Extended Editions of "The Lord of the Rings" go Blu....(Blu-ray box set review)
Plot Details: This opinion reveals no details about the movie's plot.
Author’s Note: This review is solely based on 2011’s The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy – Extended Edition Blu-ray Collection. There will be some comments on plot and characters in the critiques, but no reviews of the films themselves.
Although I have always been more of a Star Wars/Star Trek buff than a high fantasy one, I’ve been a casual fan of John Ronald Ruel Tolkien’s Middle-earth stories – primarily The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings - ever since I saw Ralph Bakshi’s laudable 1978 animated adaptation of the latter novel during its theatrical release.
Though Bakshi’s film only encompassed parts of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers and ended abruptly in mid-tale – it had been originally titled J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: Part One – its tale of how the hobbit Frodo Baggins and eight companions set out on a perilous quest to destroy an evil being’s magic ring intrigued me enough to want to read Tolkien’s literary trilogy.
I was still in middle school at the time and not yet aware of the differences between books and their celluloid adaptations, so when I tried to tackle The Fellowship of the Ring in the two weeks which I had to read it (I had checked it out from the school library), I was overwhelmed by its complex mythology, characters and situations that had not been included in the film, and all of Tolkien’s songs and poetry.
A few years later, when I was about to graduate from high school, I bought a four-book collection which included both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. I found that The Hobbit was easier to read – it is after all, a children’s book – and The Lord of the Rings requires a great deal of time and patience to get through its tapestry of adventure, mythology and literary themes.
Indeed, I spent most of the summer of 1983 reading The Lord of the Rings; it took me about two months to get from The Fellowship of the Ring to The Return of the King – a feat made possible only by skipping some of the poems, songs and the chapter in which Tom Bombadil appears.
Now, even though I was – and still am – a very casual Tolkien fan, I wondered if Ralph Bakshi would ever be allowed to complete his animated version, but unfortunately that project never got green-lit. (Rankin-Bass, the animation studio which had made a TV adaptation of The Hobbit in the ‘70s, did produce a made-for-TV movie based on The Return of the King, but it wasn’t as well done as J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.)
Peter Jackson Tackles Tolkien
Bakshi’s film – incomplete as it is – did have an audience back in 1978, and one of its fans was a New Zealand teenager named Peter Jackson, who became a devotee of Tolkien’s legendarium – which is his far larger saga of Middle-earth, of which The Lord of the Rings is only a small part.
Jackson - who also was a Star Wars fan - eventually went on to study film-making and became a director of indie movies along the lines of Bad Taste (1987) and Heavenly Creatures (1994).
In the 1990s, Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh approached Miramax Films with a two-part script for a live-action adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. That project eventually went nowhere, but Miramax honchos Bob and Harvey Weinstein supported Jackson’s ensuing deal with New Line Cinema – a subsidiary of Time-Warner – which encompassed a three-film adaptation instead of the condensed two-part project originally pitched.
The entire three-film project was shot in New Zealand over a four year period, with all of the principal photography done in a 16-month span of time and with “pickups” and re-shoots of scenes being carried out from time to time until 2003.
Jackson, Walsh and co-writer Philippa Boyens condensed much of Tolkien’s 1,000-plus page novel and restructured its plot so The Lord of the Rings could work well as a screen story.
Many of Tolkien’s characters and situations were either excised or reduced in scope, and some events were moved around to make the story clearer and faster paced. Still, the theatrical releases of The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King have running times of 178, 179 and 201 minutes respectively.
Obviously, some of Tolkien’s devoted readers have stated that Jackson’s films only scratch the surface of the author’s literary opus and that they are more action-oriented than they are character-driven.
Jackson – to give him credit – says that the movies he made are just one possible interpretation; in the behind-the-scenes documentary “From Book to Script” he points out that (a) Tolkien himself thought The Lord of the Rings is un-filmable “as is” and (b) that a full-on adaptation would be a mess.
Nevertheless, as good as the theatrical movies ended up becoming – The Return of the King alone won 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, becoming the first fantasy movie in film history to earn the top Oscar prizes – some of the criticisms aimed at them hit the mark.
Not only are some of the lighter, more humorous aspects of the story reduced or missing, but the ending of one major character’s story arc – Christopher Lee’s Saruman – is anticlimactic and very unsatisfactory.
