In 2004, The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King was a shoe-in to take home Oscar statuettes. How much of a shoe-in? Well, it won every single category in which it was nominated, for a total of eleven Academy Awards. They range from the ultimate, Best Picture, to the technical, Best Sound Mixing; but a hole is easily detected. Despite eleven awards, The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King did not take home a single Oscar for acting achievement.
The same scenario occurred again in 2009, in a film already discussed, Slumdog Millionaire. Taking home the most coveted award for Best Picture, the Mumbai adventure story didn’t even receive a nomination in any acting categories. While Best Actor or Best Actress does not always go hand in hand with the respective film for Best Picture, the two are often decent indicators of each other. Or, to say the least, Best Picture nominees are those with Best Actor and Actress nominees.
One might assume that a film worthy of recognition as the year’s best would feature some of the year’s best acting performances. Yet within only a few years time, we can find two examples to the contrary. Assuming that the actors from such films were considered for the Academy Awards, there must have been some film component that weighed more heavily in voters’ minds than the individual artists’ efforts. This suggest the question: When is performance vital to the strength and success of a film?
According to Richard de Cordova (1986), certain genres rely more heavily on actors’ performance for their success than others. He claims such films like musicals and melodramas are those with vital acting performances.
Any film critic comfortable with placing The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, or even Slumdog Millionaire, in with musicals or melodrama films would be a very unreliable critic. Therefore, Return of the King, an epic action/adventure film by genre, must offer a facet, or a multitude of facets rather, that make up for its less pivotal acting performances yet still move audience members to remember it forever.
According to Jeff Giles of Newsweek (2003), “Return of the King” has nothing to apologize for. It’s an epic. It tells a passionate, elemental story. It takes the principal filmmaking currency of our times, special effects, and makes them matter. Is it a fantasy? It’s a lot of people’s fantasy, yes.” In this quote alone, we can find the worthiness of Return of the King as a best picture winner.
The film is an epic in every sense of the word. Based on a trilogy of books that has had maybe more of an effect on all of literature than any other trilogy before or after it, simply adapting The Lord of the Rings was a giant challenge in and of itself. Not to mention that it was done on an exorbitant budget, with the majority of Hollywood’s support, and to nearly universal critical acclaim. It truly does represent the cusp of filmmaking at the time it was produced, reaching to the farthest boundaries of what was possible in the industry.
Therefore, in fact, acting was not essential to the film’s success. Even with decently convincing enough performances and a few dynamic characters, it’s the overall themes of the story that resonate- the good and evil struggle, even the allegory to Christian principles and beliefs.
Furthermore, as the epitome of a fantasy film, for the entire trilogy, it is all about the spectacle. The mountain ranges, the never-ending forests, the gruesome orcs, the all-seeing eye of Sauron, the talking trees…the list of mesmerizing and detailed special 
effects could go on. The dangerous stunts, the impressive battle choreography, and the stunning and complex cinematography require an entirely different discussion of their own as well. It is in these characteristics that this truly dazzling fantasy film makes it success and receives its judgment.
Even if greater attention were cast upon the performances of the film as opposed to the overall tone and style, the decision amongst which character were worthy of more attention would be a difficult one. Over nineteen actors are given star billing in this third installment, and nine of those had been followed in great detail from the trilogy’s first film. The story traces itself in and out of each character’s or group of characters’ current journey or task, making it appear almost as an anthology of scenes loosely tied together by one purpose. So The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King becomes easily understood and appreciated as a whole work instead of one or two stand alone breakout performances worthy of an Oscar.
References:
De Cordova, Richard. (1984). Genre & performance: An overview. Film Genre Reader III, 130-40.
Giles, J. (2003). Secrets of the king. Newsweek, 142(22), 50-62.
A Decade of Academy Award Winning Films 