I finally saw “Return of the King” last night. I would have seen it sooner, but I didn’t feel like dealing with throngs of people, and I figured the crowds would be a bit smaller after the weekend.

Terrific movie. “Fellowship” will remain my favorite of the films, because it’s my favorite of the books, but this one is a close second. Some notes:

Hearing Pippin sing has confirmed for me that I’m in love with Billy Boyd.

At the end, when all of Gondor bows down to the four hobbits, shouldn’t Merry and Pippin be a little taller than Frodo and Sam, having drunk the Ent-draughts?

What was up with Frodo’s “Gaaaaandalf?” when he woke up in Rivendell? Half the theater cracked up when he said that line.

The portrayal of Frodo and Sam’s relationship throughout these three movies has been one of the bravest explorations of same-sex affection I’ve ever seen on the screen.

The “Beacons of Gondor” sequence: WOW.

All the battle scenes: WOW, WOW, WOW.

Shelob in the movie was more terrifying than I’d ever pictured her in the book.

When the camera panned across the map of Middle-Earth near the end, at first I thought the voice-over was Judi Dench. It wasn’t until it switched into the first person that I realized it was Frodo.

It’s unsettling that the Ring continues to have a hold on Bilbo even long after it’s ceased to exist.

I’m pleased that the movie ended with the last line of the book.

What the heck is the Extended DVD going to include? The Index? Well, maybe we’ll see the boy that Pippin befriends, or Saruman, or some development between Faramir and Eowyn, or the Mallorn that Sam plants in the Shire upon his return.

I usually get disgruntled when I see that Peter Jackson has changed yet another thing from the books. But the changes that I most noticed, I liked. I’d always thought it was dumb that Wormtongue threw a Palantir out of Orthanc, and I’d always found the “Scouring of the Shire” anticlimactic, so I’m glad he got rid of that.

I saw the movie at the Regal Battery Park cinema in Lower Manhattan. When I walked back to the PATH station afterwards, I had to walk past Ground Zero. There was a guard at the entrance, and I thought,
Holy shit. This is an entrance to Ground Zero. People actually go down there. I also thought, as I always do when I’m in that area, This is one of the most famous sites in the world right now, this is the place where everything changed, and I’m standing right here. And then suddenly my brain was conflating Ground Zero and Mordor. It was weird.

So. That’s that. The trilogy is ended. I’ve looked forward to each of these films over the last three years; each one has been an event. It’s going to be strange next Christmas when there’s no Middle-Earth to return to.

Maybe Peter Jackson can film The Silmarillion.