chance of success even if those 
greatest chances are not that great.

In Mao's military writing he warns his comrades 
again and again not to launch the guerrilla battle 
without a 90% chance of winning. It would be 
better to run than lose. He said so because he saw 
again and again that it is possible to set up 
battles against Japanese invaders and their 
lackeys such that the enemy is outnumbered and 
outgunned 10 to 1--despite the fact that the 
Japanese and comprador armies far outnumbered the 
communists at the beginning and had more money and 
better technology. However, it would be important 
to point out that if there were no battles 
possible which would guarantee 90% success rate, 
then Mao's statement would not apply. His battle 
tactics coincided with a certain overall strategic 
situation in which he believed he had time and 
numbers on his side in the long run. He had 
witnessed concretely the possibilities he wrote 
about and so his battle tactics were not at all a 
question of speculation or estimation or analysis 
which people would disagree over. Had Mao been 
placed in the Middle Earth military situation, he 
would have adapted his military tactics. Like the 
wise bearded wizard Gandalf, Mao would not have 
sent a small band of men (including the caretaker 
king's son) to face certain death at the hands of 
more numerous and better defended enemies down by 
the river.

Mao turned out to be right about China's overall 
strategic situation and so his battle tactics were 
able to produce the desired end. Today the problem 
is that we have a lot of people who look away when 
they think about nuclear war, environmental 
destruction and black markets and legal markets in 
weapons of mass destruction. In the backs of their 
minds, many people know that imperialism is 
producing doom, but they escape the horror of 
politics and war, by among other things going to 
movies like "LR3" or listening to heavy metal like 
"Led Zeppelin" or just drinking a lot of whisky.

Today, the planet faces certain death in the hands 
of imperialism and the forces of evil have the 
upper hand momentarily. It's time for the heroes 
of the proletariat to step forward.