Jackson and his production team, however, knew that the then-new DVD format would give them an opportunity to expand the films’ story and add depth to its characters and plot just enough to make The Lord of the Rings a bit more in line with Tolkien’s vision without deviating too much from the theatrical versions which were already out on DVD.
In collaboration with editor John Gilbert, Peter Jackson evaluated material which had not been used in the original editions of The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King. They painstakingly reworked this material, some of it shot in the “pickups” phase of secondary photography, so that it would blend in seamlessly with the existing versions of the three films.
Once the editing process was finished, composer Howard Shore composed and recorded an all-new version of the musical score so that the Extended Editions would flow naturally instead of seeming as though the new visuals and music had been simply tacked on as an afterthought.
Packaging and Content
Like 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment/Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The Complete Saga 2011 box set, The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy – Extended Edition has a book-themed slipcover made of heavy cardboard and made to look like a one-volume hardcover edition of the novel. The front “cover” is actually a flap which swings open to reveal the three five-disc BD jewel boxes. When opened, the flap reveals a group poster photo of the Fellowship of the Ring’s main heroes where the book’s table of contents would be, and the frontispiece illustration is a map of Middle-earth.
The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy – Extended Edition box set consists of 15 discs; six BDs hold the three Extended Editions of The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King, while The Appendices are contained in nine DVDs. Each movie comes in its individual five-disc BD jewel case container, with appropriate cover art and back cover blurb labels.
The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy – Extended Edition consists of the following discs:
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring feature, Extended Edition – Part 1 (BD)
The Lord of the Rings: War in the North – The Untold Story Trailer
Commentaries:
Director and writers
Design team
Production and post production teams
Cast
BD-Live
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring feature, Extended Edition – Part 2 (BD)
Commentaries:
Director and writers
Design team
Production and post production teams
Cast
BD-Live
The Appendices
Part 1 From Book to Vision (DVD)
Peter Jackson Introduction
J.R.R. Tolkien: Creator of Middle-earth
From Book to Script
Visualizing the Story
Designing and Building Middle-earth
Middle-earth Atlas Interactive
New Zealand and Middle-earth Interactive
The Appendices Part 2 From Vision to Reality (DVD)
Elijah Wood Introduction
Filming The Fellowship of the Ring
Visual Effects
Post Production: Putting It All Together
Digital Grading
Sound and Music
The Road Goes Ever On…
Behind-the-scenes documentary created by filmmaker Costa Botes during filming of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (DVD)
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers feature, Extended Edition – Part 1 (BD)
The Lord of the Rings: War in the North – The Untold Story Trailer
Commentaries:
Director and writers
Design team
Production and post production teams
Cast
BD-Live
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers feature, Extended Edition – Part 2 (BD)
Commentaries:
Director and writers
Design team
Production and post production teams
Cast
BD-Live
The Appendices Part 3: The Journey Continues (DVD)
Peter Jackson Introduction
JRR Tolkien: Origin of Middle-earth
From Book to Script: Finding the Story
Designing and Building Middle-earth
Gollum
Middle-earth Atlas
InteractiveNew Zealand as Middle-earth
The Appendices Part 4: The Battle for Middle-earth (DVD)
Elijah Wood Introduction
Filming The Two Towers
Visual Effects
Editorial: Refining the Story
Music and Sound
The Battle for Helm's Deep is Over…
Behind-the-scenes documentary created by filmmaker Costa Botes during filming of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (DVD)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King feature, Extended Edition – Part 1 (BD)
The Lord of the Rings: War in the North – The Untold Story Trailer
Commentaries:
Director and writers
Design team
Production and post production teams
Cast
BD-Live
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King feature, Extended Edition – Part 2 (BD)
Commentaries:
Director and writers
Design team
Production and post production teams
Cast
BD-Live
The Appendices Part 5: The War of the Ring (DVD)
Peter Jackson Introduction
JRR Tolkien: The Legacy of Middle-earth
From Book to Script
Designing and Building Middle-earth
Home of the Horse Lords
Middle-earth Atlas
New Zealand as Middle-earth
The Appendices Part 6: The Passing of an Age (DVD)
Introduction
Filming The Return of the King
Visual Effects
Post-Production: Journey´s End
The Passing of an Age
Cameron Duncan: The Inspiration for Into the West
Behind-the-scenes documentary created by filmmaker Costa Botes during filming of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King(DVD)
Note: Though (as in the case of the Star Wars: The Complete Saga BD set's Bonus Discs 1 and 2) the Appendices can be watched as long three-hour documentaries with branching galleries of still photos and drawings included, viewers can watch the individual featurettes one-by-one in no particular order.
