The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Going Back Home

"Thirteen months to the day, since Gandalf sent us on our long journey, we found ourselves looking upon a familiar site…”

I didn't cry like I thought I would while watching Peter Jackson's The Return of the King in a theater a few weeks ago. I thought I’d be in shambles by the end; I certainly did get choked up and teary eyed, though. I was at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar, a place I had been to hundreds of times before, from festivals to repertory screenings, but this time was different. We're still living through a pandemic; I wore my mask inside the theater as part of the company's house rules, and kept my distance from others. The newly mounted plexiglass is hard to ignore; it's all a remainder that we're not fully back just yet. Before the movie, the pre-recorded intro with Stephen Colbert, talking up the Q&A with the cast and crew of The Return of the King playing after the movie, unexpectedly stirred up my emotions. I can't remember exactly what he said, but essentially it was, "Welcome back..."  

It was really tough for me to let go of the theater-going experience last year, as I imagine it was for a lot of people. A few weeks before the lockdown in 2020 I lamented that the theater experience as we knew it was changing and I was going to appreciate it while I could, then a few weeks into shut down I wrote about how much I missed that experience and I imagined what the road ahead would be. I didn’t imagine how difficult it ended up being, not just living without movie theaters but living through the pandemic itself.

I did venture out a precious few times. And for someone like me who took—and still takes—the dangers of the pandemic seriously, I wanted to put as little risk around me and those I cared about. Last November I was at the same Drafthouse South Lamar location for a screening of Mank. I couldn't miss an opportunity to see a David Fincher movie on the big screen—I've made it a point to watch all of his films in a theater; The Game and Panic Room are the last two on my list. Purely selfish reasons, sure, but I told myself that this was going to be the last time I step foot in a theater before getting the vaccine—I had gone out only two other times before that: Tenet on my birthday, and for a limited run of the newly restored Memories of Murder. I had already cancelled plans with family for Thanksgiving and I wasn’t going to do any traveling, knowing that Covid numbers were still on the rise. And since I was going to spend the holidays alone I thought it would be the safest scenario to go to the movies by myself. Then, a day before seeing the movie, I got word my mom was sick with Covid-like symptoms. 

I still went out and sat in a dark room filled with strangers. I kept my mask on the entire time and while I enjoyed the film and the experience when it was all said and done, I couldn't help but think of the worst. I had done all I could to stay safe but there's only so much I can do. 

My mom tested positive for the virus and a few days later my dad had the same symptoms and tested positive, too. My parents live three hours away  in my small hometown in Texas, and of course I couldn't do anything to help them in person. Luckily, my sister and her family live one street over and she was there for them, but what followed was a grueling two weeks of worry, with daily phone calls and pedestrian diagnoses. My mom and dad’s health deteriorated quickly and they took themselves to the emergency room. While my mom was discharged that same day, my dad was taken to the ICU. It was thanks to the care of the doctors and nurses working at the local hospital that my dad ultimately got to go home three days later. They're both doing well now, and it really did feel like things could've taken a turn, and my heart goes out to the hundreds of thousands of people who lost a whole lot more... We were lucky. 

After that, I stood more vigilant and kept my outings to crowded areas to a bare minimum. The drive-in theater certainly helped—I drove almost an hour away just to watch the latest releases on the biggest screen possible. Seeing Freaky there was a joy and I caught my yearly screening of Die Hard there, too. Then, finally, I got my two shots of Moderna in March. 

It was cosmic timing that I ended up fully vaccinated the weekend The Return of the King was screening at the Drafthouse, as part of its campaign to get people safely back to the movies. It's a film that's important to me. For one, it's the only movie I've watched twice on its opening day. I talked about it at (extreme) length on the podcast series Going Helm's Deep just last year. I couldn’t pass up watching my favorite Lord of the Rings film on the big screen, especially now. 

I've talked with dozens of people over the last year on my podcast about adjusting to movie-watching life in the middle of a pandemic. For some it's been an easy transition; bigger televisions, better home sound systems, and more options with streaming services. But watching The Return of the King in a theater, oh boy, it’s a startling reminder that nothing compares to that. Early on in the film, when Minas Tirith is revealed, that towering city carved into a mountainside, I was blown away by the scale—the scale of the city on screen and the scale of the screen in front of me. The trek up seemingly infinite stairs into Mordor, the Oliphaunts stomping through the army-ridden fields, the final battle at the Black Gates; I sat in wide-eyed amazement at the scope of it all. I've seen this movie before, countless times, but the sheer force of it swept over me once again. 

I think collectively we're all going to feel a wall of sound and fury for our first time back at the theater, for whatever we watch. Maybe not exactly like watching The Return of the King; it's like turning on a light in a dark room after hours of sitting in the dark, your eyes and ears have to readjust. It's only been a few months but I forgot how big and loud movies can be. And I forgot just how much of myself I put into the movies I watch, too.  

While in awe of the spectacle, I can't help but look at Frodo's arc in the film and feel it even harder now than ever before. I tend to throw all my emotional baggage onscreen and The Lord of the Rings franchise is perfect to hang it on. The weight of the Ring around Frodo's neck, the emotional and physical toll it takes, it all rings truer now. Sam's faith never broken for his friend and him carrying Frodo to Mount Doom will never not be one of the best expressions of friendship and devotion captured on film. And that relief, that end of the journey—as talked about as those endings, they’re all deserved and essential. Finally, Frodo, forever changed, leaves for the Undying Lands, leaving Sam and his friends behind.

"How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand... there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep, that have taken hold," Frodo says at the end of The Return of the King. You go through something and that something sometimes doesn't let go of you. We don't want to have that discussion now, but I think we're all going to carry around the weight of the last year with us for some time—I know I am. It’s a concept put eloquently, from the mouth of Hobbits. 

Catharsis rings through those last minutes, as we see tears and hugs, as these characters who've we been following for hours say their last goodbyes. And after all that sadness, we see the shining light of hope, Sam, walking back to his home at the Shire, greeting his wife and family saying the last lines of the saga, "Well, I'm back." A week after watching The Return of the King I visited my family for the weekend. I had seen them at Christmas for a socially distanced afternoon, but now, post-vaccine, I was able to hug my mom and dad for the first time in months. 

We're all not at the end of this journey yet. We all still need to get vaccinated and try and convince others to do so, we need to keep wearing masks, and we need to start caring more about how this virus is still affecting different parts of the world. But for a brief glimpse I saw hope, on screen and off. It's a strange feeling now, but I'll continue to not take for granted these experiences. They can be lost so easily.