LOOKING BACK ON THE LONG ROAD TO AND THROUGH MIDDLE-EARTH AS 'RETURN OF THE KING' HITS THEATERS.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

The end is in sight. And what a sight it is.

By all accounts, ``The Return of the King,'' the third and final movie in Peter Jackson's epic adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's ``The Lord of the Rings'' trilogy, is the most exciting, most moving and most spectacular entry in the record-breaking fantasy series.

According to the barefoot 42-year-old New Zealander who has spent seven years preparing, shooting and crafting the three features, ``ROTK'' simply had to be the best of the lot.

``At the beginning of this year, we didn't have a movie,'' admits Jackson, who shot principal photography for all three films in New Zealand during one extended 276-day production begun more than four years ago. ``We were just starting the cutting phase, assembling the third film. Yet you pick up a magazine and it's got some preview that says, 'One of the most eagerly awaited films of the year has to be ``Return of the King''!' That's pressure, but I decided to actually turn it into a challenge.

``The hype and anticipation was gonna be huge, and it would be so easy to disappoint people. So we wanted to enhance the movie, put a lot more visual effects into it and shoot new scenes with actors. It was very expensive, and the studio agreed to fund the exercise. It was hard, but the film's better because of the expectation. We realized there was a benchmark set by the previous two films, and we'd better top it or we were going to be in trouble,'' says Jackson, who has become the King Kong of directors with a major deal with Universal.

How's this for topping it?

``ROTK's'' centerpiece Battle of Pelennor Fields makes the previous film, ``The Two Towers','' climactic confrontation at Helm's Deep look like a bush skirmish.

Hobbits Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin) make their final, torturous ascent up volcanic Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring that is the source of evil mastermind Sauron's power - with the giant spider Shelob and the demented Gollum (Andy Serkis, digitally enhanced) just a couple of the deadly barriers thrown in their way.

And reluctant Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) must take his rightful place on the throne of Gondor in the besieged, seven-spiraled city of Minas Tirith, just as other members of the Fellowship of the Ring (Ian McKellen's wizard Gandalf, John Rhys-Davies' dwarf Gimli, Orlando Bloom's Elvish archer Legolas and the additional Hobbits, Dominic Monaghan's Merry and Billy Boyd's Pippin) must confront their own destinies.

Of course, as McKellen points out, ``A lot has been made of us going back to do extra stuff; we wouldn't have been able to, of course, if the first film hadn't been so successful.''

Really big show

``The Fellowship of the Ring'' grossed $863 million worldwide, and ``Two Towers'' took in $920 million, not counting hundreds of millions more in VHS and DVD sales. Quite a payoff for what looked like an insane gamble back when New Line Cinema started investing some $300 million in a project that, Jackson admits, rested on the capabilities of ``a young Kiwi filmmaker of low-budget films who'd never had success.''

Jackson also admits that the biggest challenge of the whole enterprise was adapting Tolkien's three-book, 1,000-page epic into workable screenplays with longtime collaborator (and mother of his two children) Fran Walsh and their co-writer, Philippa Boyens.

``The most difficult thing was to write the script, really,'' says the roly-poly, tendril-haired filmmaker, ``taking this huge book that was regarded by most people as being unfilmable and figuring out a way to at least simplify it down to the spine of a story about Frodo and the Ring, and structuring the scripts.''

Although it would seem that that process would have been completed well before cameras began rolling in 1999, it continued well into this year's pickups and reshoots.

``This year, I went back to New Zealand for four or five weeks,'' McKellen explains. ``Peter wanted to beef up the emotional relationship between Gandalf back at base, organizing things at Minas Tirith, and his connection with his young protege Frodo climbing up Mount Doom with the Ring. Was Frodo going to make it? Oh dear, have I made the wrong decision? That would be terrible for Frodo, but it would also be terrible for Middle-earth. So you were let in, a little bit, to his doubts.''

``Our work was very specific, localized, emotional work,'' adds Astin, who plays Frodo's stout-hearted companion. ``But it's worth doing in that you know it's going to be interwoven into the fabric on this grand stage.''

Very special effects 

Grand that stage is. ``ROTK'' includes some 1,500 digital effects shots, as many as the last two movies combined. Richard Taylor, who runs Jackson's Wellington-based special-effects company Weta, offers a few more statistics.

``On our largest day, we had 650 physical soldiers on the set,'' Taylor notes. ``We made over 1,000 suits of armor and 2,000 weapons to use physically. But on the biggest days digitally, we had about 250,000 digital soldiers on the Battlefield of Pelennor.''

Seven years' worth of computer-programming development was required for the vast military spectacle Jackson wanted.

``It took to the end of the 20th century for technology to catch up with Tolkien's amazing vision,'' Taylor reckons. ``People were creating programs that would flock soldiers; they'd all follow predesignated patterns, but they never looked particularly real. So we set about building a piece of software, which we called Massive, that empowered every individual soldier with the ability to think for themselves. So, in the case of the Pelennor Fields, 250,000 soldiers can each draw from a repertoire of military moves pretaught to them on a motion-capture stage.''

But those weren't the only lessons that had to be painstakingly learned.

``For the first two years of the program, we struggled to stop the soldiers running from the field of battle,'' Taylor says with a rueful laugh. ``We couldn't make the computer stupid enough to keep them there fighting.''

