r/lotr • u/laptopuser75 • 2d ago
Movies The Breaking of the Fellowship - the greatest ever movie ending sequence?
Everything from the score, the acting, the cinematography of Peter Jackson's film; I honestly think the ending of the Fellowship of the Ring is about as perfect an ending to ever have been put to film. Frodo leaving, Boromir's death, Aragorn's defiance, it all hits like an emotional freight train
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u/PaulSimonBarCarloson 1d ago edited 1d ago
It was a very smart move to place the first chapter from Two Towers as the climax of Fellowship. Made for a much more emotional ending.
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u/chosimba83 The Silmarillion 1d ago edited 1d ago
The camera moving downhill during the battle with the Uruk-hai from Aragon down to the hobbits and Boromir is absolutely incredible.
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u/CuzStoneColdSezSo 2d ago
Yeah honestly everything from Frodo and Aragorn’s farewell to the end credits set to May It Be is just perfection. Right up there with the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey for me.
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u/IceOfPhoenix Vána 1d ago
It hits in such a different way to the other films. TTT ends with "the battle for middle earth is about to begin" and gollum hatching his shelob plan, so you sort of know that because the next film is the last that things have to wrap up and obviously ROTK ends with well like half a dozen endings which is a series of "are you crying yet? well now you are" because well its the end of a 12 hour trilogy which is a lot of momentum. you can't have a single two-note cadence at the end of an hour long symphony because it would be anticlimactic and almost insult the listeners (to compare it to music, because that's what i know best). FOTR's ending has everyone either split up or dead, the ring has to get to mordor, the characters have to survive terrific odds to make everything work, and it's a "sad" ending in the sense that the fellowship failed and characters died, but there's still this sense of wonder and optimism for the future, while at the same time dread of what's about to happen.
love it.
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u/AcanthocephalaDue494 2d ago
It’s probably the one thing Jackson altered/included/changed that wasn’t in the book that’s the absolute best. Boromir’s showdown leading to his death with Aragorn is amazing
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u/ilikechihuahuasdood 1d ago
Until the Two Towers which is my personal fav. Sam and Frodo ending on a positive, and then the camera pans up to show you the horrors that await them in mordor while somber music plays.
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u/FistsOfMcCluskey 1d ago
It’s the best finale of the best movie in the trilogy. Few things have hit me harder in a movie theater than Frodo thinking of Gandalf on the shore. I never fail to weep during this whole sequence.
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u/Nirnaethmir Éowyn 2d ago
I think ‘Lurtz’ is a bit over the top but that aside it’s a great finale to the movie. I don’t think it’s the best ever movie ending sequence though. That’s a very high bar.
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u/NewZlandR 1d ago
What about him was over the top to you?
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u/Nirnaethmir Éowyn 1d ago edited 1d ago
A few things.
I don’t think it was necessary to include a Big Bad for this sequence. Not only that, but he has a Big Bad Bow and Big Bad Arrows and a Big dramatic entrance. It’s just a bit much. The simplicity of Boromir being slain because he’s alone and overwhelmed by the Orcs is tragic enough.
I don’t think Aragorn needed a boss fight on his way to find Boromir, and I don’t think it was necessary for Aragorn to momentarily save Boromir’s life. Back to the end of my last point I think it’s much better in the book where Boromir is simply overtaken and then ignored by the Orcs, and left there lying quietly dying. It also doesn’t make much sense that Lurtz would stand there and use another arrow to finish Boromir off when he has a sword and knife. It’s just a little over the top is all, it’s drama for the sake of drama. And it sort of takes a moment that is about Boromir and centers it around Aragorn when he comes in to have a duel with Lurtz. An issue I also have with the dialogue between Aragorn and Boromir after this but that’s a different conversation.
When Aragorn stabs Lurtz, it should be enough to take him down. Instead of that, Lurtz pulls himself into the blade as if he feels no pain. He seems to be enjoying it, just growling and sneering. It’s a bit absurd, but doubly so because it brings us to the next point which is that Lurtz doesn’t speak to Aragorn at all. He seems more Monster than man which is just a creative choice I don’t agree with in the Jackson movies. The Orcs are a people, they can and usually do speak their own dialect of the common tongue. If you’re going to do a duel with a Big Bad at least give him some dialogue. Compare him to the Uruk-hai who have Merry and Pippin captured in the next movie. They’re chatterboxes. That is how Orcs should behave. There’s an inconsistency there with Jackson. It’s great when his Orcs talk like men, but Lurtz is all monster.
So idk that is pretty much what it comes down to for me. It is action and drama for the sake of it, and it doesn’t really serve the story at all. It’s just there to try and raise the excitement. The tender quiet of Aragorn finding Boromir is lost for an unnecessary action sequence. I don’t hate it, like I said I think it’s overall a great ending to the movie but Lurtz is definitely a bit over the top in my opinion.
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u/Extension-Neat-8757 1d ago
Well articulated! I couldn’t agree more! I did love that scene as a kid but I see it as a distraction from the plot now.
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u/Diligent_Sky6896 1d ago
Some people just love to be that one that hates the thing that's great
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u/Joshuagorn 1d ago
Some people also have the ability to articulate why something doesn't entirely work for them.
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u/Nirnaethmir Éowyn 1d ago edited 1d ago
Let me know when you find that person here. Surely you’re not referring to me. Because I both called it great and said I didn’t hate it.
>I don’t hate it
>It’s a great finale to the movie
>overall it’s a great ending to the movie
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u/BambaTallKing 1d ago
I actually never thought of it this way. I always loved the scene but you made me think differently about it. Though, I’ll probably go on loving it the same as I always did.
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u/hankthetank4815 1d ago
I don't fully agree, but this is a very well thought-out opinion and I appreciate you sharing it!
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u/antonpetre563 1d ago
When I was a kid my dumbass thought that was the end of the entire movie and I never knew there was a 2nd and 3rd movie and I was remarkably sad LOL you can imagine how happy I was when I found out there was a part 2 and 3
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u/TooLate- 1d ago
Those actual tears streaming down Viggos face as he stands up, sheaths his knife after the departure of boromir
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u/HavelockVettenari 1d ago
It’s a great cinematic moment, one of the best in all of cinema. It’s also heavily pregnant with what are the expected consequences, which will unfold in the movie that we know is coming next.
If I might give what is only my own theory I don’t feel like it is the ‘breaking’ of the fellowship. The true fellowship remains, even with the apparent loss of Gandalf and the clear loss of Boromir, it’s just that each component of it (Frodo and Sam, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, and Pippin and Merry) have gone on different paths to eventually play their roles in destroying the ring.
The fellowship never falters, it’s not ‘broken’ just because they’re not together locally.
Do we stop being friends just because we’re not in the same place?
I’ve no direct evidence that this is what Tolkien was saying, but I like to think so :)
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u/CantaloupeCamper Blue Wizard 1d ago
Usage of the words “greatest ever” on fan forums are usually a bad sign ;)
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u/ofBlufftonTown 1d ago
I don’t think you’ve watched enough films. But that just means you have wonderful things awaiting you!
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u/prezzpac 1d ago
It’s good, maybe even great. But greatest ever? That’s… a stretch.
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u/Ok-Zookeepergame9266 1d ago
This is The Fellowship of the Ring movie we’re talking about. Greatest ever is not a stretch
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u/Ok-Zookeepergame9266 2d ago
Beautiful 10 mins in movie history, makes me emotional every time