Additionally, each five-disc set comes with a booklet which contains some behind-the-scenes text on the Extended Editions, plus a chapter list and a flowchart-like contents guide to the Appendices discs.
My Take: Although The Lord of the Rings is far from being my all-time favorite movie series and I was mostly content with owning the DVDs (and Blu-rays) of the original theatrical versions, I decided to use my Amazon Visa Rewards points to get the 15-disc The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy – Extended Edition at Amazon.
Now, I recently received as a Christmas gift the Blu-ray disc (BD) versions of the 2001-2003 theatrical editions and I have just finished watching them. I still find them impressive and enjoyable, but knowing that there was a box set titled The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy – Extended Edition priced at $49.00 (and that I could snag it with my rewards points) spurred me on to get it.
My decision to get The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy – Extended Edition was based mostly on my reaction to the previews I have seen on the original DVD releases which promise what amounts to be all-new movies which make the theatrical versions seem like Reader’s Digest Condensed Book editions in comparison.
(More savvy videophiles might want to get The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy – Extended Edition on BD not simply because of their content, but because the 2010 BDs of the theatrical versions have issues with their high-definition image quality; apparently the video transfer was made using an older master.)
Like many viewers, I don’t normally like movies that have super-long running times, so at first I questioned my ability to sit through any one of The Extended Edition versions in one viewing session.
Then it dawned on me that home video formats of the 21st Century are more suited for watching longer movies than their 20th Century videotape forebears or even their in-theater original versions. With the former, you could pause or stop the videotape if you had to go to the bathroom or get more snacks from the fridge, but that was about it, and with the latter, if you got up in the middle of a scene when nature called, you would have to miss a huge chunk of a movie no matter how fast you went and did your business.
Now, with the help from the Select a Scene option on a BD or DVD, a Tolkien buff (casual or die-hard) doesn’t have to watch the now-228 minute long version of The Fellowship of the Ring in one or two sittings. The movie can now be approached very much like the novel – to be enjoyed at one’s leisure.
For the record, Jackson and his team have either restored scenes not included in the theatrical versions or extended some existing ones. This means that the movies have longer running times, which are listed as follows:
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – was 178 minutes long in its original version; had over 30 minutes’ worth of material added for a total running time of 228 minutes.
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – was 179 minutes long in its theatrical edition; the Extended Edition now clocks in at 235 minutes.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King – the longest of the original films with a running time of 201 minutes (that’s three hours and 21 minutes, folks) has had nearly an hour added to it. The Extended Edition lasts 263 from fade in to the last of the fan club credits.
(Fan club credits are lists of The Lord of the Ring fans who paid $35.00 apiece for the privilege of appearing on The Extended Editions’ DVD credits.)
Considering that I’m not a huge Tolkien buff, I have to admit that Jackson’s huge gambles – first in making the original versions of The Lord of the Rings films, then in producing these longer editions – paid off nicely for both the artist and the audience.
Obviously, the Jackson-Walsh-Boyens team does not attempt to recreate Tolkien’s entire novel to appease The Lord of the Rings’ most ardent fans. Characters such as Tom Bombadil, Fatty Bolger and the Elf Glorfindel have either been left out altogether or their roles minimized (the not-in-the-movie character Glorfindel’s important material has been handed over to Liv Tyler’s Arwen), and scenes, characters and dialogue moved around to fit the movie’s cinematic needs and speed up the story somewhat.
However, each film now has more story and character development that is richer and more satisfying than in its original version, as well as more in tune to Tolkien’s writing.
For instance, The Fellowship of the Ring now features a longer beginning based on the book’s Concerning Hobbits preface, while The Return of the King gives us a more complete version of the aftermath of the Battle of Isengard (which was the climax of Saruman’s story arc in The Two Towers).
