Hail To The King

You can bet your broadsword there are minor spoilers ahead, so if you'd rather not know anything about Return of The King, leave now. The Two Towers is almost upon us, which, while inordinately exciting, means that there's another twelve months until the saga is finally concluded with Return of The King. Luckily for us, Peter Jackson has a few choice morsels to share about the final film, and share he did in The Mail on Sunday yesterday. Promising to be the most spectacular of the three films, Jackson has had to pull out all the stops for the climax, including the enhancement of the film's principal villain, the dark lord Sauron. "The Sauron in the books is sketchy at best, which makes it hard to turn him into a screen villain," says Jackson. "But imagine not really seeing Darth Vader for all three Star Wars films. You just can't do it." It's fair to say that the dark lord will have an increased presence in Jackson's adaptation, rather than being restricted to his role so far, that of a disembodied eye, but the question plaguing Jackson and his crew has been how best to represent the lord of Mordor? "You can't reduce him to being a big guy striding around in black armour, but he cannot be limited to a flaming eye, either." Sauron's henchman, the Mouth of Sauron, will also make his debut in the third film, bedecked in a large helmet that conceals all of his face except his nose and decomposing jaws. Likewise, we'll be introduced to Boromir's father, Denethor, the Steward of Gondor, played by John Noble. ""Denethor resents never being king, and Boromir inherited that bitterness," says Noble. "It's what led Boromir to try to steal the Ring in the first film. It is my job to show the humanity of the man, he is literally driven mad by grief and fear." What we can take for granted is that the action set-pieces, which have multiplied in scope from part one to part two, will reach an all-time high with the final leg of the tale. Jackson promises bigger and better battles that will make the fight for Helm's Deep look like a minor barny down the Rat & Parrot. "The battles will be the biggest you have ever seen," says Jackson of the third film. "We have a piece of software that allows us to have 200,000 computer-generated extras fight each other. You simply press a button, sit back and watch these enormous battles unfold before your eyes." The final scene of the film, which takes place across the landscape of the Grey Havens is tipped by the director to be his favourite of all three films, the high point of the story and what everything has been working towards. "To me, it's a culmination of the entire story," he says." It represents what it is to give and what it is to lose. That scene is probably the most powerful part of the entire film." Another year to wait? It is a cruel world indeed.