The Road Goes Ever On: In Defense of The Return of the King‘s Many Endings, 20 Years Later

There’s a now-famous story about the ending of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King that sums up the response to the film just after its debut in December 2003. According to Elijah Wood, Frodo Baggins himself, he was backstage at an awards show just weeks after the film arrived, when he was met by none other than Jack Nicholson, who asked him what happened at the end of the film. Wood, thinking Nicholson was asking for his personal interpretation of Frodo’s final scene, offered his thoughts, only to be interrupted by Jack, who declared that he’d missed all of the character’s goodbyes and gone out to the car before the credits rolled, because the film “just wouldn’t end.”

The Return of the King, of course, went on to win 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, sharing the record also held by Ben Hur and Titanic for most wins by a single film. Then as now, it’s considered the crowning achievement of one of the greatest feats of cinematic storytelling in the last 25 years, a moving and invigorating epic in every sense of the word. But if you were around for the film’s reception in 2003, you know that even amid the rapturous celebration, there were jokes about the ending, grumbles that the film just went on too long, tried to do too much with its final scenes. I personally still remember audible groans from the theatrical audience the first time I saw the film, as the screen faded to black on one ending, only to fade back in again to give us another scene, another piece of the massive tapestry that is Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s standard-setting fantasy classic.

Even today, the film hasn’t escaped the “too many endings” reputation, which is puzzling considering the current pop culture climate, in which lore and continuity are prized above all else, especially ambiguity or lingering mystery. Modern franchises are so vast that if the movies aren’t enough plot for you, you’ve got TV shows to fill in the gaps, something that even The Lord of the Rings is not immune to. Pop culture is, broadly speaking, obsessed with stories that tell us everything, so why does The Return of the King still get so much grief? 

The answer might be found in its three-hour-plus runtime, or its massive ensemble cast, or even the slow, deliberate way Jackson goes about ending his story, pushing the plot threads well beyond the thrilling climax. Whatever the reason, it’s time to put these complaints to bed. The Return of the King‘s expansive ending is not only the perfect conclusion to this story, but a perfect counterpoint to years of plot-obsessed, continuity-driven storytelling in genre franchises, even if it takes a moment to see it.

To get the heart of why the ending works so well, we first have to think about why the ending (or endings, if you like) takes so long in the first place. Tolkien enthusiasts will tell you that it could have been longer, as Jackson and his cowriters Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens opted to remove the “Scouring of the Shire” section of the original novel in which Frodo and his friends save their home from unsavory and corrupt influences after the War of the Ring. As thorough as the film’s ending is, Tolkien himself was even more thorough, and threw in not just scenes we don’t see in the film, but a whole Appendices section breaking down the futures of various characters, much of which the film never shows us. 

What the film does elect to show us is, of course, long enough, and features several moments where Jackson could have made a bladder-friendlier fade to the credits. The most obvious of these potential early conclusions comes when the film fulfills its title, and a king returns to Gondor with the coronation of Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) in Minas Tirith. The major players in the story are all there for this moment, Aragorn gets to pay tribute to everyone, and the Hobbits get that tearjerking “You bow to no one” moment when the whole of Middle-earth salutes them as the real heroes of the war. It’s a great scene, and truth be told, if the film had faded out right then, we wouldn’t necessarily have missed what came after.

But if Tolkien’s fiction is any indication, the author was not necessarily a believer in such endings. Yes, it’s a neat little narrative cherry on top, but Tolkien’s writing was born in the inferno of the First World War, where he wrote in the trenches of the Western front, scribbling in a notebook to pass the time and occupy his mind. He not only saw the horrors of war firsthand, but when he returned home he also witnessed the emotional rollercoaster of resolving a conflict in the hearts and minds of a nation. He understood that while defeat is hard, victory certainly isn’t easy. He came home with friends lost, with work unfinished, with scars and memories that would never truly heal, and he poured all of that into his writing. The Return of the King is, therefore, a story of a victory that is not easy. The Fellowship of the Ring prevails, Sauron falls and a new King is crowned, but not everyone makes it to that coronation, and even that happy occasion can’t account for all the ripple effects of the One Ring’s influence. 

So the story goes on, pushing past the easy ending to show us more. We see Frodo’s struggle to tell the story for posterity, war wounds and all, and his ultimate decision to go West with the Elves. We see Sam (Sean Astin) get married to the woman of his dreams, then say goodbye to his best friend. We see bittersweet healing and mournful looks back, even as the film looks to the future, and it’s all necessary, all part of the tapestry of war and recovery that Tolkien sought to weave decades before the film was made. Reverence for Tolkien persists throughout the films, but nowhere is it more evident than the patience with which Jackson lays out the ending.

And yet, for all its finishing touches, there’s something else about the ending of The Return of the King that makes it especially brilliant, and it’s exemplified by one of the film’s key final scenes. As he prepares to leave Middle-earth, Frodo finishes his handwritten narrative of the war, then turns to Sam and says “There’s room for a little more” in the book. It’s not a subtle message, and if you watch behind-the-scenes footage of the making of the film, you can see that it’s made even less subtle by Jackson’s decision to shoot Frodo’s dialogue in that scene at the very end of principal photography. In the footage, Jackson prompts Wood for take after take, try after try, seemingly unwilling to let the film go, until he finally collapses into his star’s arms, sobbing as filming wraps. 

The point here, is that as Tolkien himself would say, “The Road goes ever on and on.” There are no endings, not really. There is only the moment we look away, call cut, sob in each other’s arms when we’re finally willing to let go. For all its great length, for all the jokes we make about its many conclusions, The Return of the King still doesn’t provide complete and utter closure. We don’t get neat endings for every character. We don’t get to see what awaits Frodo in the light of the West. We don’t get to know what Sam will do with those empty pages in the book. If you’re a continuity nerd, these moments can feel downright frustrating, and that frustration is amplified by the sheer size of The Return of the King as a narrative. The ending is invigorating and vast, and yet there’s still something missing. 

But that’s what makes it beautiful, and heartbreaking, and keeps us coming back to these films every single year with a reverence that matches Jackson’s own. For all its epic scope and sweeping narrative, The Return of the King manages to go out with a few things left unsaid, things we’re still listening for, and learning from, 20 years later.

Matthew Jackson is a pop culture writer and nerd-for-hire who’s been writing about entertainment for more than a decade. His writing about movies, TV, comics, and more regularly appears at SYFY WIRE, Looper, Mental Floss, Decider, BookPage, and other outlets. He lives in Austin, Texas, and when he’s not writing he’s usually counting the days until Christmas.