Recommended: Yes
Author’s Note: This review is solely based on 2011’s The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy – Extended Edition Blu-ray Collection. There will be some comments on plot and characters in the critiques, but no reviews of the films themselves.
Although I have always been more of a Star Wars/Star Trek buff than a high fantasy one, I’ve been a casual fan of John Ronald Ruel Tolkien’s Middle-earth stories – primarily The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings - ever since I saw Ralph Bakshi’s laudable 1978 animated adaptation of the latter novel during its theatrical release.
Though Bakshi’s film only encompassed parts of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers and ended abruptly in mid-tale – it had been originally titled J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: Part One – its tale of how the hobbit Frodo Baggins and eight companions set out on a perilous quest to destroy an evil being’s magic ring intrigued me enough to want to read Tolkien’s literary trilogy.
I was still in middle school at the time and not yet aware of the differences between books and their celluloid adaptations, so when I tried to tackle The Fellowship of the Ring in the two weeks which I had to read it (I had checked it out from the school library), I was overwhelmed by its complex mythology, characters and situations that had not been included in the film, and all of Tolkien’s songs and poetry.
A few years later, when I was about to graduate from high school, I bought a four-book collection which included both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. I found that The Hobbit was easier to read – it is after all, a children’s book – and The Lord of the Rings requires a great deal of time and patience to get through its tapestry of adventure, mythology and literary themes.
Indeed, I spent most of the summer of 1983 reading The Lord of the Rings; it took me about two months to get from The Fellowship of the Ring to The Return of the King – a feat made possible only by skipping some of the poems, songs and the chapter in which Tom Bombadil appears.
Now, even though I was – and still am – a very casual Tolkien fan, I wondered if Ralph Bakshi would ever be allowed to complete his animated version, but unfortunately that project never got green-lit. (Rankin-Bass, the animation studio which had made a TV adaptation of The Hobbit in the ‘70s, did produce a made-for-TV movie based on The Return of the King, but it wasn’t as well done as J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.)
Peter Jackson Tackles Tolkien
Bakshi’s film – incomplete as it is – did have an audience back in 1978, and one of its fans was a New Zealand teenager named Peter Jackson, who became a devotee of Tolkien’s legendarium – which is his far larger saga of Middle-earth, of which The Lord of the Rings is only a small part.
Jackson - who also was a Star Wars fan - eventually went on to study film-making and became a director of indie movies along the lines of Bad Taste (1987) and Heavenly Creatures (1994).
In the 1990s, Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh approached Miramax Films with a two-part script for a live-action adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. That project eventually went nowhere, but Miramax honchos Bob and Harvey Weinstein supported Jackson’s ensuing deal with New Line Cinema – a subsidiary of Time-Warner – which encompassed a three-film adaptation instead of the condensed two-part project originally pitched.
The entire three-film project was shot in New Zealand over a four year period, with all of the principal photography done in a 16-month span of time and with “pickups” and re-shoots of scenes being carried out from time to time until 2003.
Jackson, Walsh and co-writer Philippa Boyens condensed much of Tolkien’s 1,000-plus page novel and restructured its plot so The Lord of the Rings could work well as a screen story.
Many of Tolkien’s characters and situations were either excised or reduced in scope, and some events were moved around to make the story clearer and faster paced. Still, the theatrical releases of The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King have running times of 178, 179 and 201 minutes respectively.
Obviously, some of Tolkien’s devoted readers have stated that Jackson’s films only scratch the surface of the author’s literary opus and that they are more action-oriented than they are character-driven.
Jackson – to give him credit – says that the movies he made are just one possible interpretation; in the behind-the-scenes documentary “From Book to Script” he points out that (a) Tolkien himself thought The Lord of the Rings is un-filmable “as is” and (b) that a full-on adaptation would be a mess.
Nevertheless, as good as the theatrical movies ended up becoming – The Return of the King alone won 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, becoming the first fantasy movie in film history to earn the top Oscar prizes – some of the criticisms aimed at them hit the mark.
Not only are some of the lighter, more humorous aspects of the story reduced or missing, but the ending of one major character’s story arc – Christopher Lee’s Saruman – is anticlimactic and very unsatisfactory.
