What Should’ve Won That Could’ve Won: 2003

The Year: 2003
What the Nominees Were: The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Lost in Translation, Master and Commander, Mystic River, Seabiscuit
Other Movies That Should Have Been Considered: American Splendor should definitely have gotten a nomination. Elf and the first Pirates of the Caribbean are both shockingly good movies and I wouldn’t mind if either had gotten a nod.

What Should’ve Won and Did Win: The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
How Hard Was the Decision: A very hard choice between that and American Splendor, which is certainly my favorite of the two, but ultimately I came to the same conclusion the Academy did: The totality of the Lord of the Rings films deserved some acknowledgement, and the most convenient time to do that was with the final film in the series.

Director: Peter Jackson
Writers: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Jackson, based on the novel by J. R. R. Tolkien
Stars: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin

The Story: Questing Hobbits Frodo and Sam finally throw the ring into Mount Doom, while their human friend Aragorn (assisted by Legolas the Elf, Gimli the Troll and Gandalf the Wizard) takes over the titular job.

Any Other Nominations or Wins: It got no acting nominations, but it did win all 11 it was nominated for: Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Art Direction, Costume Design, Editing, Makeup, Score, Song, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects!
How It Won: The previous two films in the trilogy had been nominated, but neither even attempted to have a satisfying ending, which would have made it downright bizarre if either one had won. But this one had six endings, so they couldn’t complain about that this time, and now it seemed like the series was overdue. As an 8-hour epic, it was pretty damn impressive.

Why It Won:

1. Of course, nobody watches the 8-hour version anymore, because the series was expanded to 11 hours on DVD and this is one case where the expanded cut is clearly superior, filling in holes that were baffling in the theater (I hadn’t read the books yet at the time. Shortly afterward, I read them myself, then later read them aloud separately to both kids, so I’m hyperaware of what’s still missing.) This Oscar I’m giving is really for that version.
   
2. Of course, then you’re not done, because, while you have the DVDs out, you have to watch the 10 hours of documentaries, which reveal that this may be the greatest seven year collaboration in filmmaking history, with a crew of long-suffering New Zealanders manually linking over twelve million individual polycarbonate rings using pliers to make all the chainmail, not to mention every other gorgeous element of the world you see onscreen. Dozens of other fantasy films followed this one, but they all lacked Jackson’s mad vision and an antipodean country full of laborers willing to follow him off that cliff.
   
3. Heartbreakingly delivered by Sean Astin, “But I can carry you” is one of cinema’s greatest lines. I’m tearing up as I’m typing this. It’s a crime that Astin wasn’t nominated.
   
4. I’m not sure I would have nominated anyone else in the cast for this one, but they’re all excellent, especially Viggo Mortensen in the title role. He had been plugging away as a minor actor for 15 years (He’s in Witness!), then got the call-up for these epic movies with two weeks’ notice after Stuart Townsend filmed a few scenes and didn’t work out. It’s one of the great Hollywood Cinderella stories. Like Wood and Astin, he’s an American embodying a quintessentially British hero, but he has all the gravitas of a RADA-trained dramatic actor.
   
5. Of course, when I read these books to my daughter, she couldn’t help but point out how little the female characters are given to do (Jackson, Boyens and Walsh made halting efforts to beef up their roles in the screenplays), but thankfully this book and movie have one great feminist moment that makes up for a lot of it. Say it with me: “I am no man.”
   

Ah, 2003: Alas, I couldn’t find any interesting ads. Maybe it’s time to retire these as we get to the era of fewer print ads, less nostalgia and everything being less dated.