I finally watched the last LOTR movie (haven’t been going to the theater, just getting them in DVD when they come out). FWIW, i think the third is the only one that comes within reasonable distance of the spirit of the books. It could have been better if they didn’t try to “improve” the story in so many points, but i have to say they got the images right. The city of Gondor was especially great. The computer animation is so good that you can’t tell what’s real and what’s not.
The new extended version comes out in the middle of December and has over an hours worth of inserted deleted scenes. Peter Jackson said this movie had the most amount of footage that they had to cut and expressed his need in inserting the extra scenes for a more definitive movie. Here is a 6 minute clip that gave me goosebumps highlighting (spelling?) some of the additions…
I wonder if I should buy stock in Phillips/Sony/etc before the extended edition of LOTR III comes out.
I know that I personally will shop for a DVD player once the whole Ring cycle is available. That one release by itself will finally give me a good enough reason to buy one. I wonder how much this one movie will affect console sales.
I’ve been waiting to by the DVD until it was release in its extended version. I bought the extended versions of The Fellowship and Two Towers and found them much better movies. The extensions added 30-45 minutes to each so they both ran almost 4 hours. The extended version of The Return of the King has been reported at over 4 hours. For me, the extended versions supply a lot more of the character development and provide scenes that contain some arch matterial that ties the moves into a trilogy.
I’m sure that will still be things left out; however, that is unavoidable. I think The Lord Of the Rings in direct translation to the screen would take a 200 hour, 5 year series to come close. I woud have production costs in the 10’s of billions. I appreciate the care that Jackson and company took to try to bring this story to the public while maintaining many of the primary themes, plots, and depth of detail that I found so captivating in Tolkiens books.
Now the real problem will be do I let myself wait for Christmas to recieve it as a gift, or do I loose that marginal level of self control and buy it the first day’s it available. Hmm… what do you think a fellow with a long time WhOA syndrome is likely to do?
