10 Blood-Stirringly Epic Cinematic Charges

1. The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King (2003)

The Charge: The Ride of the Rohirrim

Surely there can be no argument that this is the most epic charge in all of film. The ride of Theoden and his Rohirrim to break the lines of Mordor during the equally epic siege of Minas Tirith, is pivotal not only as a blood-stirring, fist pump inducing moment of unrivalled epicness, but also as a thematic exclamation point. Just as Sauron’s forces near victory, as the world of men is seemingly doomed to fail, Theodeon arrives at the crest of the hill with the dawn of a new day at his back.

Peter Jackson took heavy influence from The Charge of the Light Brigade in constructing this scene, if you compare the two sequences you can see the influence in Jackon’s choice of shots and the way the sequence is edited together. But what makes it so epic?

Is it Howard Shore’s swelling score? Theodon’s blood pumping speech? Is it thousands of Rohirrim screaming “death!” at the top of their lungs as they charge towards certain doom? Or all of these elements combined? Throughout the trilogy we are told that “men are weak”, portrayed as corruptible and weak, so perhaps a reason Theodon’s charge is so stirring, is that against all odds, it shows us the day the strength of men triumphed.

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