![]() It ends with the Caradhras motif from Fellowship, reappropriated to represent high mountain passes in general. “Minas Morgul” is a short, but cool presentation of the Mordor theme as the Witch-King leads his army out of his fortress. Just for this one sequence Shore decides to make tragic use of pan flutes to represent the shattered relationship between Denethor, the steward of Gondor, and his son Faramir. “The Steward of Gondor” showcases Billy Boyd’s singing from the movie. “The White Tree” has a slow start but gives listeners the other great rendition of the Gondor Theme from the beacons lighting scene. Its last awesome minute, the Gondor theme playing at its best, is from the first serious scene involving the White City of Gondor. “Minas Tirith” is a somewhat jumbled suite of several cues, but one of the best tracks. “Hope and Memory” is a short, but nice emotional cue with the Hobbit and Fellowship themes. Music edited out of the movie then appears here, although with over three hours of music, I wish they’d try to squeeze in as much of the actual in-film material as possible. It segues into playful Hobbit music and another iteration of the Ring theme, this time on tragic violin. “A Storm is Coming” customarily begins with the History of the Ring Theme. The producers could also have pushed for a full album, taking advantage of seven remaining minutes of disc space. The general problem is that several obvious highlights are excluded while a couple pieces edited out of the film are present. ![]() To better show my problems with the first album, I will go in chronological order. The Paths of the Dead gets its own low, eerie motif, which thanks to a paucity of screentime does not require much further development. The Morgul Orcs have a new theme which appears in “Minas Morgul” (1:05) and many of the Minas Tirith battle cues. The other new themes and motifs are not as memorable, not that they’re bad. It first appears in “A Far Green Country” (0:12) when Gandalf tells one of the hobbits about a wondrous eternal land west of the sea. This makes “Into the West” the strongest of the three songs, if only for its contribution to the overall musical picture. It’s derived from Annie Lennox’s “Into the West.” The two previous closing songs were alright, but not integrated into the score. The Grey Havens theme is the most notable piece actually introduced in the third film. One ends with descending notes while the other ascends by incorporating Aragorn’s motif. I recently read and confirmed that there are two versions of the full theme. Powerful usage at the end of “Minas Tirith” and in the beacons lighting scene immediately marked it as one of the greatest musical identities in the series. Its appearances in the film months later did not disappoint. The Gondor theme first caught major attention through a prominent rendition in the trailer. It’s a big, heroic fanfare for the greatest civilization confronting Sauron’s forces. Shore could have used it more, as part of the city was even seen early in the first film, but chose to reserve its full-fledged appearance for the last act. The Gondor theme, which appeared in small bits in the first two films, is finally revealed in its full grandeur. Before diving into the two releases, it would be good to get into some of the new major themes, or rather themes present in earlier films and only now developed to their full potential. But if you want a good album, you’re going to have to shell out the money for the complete recordings, because the original release lacks some really good parts. Howard Shore really earned his Oscar with this one. The music, however, is the best of the trilogy. The ending is permeated with overdrawn slow-motion scenes of Hobbits crying or staring, which drove some audience members out of their minds. Attempts at forcing extra drama resulted in some unfortunate deviations from Tolkien’s story and themes. While the battle scenes are fun and there is no shortage of great moments regarding the characters, I find Return of the King to be a little overrated and undeserving of a couple of the Oscars (though some of those Oscars were awarded for the whole trilogy rather than just the last film). The third installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Return of the King, became the third movie to win eleven academy awards.
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