Jackson and his production team, however, knew that the then-new DVD format would give them an opportunity to expand the films’ story and add depth to its characters and plot just enough to make The Lord of the Rings a bit more in line with Tolkien’s vision without deviating too much from the theatrical versions which were already out on DVD.
In collaboration with editor John Gilbert, Peter Jackson evaluated material which had not been used in the original editions of The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King. They painstakingly reworked this material, some of it shot in the “pickups” phase of secondary photography, so that it would blend in seamlessly with the existing versions of the three films.
Once the editing process was finished, composer Howard Shore composed and recorded an all-new version of the musical score so that the Extended Editions would flow naturally instead of seeming as though the new visuals and music had been simply tacked on as an afterthought.
Packaging and Content
Like 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment/Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The Complete Saga 2011 box set, The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy – Extended Edition has a book-themed slipcover made of heavy cardboard and made to look like a one-volume hardcover edition of the novel. The front “cover” is actually a flap which swings open to reveal the three five-disc BD jewel boxes. When opened, the flap reveals a group poster photo of the Fellowship of the Ring’s main heroes where the book’s table of contents would be, and the frontispiece illustration is a map of Middle-earth.
The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy – Extended Edition box set consists of 15 discs; six BDs hold the three Extended Editions of The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King, while The Appendices are contained in nine DVDs. Each movie comes in its individual five-disc BD jewel case container, with appropriate cover art and back cover blurb labels.
The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy – Extended Edition consists of the following discs:
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring feature, Extended Edition – Part 1 (BD)
The Lord of the Rings: War in the North – The Untold Story Trailer
Commentaries:
Director and writers
Design team
Production and post production teams
Cast
BD-Live
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring feature, Extended Edition – Part 2 (BD)
Commentaries:
Director and writers
Design team
Production and post production teams
Cast
BD-Live
The Appendices
Part 1 From Book to Vision (DVD)
Peter Jackson Introduction
J.R.R. Tolkien: Creator of Middle-earth
From Book to Script
Visualizing the Story
Designing and Building Middle-earth
Middle-earth Atlas Interactive
New Zealand and Middle-earth Interactive
The Appendices Part 2 From Vision to Reality (DVD)
Elijah Wood Introduction
Filming The Fellowship of the Ring
Visual Effects
Post Production: Putting It All Together
Digital Grading
Sound and Music
The Road Goes Ever On…
Behind-the-scenes documentary created by filmmaker Costa Botes during filming of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (DVD)
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers feature, Extended Edition – Part 1 (BD)
The Lord of the Rings: War in the North – The Untold Story Trailer
Commentaries:
Director and writers
Design team
Production and post production teams
Cast
BD-Live
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers feature, Extended Edition – Part 2 (BD)
Commentaries:
Director and writers
Design team
Production and post production teams
Cast
BD-Live
The Appendices Part 3: The Journey Continues (DVD)
Peter Jackson Introduction
JRR Tolkien: Origin of Middle-earth
From Book to Script: Finding the Story
Designing and Building Middle-earth
Gollum
Middle-earth Atlas
InteractiveNew Zealand as Middle-earth
The Appendices Part 4: The Battle for Middle-earth (DVD)
Elijah Wood Introduction
Filming The Two Towers
Visual Effects
Editorial: Refining the Story
Music and Sound
The Battle for Helm's Deep is Over…
Behind-the-scenes documentary created by filmmaker Costa Botes during filming of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (DVD)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King feature, Extended Edition – Part 1 (BD)
The Lord of the Rings: War in the North – The Untold Story Trailer
Commentaries:
Director and writers
Design team
Production and post production teams
Cast
BD-Live
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King feature, Extended Edition – Part 2 (BD)
Commentaries:
Director and writers
Design team
Production and post production teams
Cast
BD-Live
The Appendices Part 5: The War of the Ring (DVD)
Peter Jackson Introduction
JRR Tolkien: The Legacy of Middle-earth
From Book to Script
Designing and Building Middle-earth
Home of the Horse Lords
Middle-earth Atlas
New Zealand as Middle-earth
The Appendices Part 6: The Passing of an Age (DVD)
Introduction
Filming The Return of the King
Visual Effects
Post-Production: Journey´s End
The Passing of an Age
Cameron Duncan: The Inspiration for Into the West
Behind-the-scenes documentary created by filmmaker Costa Botes during filming of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King(DVD)
Note: Though (as in the case of the Star Wars: The Complete Saga BD set's Bonus Discs 1 and 2) the Appendices can be watched as long three-hour documentaries with branching galleries of still photos and drawings included, viewers can watch the individual featurettes one-by-one in no particular order.
