As much as the Lord of the Rings, both films and books, deserve serious public mockery, I'm still such a geek for the shit I can feel my virginity growing back when I re-watch the trailers. Peter Jackson got these films right. The imagery in the films was exactly as I imagined when I read the books, and when it wasn't, it was better.

I disliked the constant denobling of the characters and their motivations. The books contain a sense of destiny, of great times coming to pass, and the characters accept their role in these times and seek to claim the destiny as their own. I liked how Aragorn determidy did his duty. I liked how debate was futile, how the choices were between action and destruction. I liked how Faramir and the Ents had convictions, and stayed true to them. I liked how the Hobbits accepted their quest, and entered it full-knowing the dangers and consequences. That was lost in these films, I'm afraid, as most of the characters joined the quest by accident.

Because Jackson has created a billion dollar blockbuster series, his real acheivement has been obscured. An independent, talented filmmaker, one even whose zombie movies betray a PBS or Merchant-Ivory tone of character, a man whose first two films had puppets, managed to create a massive, principled epic on his own terms. Though computers paid a large role, they were used to complement a filmmaking style that coould have been utilized a hundred years ago, where foreshortening and trick photography create a solidity the pixel villains in other films lack. And Jackson has created an epic of imagination. I realized half-way through Return of the King that I was craning my neck, trying to see what was lurking just off screen. What Jackson has acheived in these films is good for all the little guys, not in the least low-budget filmmakers.

I think Jackson's saving grace is because, as William Blake said of John Milton, he is of the Devil's party. His fascination with the grotesque and his warped sense of humor helped create a dedication to detail on the enemies less twisted filmmakers would have shorted. There's a clear line from the zombie baby in Dead Alive to the orcs in Lord of the Rings.

Sometimes it seemed like his attention worked against him. Listening to the commentaries on the dvds, it's clear he didn't want to introduce any characters he couldn't develop the way he felt they deserved, so there aren't any obvious red shirts marched out for cannon fodder. A lot of peripheral characters were eliminated from the trilogy. But the side characters add a sense of depth, of a word spilling off the borders of the screen, even if they just showed up, got a name check, and were run through.

And props for casting Christopher Lee. I think it's cool that as Lee is pushing 90, he's played the heavy in two epic trilogies, if one wants to include Star Wars. Man, that fucker is cool.

People are going to miss these films. Before the movie started, in the line for the bathroom a couple morons were sadly reading the poster, saying, "I can't believe the journey is ending."