Review of "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King" (2003)

I will never forget how I felt at the end of the book, when Sam returns after all that has gone before in his experience (and mine) and says his 'Well, I'm back'. It was such an overwhelming sense of accomplishment and loss that I felt that I had completed the quest with all the heroes I had come to know. I have read it several times and at that moment each time, I don't know if I can leave it. I want to start again, to go back to the middle, anything so I don't have to leave that middle world for this one. The movie honors that feeling which I can recall having very few times in a long lifetime of searching for just such an experience. To have left the story before it was told could not have been done by Peter Jackson or anyone who had LOTR in their heart. And if there was one thing that was clear after all the story had been told, and I sat in the theater wanting to go back out and buy another ticket: Peter Jackson had LOTR in his heart.

I think this was a powerful movie to be reckoned with.