Additionally, each five-disc set comes with a booklet which contains some behind-the-scenes text on the Extended Editions, plus a chapter list and a flowchart-like contents guide to the Appendices discs.
My Take: Although The Lord of the Rings is far from being my all-time favorite movie series and I was mostly content with owning the DVDs (and Blu-rays) of the original theatrical versions, I decided to use my Amazon Visa Rewards points to get the 15-disc The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy – Extended Edition at Amazon.
Now, I recently received as a Christmas gift the Blu-ray disc (BD) versions of the 2001-2003 theatrical editions and I have just finished watching them. I still find them impressive and enjoyable, but knowing that there was a box set titled The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy – Extended Edition priced at $49.00 (and that I could snag it with my rewards points) spurred me on to get it.
My decision to get The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy – Extended Edition was based mostly on my reaction to the previews I have seen on the original DVD releases which promise what amounts to be all-new movies which make the theatrical versions seem like Reader’s Digest Condensed Book editions in comparison.
(More savvy videophiles might want to get The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy – Extended Edition on BD not simply because of their content, but because the 2010 BDs of the theatrical versions have issues with their high-definition image quality; apparently the video transfer was made using an older master.)
Like many viewers, I don’t normally like movies that have super-long running times, so at first I questioned my ability to sit through any one of The Extended Edition versions in one viewing session.
Then it dawned on me that home video formats of the 21st Century are more suited for watching longer movies than their 20th Century videotape forebears or even their in-theater original versions. With the former, you could pause or stop the videotape if you had to go to the bathroom or get more snacks from the fridge, but that was about it, and with the latter, if you got up in the middle of a scene when nature called, you would have to miss a huge chunk of a movie no matter how fast you went and did your business.
Now, with the help from the Select a Scene option on a BD or DVD, a Tolkien buff (casual or die-hard) doesn’t have to watch the now-228 minute long version of The Fellowship of the Ring in one or two sittings. The movie can now be approached very much like the novel – to be enjoyed at one’s leisure.
For the record, Jackson and his team have either restored scenes not included in the theatrical versions or extended some existing ones. This means that the movies have longer running times, which are listed as follows:
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – was 178 minutes long in its original version; had over 30 minutes’ worth of material added for a total running time of 228 minutes.
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – was 179 minutes long in its theatrical edition; the Extended Edition now clocks in at 235 minutes.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King – the longest of the original films with a running time of 201 minutes (that’s three hours and 21 minutes, folks) has had nearly an hour added to it. The Extended Edition lasts 263 from fade in to the last of the fan club credits.
(Fan club credits are lists of The Lord of the Ring fans who paid $35.00 apiece for the privilege of appearing on The Extended Editions’ DVD credits.)
Considering that I’m not a huge Tolkien buff, I have to admit that Jackson’s huge gambles – first in making the original versions of The Lord of the Rings films, then in producing these longer editions – paid off nicely for both the artist and the audience.
Obviously, the Jackson-Walsh-Boyens team does not attempt to recreate Tolkien’s entire novel to appease The Lord of the Rings’ most ardent fans. Characters such as Tom Bombadil, Fatty Bolger and the Elf Glorfindel have either been left out altogether or their roles minimized (the not-in-the-movie character Glorfindel’s important material has been handed over to Liv Tyler’s Arwen), and scenes, characters and dialogue moved around to fit the movie’s cinematic needs and speed up the story somewhat.
However, each film now has more story and character development that is richer and more satisfying than in its original version, as well as more in tune to Tolkien’s writing.
For instance, The Fellowship of the Ring now features a longer beginning based on the book’s Concerning Hobbits preface, while The Return of the King gives us a more complete version of the aftermath of the Battle of Isengard (which was the climax of Saruman’s story arc in The Two Towers).
Recommended: Yes
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older
© 2012 Alex Diaz-Granados.
All Rights Reserved
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