Personal challenges

Variety within the action sequences was as important to Jackson as their massive (Massive?) scale. Practically every warrior in the movie faces a revealing personal challenge on the Pellenor Fields or elsewhere. Some even have a bit of fun, such as Legolas who, defying all laws of gravity on Earth or Middle-earth, destroys a quadruple-tusked, giant battle mastodon-like animal called a mumakil.

``I've got to say, that's all Pete,'' Bloom, 26, says. ``He's such a big kid at heart, and he loves that stuff. That's all I really need in this movie, one little moment like that. And Pete gave me one in each, which is great.''

Apparently, for all the complexity of the productions - and the thousands of personalities that had to be dealt with in order to pull them off - Jackson and company managed to keep everyone pretty happy, whether on remote New Zealand locations or disorienting special-effects stages.

``I would like to tell you that there were fights and constant battles,'' says Rhys-Davies, who spent extra hours each day getting his homely Gimli makeup applied and touched up. ``But there was only one grumpy devil on the entire production, and that was some bloody dwarf whose face was falling apart and was paranoid and was repulsive.''

To keep the insanely complicated undertaking on track, Jackson depended on ``Matrix'' executive producer Barrie M. Osborne. We asked the low-key New Yorker what the biggest challenge was for him. He gave us a ``you've-got-to-be-kidding'' grin.

``There are many, many of them,'' Osborne explains. ``But the biggest challenges were figuring out a way to get the movies done on time - which meant, with Peter's blessing, bringing in two additional second units that were shooting principal actors, not only second-unit work. Then we had to figure out how to organize the production end through that, how to have enough people working in advance and getting the right people in. That was a huge challenge. And then, being able to communicate with all of these different units. We'd have satellite setups and telecom. Peter could be in London and we'd be in Wellington, but it'd be like we were in the same place.''

Frodo-vision

Still, only a few people, maybe even just one, could maintain an overview of the whole gigantic picture.

``I see them more as films than other films I've worked on because there's so much done in the post-production,'' Elijah Wood testifies. ``And there's also so much I didn't work on. Frodo's journey is one element to the film, but there are all these other journeys. So I can see it from a very objective perspective.

``And they're incredible. I think they're amazing. And the last one emotionally drains you.''

For Jackson, the drain went far beyond that.

``Well, it only took Frodo 14 months to get to Mount Doom. It took us seven years to get the films made!'' the director says, laughing heartily. ``We probably had the tougher journey, although we didn't have people shooting arrows at us and trying to squash us with giant elephants. But it has been tough. I think my overriding memory of 'Lord of the Rings' is just going to be hard work.''

Not that he's complaining.

``Once we committed to make it, I was very happy to make it,'' Jackson continues. ``But I'll never do three movies at the same time again. It was three times the work, three times the amount of shooting - and we've been in post-production now for three years. 'Lord of the Rings' was absolutely worth it. But the next trilogy that comes along, I'll let somebody else do it.''

Another Tolkien?

Jackson does feel obligated to at least try to direct Tolkien's ``Rings'' prequel, ``The Hobbit,'' should the complicated movie rights to that book ever be settled.

But coming along next is a project he and his crew tried to do before ``Rings'' happened: a state-of-the-CG-art remake of the stop-motion animation classic ``King Kong.'' The deal Jackson cut with Universal Pictures for the project has boggled even the most lavish Hollywood spendthrifts. It's been reported as a $20 million directing fee against a percentage of the gross profits.

Jackson says that that's not entirely accurate.

``Obviously, that's a lot of money,'' he acknowledges. ``But the deal covers three people to write the screenplay, so there's a whole script fee in there. It covers two people to produce the movie, and it covers me to direct, so it encompasses a lot of services. It's certainly not a $20 million directing fee.

``The other thing I'd like to say is that 'King Kong' should be, as many movies these days are, budgeted at between $180 (million) and $200 million. That's the size of the film. We're doing it for $150 million, and if we go over budget then it comes out of our fee. So I think Universal has actually struck a very smart deal.''

Still, if any filmmaker deserves a windfall at this point - and not just for making his investors rich ...

``It was my first experience working on a movie,'' rising star Bloom (``Pirates of the Caribbean'') says. ``So it completely raised the bar, and everything I've done subsequently I've wanted to try to live up to 'The Lord of the Rings,' that film and that experience.''

``I think it goes a lot deeper,'' Mortensen says when asked to compare Jackson's achievement to its closest model, George Lucas' initial ``Star Wars'' trilogy. ``I don't think 'Star Wars' would have been made if it weren't for Tolkien's book, at least not in the way that it was. Lucas has talked about his debt to Joseph Campbell. Joseph Campbell was interested in comparative mythology and all that. But all of the themes that you have in 'Star Wars' are dealt with in a much more profound and extensive way in 'The Lord of the Rings.' ''

As for the profound and extensive changes the trilogy's success has wrought in Jackson's life ...

``There were a lot of things that intimidated me, like coming over to L.A. and having meetings with executives,'' Jackson says of the young Kiwi filmmaker who'd never had a hit. ``I felt not really worthy of serious consideration as a filmmaker - I had all these insecurities. To some degree, I feel they've gone away now.''

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

6 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- cover -- color) KING of the `RINGS'

Director Peter Jackson discusses his long journey - and why the final destination is the ultimate reward

(3) Trilogy director Peter Jackson.

(4) Frodo (Elijah Wood), Gollum (Andy Serkis), and Sam (Sean Astin).

(5) no caption (``The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King'')

(6) no caption (scene from ``The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King'')

Box:

Be the first to see `Return of the King'

- Valerie Kuklenski