I watched the extended cuts of all of these.
There's an extent to which I just don't like this story. It has well-developed character arcs, but there's little in the way of moral ambiguity; every single character, even those who may seem to inhabit shades of grey, can be easily characterized as either a hero or a villain. This even seems to extend to entire species and groups of people. There are so many Haradrim, and yet none of them care to oppose Sauron? And then there are Orcs, who conveniently serve as a morally uniform army for the peoples of Middle-Earth to fight against. The setting is richly textured, but many elements of the story are told in broad strokes; if Tolkein's novel was more detailed, then Jackson eliminated a lot of nuance in favour of raw spectacle.
And frankly, I think raw spectacle is the level on which these movies are most successful. Despite the primitive aspects of Tolkein's storytelling, The Fellowship of the Ring remains delightful; even at three hours in the extended cut, it plays as a brisk jaunt through a spectacular, imaginative fantasy world. It's the only one of these films with constant forward momentum, and although it's way more lighthearted than the other two, that makes its moments of darkness all the more meaningful and gives its character arcs room to breathe. Tolkein's themes about greed and valor already shine through, and the central friendship between Frodo and Sam has already taken the shape that it would more or less retain through the rest of the series.
And of course, the sheer craftsmanship is most admirable here, relatively free from repetition and awash in colour. Some of the green screen work and CGI has aged awkwardly, but the physical effects are terrific, the production design is astonishing, and Howard Shore's iconic score is of course gorgeous. As is true of all three movies, Jackson consistently finds the best camera angles and movements to emphasize the majesty of the scenery, be it the beautiful New Zealand scenery or the highly impressive model work. All three of these movies can be genuinely exciting, and a lot of that is due to their flow of information; the design of these movies is incredibly cohesive, and the sheer scale of this journey is emphasized in every pan, every zoom, every note of the soundtrack - but only Fellowship manages that without repetition seeping in.
The Two Towers is not that far off, however. Although narrative momentum declines in this second part, the introduction of Gollum to Frodo and Sam's dynamic provides some interesting tension, and his portrayal here is the closest thing this series has to genuine moral ambiguity. Gollum's struggle against his inner nature is downright tragic; he nearly forms a genuine connection with someone, only for them to betray them - at least, as far as he can tell. That's emblematic of the film as a whole, which is the most thematically complex of the trilogy - the key conflict of virtue versus greed manifests in a sort of environmentalism, as Saruman's industrial war machine is contrasted with the ancient beauty of the forest.
Arguably, this is an area where Tolkein's "us vs. them" approach causes problems. If these movies mean to condemn the destructiveness of industrial production, it's strange that they would have only one faction engaging in such. In the World Wars, nearly every country was running an industrial war machine; making it an "other" makes industrialization alien in a way that I'm not sure is productive. But the imagery of rocky forges versus serene forests is still evocative, and the addition of an extra thematic layer on this otherwise simplistic story is welcome. Furthermore, Two Towers is notorious for being much darker in tone than the first entry, which allows Jackson to indulge in his instincts as a horror filmmaker. The Orcs are gross in design and horrific in behaviour, and although this film doesn't dwell on gore, a lot of what happens is genuinely gruesome and disturbing.
That quality partially invigorates a film which is a lot more slow-paced than the first, and which offers much less in the way of levity. That's not to say that any of the main storylines here are without interest, especially in the first two hours: as mentioned, the dynamic between Frodo, Sam, and Gollum is particularly compelling, whereas the events following Aragorn move forward relatively quickly. Merry and Pippin get lost in the woods for a while, in a sequence which is deliberately slow and uneventful, but it does include the movie's biggest twist, and it also features probably the most intriguing bit of fantasy world-building by way of the Ents. The real problem is the much-lauded third act, which is comprised mostly of three intertwining epic battles, which collectively go on for a whole hour. Although these battles are impressively staged, they grow increasingly repetitive as they progress; watching the front at Helm's Deep slowly collapse in an endless sea of carnage makes individual moments lose their impact.
That monotony, alas, is extended to the entirety of The Return of the King, which seems needlessly bloated almost from the start. The positive qualities of its predecessors do carry through here, but the theme of environmentalism has mostly fallen away, and Gollum has become unambiguously villainous. It's no deeper than Fellowship, and yet the tone is much heavier, and the story structure has deteriorated noticeably. Everything happens multiple times, every twist is foreshadowed well in advance, and the epic battle at its centre now goes on for two hours. Once again, individual scenes are impressive, even exciting; once again, the pace flags as the battle draws on endlessly. But part of the problem is that Jackson repeatedly draws the storytelling to a climax - every subplot concludes as if it's the ending of the entire series, with an epic sequence of the heroes overcoming all odds followed by a moment of calm and relief.
In fact, I'm left to wonder if the theatrical cut of this film is in fact superior; at worst, The Return of the King seems like a two-hour film stretched out an hour and a half longer than it can really support. Jackson dwells on every moment for longer than is needed, dialogue is often spoken slowly with pregnant pauses, and the camera regularly swoops over the scenery while nothing particularly interesting is happening to the characters. These traits existed in the previous movies, but the story structure here makes them all seem more redundant and less purposeful. The storytelling has also declined in coherence: the scenes with Elrond and Arwen are uncharacteristically dreamlike and discontinuous, characters will spout mythic phrases for no adequately explained reason, and of course the eagles pop up out of nowhere despite never being previously mentioned.
There's a level on which all of this is still exciting; the scale is still impressive, and the choreography of the action scenes is still spectacular. The story structure is essentially built from an endless stream of narrative payoffs, each of which is satisfying in its own right, even if they seem repetitive when taken as a whole. More importantly, the character arcs are still highly satisfying. Aragorn's evolution from ranger to king is somewhat shallow and plotty, but I'm still delighted to see him triumph; Merry and Pippin both complete a fairly dramatic transformation into valorous heroes; Frodo and Sam's friendship continues to evolve in interesting ways. This entry also does interesting stuff with fathers and daughters: both Arwen and Eowyn seek to forge their own paths, which their protective fathers both come to accept.
Even the overlong denouement has its notes of poignancy. Aragorn's coronation is relatively weightless - these movies' fascination with lineage and monarchy has never been compelling to me, and it mostly comes off as a redundant victory lap - but Sam and Frodo's return to the Shire, despite its excessive desire to wrap up loose ends, does show how the hobbits are forced to live with the trauma of their adventures even after peace has returned. The sheer bloat of this one in particular dulls the impact of many emotional scenes, but great acting across the board comes close to compensating. Sean Astin and Elijah Wood are the standouts, but Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd also come into their own in this entry, and the rest of the main cast is remarkably successful at expressing a range of emotions from comparatively flat characters. It's the weakest of these movies, and the one which comes closest to buckling under its own weight, but at best it is as engrossing as ever.
These movies are highly accomplished adaptations of one of the most beloved fantasy series of all time, but I only truly love one and two-thirds of them. I'm glad I watched them, but their sheer length is exhausting; only Fellowship is a movie which I can imagine myself returning to in full. Not unlike how the juvenile humour of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was foreshadowed by that of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, the lumbering bloat of the Hobbit movies is in some ways a direct extension of the epic approach taken here. These movies are still very highly regarded, but for me, only a fraction of this series rises above being admirable from a distance. Still, I'm glad to have finally seen them all.
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