Hypersmurf
Moderatarrrrh...
Krug said:
That's the funny thing.
I only worked on the Final Alliance scenes at the start of FotR. I'm only in the TTT:EE and RotK:EE credits.
'sweird
-Hyp.
-
NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
The offical ENWorld The Return of the King Extendend Edtion DVD reaction thread.
- Thread starter KenM
- Start date
That's the funny thing.
I only worked on the Final Alliance scenes at the start of FotR. I'm only in the TTT:EE and RotK:EE credits.
'sweird
-Hyp.
Ankh-Morpork Guard
First Post
Krug said:
He's all of the Orcs. You think those guys were actually make up? Nah, that was all our little Blue-Screen Compatible Moderator
Last edited:
Do the have the scene that was cut where Aragon, Legolis and Gimli confront the pirates?
Do the have the scene that was cut where Saruman goes to Kamino to get more orcs made?
Do the have the scene that was cut where Gandalf confronts Saruman?
Do the have the scene that was cut where the Witch King confronts Gandalf?
What about hidden stuff? What hidden Easter Eggs does it have?
Do they have any clips of out takes or gaffs?
Do the have the scene that was cut where Saruman goes to Kamino to get more orcs made?
Do the have the scene that was cut where Gandalf confronts Saruman?
Do the have the scene that was cut where the Witch King confronts Gandalf?
What about hidden stuff? What hidden Easter Eggs does it have?
Do they have any clips of out takes or gaffs?
Last edited:
Allanon
Explorer
Saw it last night, it's definitely better. But as a whole it's still not FotR, which I consider the one true movie .
The break is IMHO badly placed. Right in de middle of all the action at the siege of Gondor. The first disc ends there and the second disc begins with the new extended material of the Corsairs. It definitely throws you right out of the mood. More later...
.The break is IMHO badly placed. Right in de middle of all the action at the siege of Gondor. The first disc ends there and the second disc begins with the new extended material of the Corsairs. It definitely throws you right out of the mood. More later...
Mark Oliva
First Post
Return of the King Extended - Review
Tuesday is the official day for the release of the Platinum Extended Edition
of Part 3 of Peter Jackson's LotR, "The Return of the King," in North
America. However, it already was released on Friday here in continental
Europe and in Great Britain. For those who'd like some advanced details,
read on.
First of all, Amazon US (www.amazon.com) and Amazon Canada (www.amazon.ca)
are offering the extended edition at very reduced prices for Christmas.
Amazon US is selling it for US$23.99, compared to a list price of $39.99.
Amazon Canada is selling it for CDN$34.99, which Amazon says is 40% off list
price.
The cover ad says that the extended version has 48 minutes more film than
the cinema version. That checks out. The seconds are rounded in the times
below.
Cinema Version DVD
------------------
Total running time: 3:13
Film running time: 3:04
Title music at end: 0:09
Platinum Extended Version DVD
-----------------------------
Total running time: 4:12
Film running time: 3:51
Title music at end: 0:21
So, the advertised 48 extra minutes do not include the extra 12 minutes of
titles and title music at the end. You really get another 48 minutes of
movie. You also get four CDs instead of two, but I have no comments on the
extras. I never look at them (One exception: the "Bowling for Columbine"
DVD), and therefore, there's nothing I can say about them.
So, what's in those 48 minutes?
The following scenes were extended:
Finding of the Ring with Smeagol & Deagol, the way to Isengard, the return to Edoras, the palantir, Minas Tirith, Gandalf and Pippin in Minas Tirith, Théoden's decision on going to Minas Tirith, the fall of Osgiliath, Rohan's war camp, Aragorn chooses the Paths of the Dead, the besieging of Gondor, the crypt of the stewards, Denethor's immolation, battle on the Fields of Pelennor, victory at Minas Tirith, Pippin finds Merry (new version), the tower of Cirith Ungol, the last war council, the Land of Shadow, Mount Doom.
The following scenes are new:
The voice of Saruman (see below), Éowyn's dream, the fall of Gondor, the
trail past the fallen king, Sam's warning of Gollum, Denethor's rage at
Faramir over letting the Ring go, Pippin's joining the guard, the Corsars
from Umbar, Merry encourages Éowyn, Gandalf and the Witch King of Angmar
(see below), Aragorn and the palantir (see below), the Houses of Healing,
Faramir and Éowyn, Frodo and Sam forced to march with the orcs, Mouth of
Sauron (see below).
The main additions are the Voice of Saruman, the new material on the Paths
of the Dead, Aragorn and the palantir and the Mouth of Sauron. Gandalf and
the Witch King of Angmar should be a main addition too, but it is another of
many things with which Peter Jackson had no idea what to do, so instead of
being a strong scene, it fizzles out and creates a glaring inconsistency in
the process.
If Jackson had understood Prof. Tolkien's books and had been true to his
professed commitment to remain faithful to them, the Scouring of the Shire
could and would not have been eliminated. This ending after the ending has
everything to do with what Prof. Tolkien's tale really is all about.
Without endorsing its omission, one must say that Jackson's method of
dispatching Saruman without the Scourging of the Shire is well executed.
The scene atop Isengard's tower is at the root faithful to the book, until
the end, when Tolkien's death scene from the Shire is shifted to Isengard.
King Théoden's attempts to talk Wormtongue into descending the tower and
returning to the ranks of Rohan is not from the books, but it lends a
Tolkienesque quality to the altered series of events at Orthanc. Saruman
humiliates Wormtongue atop the tower, and Wormtongue stabs Saruman in the
back with a dagger, slaying him. An arrow from Legolas ends Wormtongue's
life, as Saruman's corpse falls from the tower onto a waterwheel.
The scene is well run. When the body hits the waterwheel, it sets it slowly
into motion, like a wheel of fate slowly sinking the fallen wizard's body
into the waters of oblivion, as the palantir Pippin finds falls out of
Saruman's sleeve and into the water. None of this happened in the book, of
course, but if one is going to deviate from the book, this is a credible and
convincing alternative. Much better than the cinematic alternative, which
was simply to ignore the fact that there was a Saruman.
Best done is the Mouth of Sauron. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent! I'll
add no more. This has to be seen to be appreciated. For those who saw the
cinema version of RotK, this well may be the highest point of all in the
extended version.
Also superlative is the greatly extended journey down the Paths of the Dead,
suspenseful, scary and exciting, with a great climax as Aragorn, Legolas and
Gimle flee from the tunnel, Aragorn despairing, thinking he has failed, as
villages burn below him. Only then does the King of the Dead emerge to
swear to serve Aragorn. Not from Tolkien, but well done.
Less satisfying and more puzzling is Aragorn's encounter with the palantir.
In the book, Aragorn used the palantir atop the High Seat and held his own
against the Dark Lord. In the extended version, Aragorn is just somewhere
or the other using the palantir. It ends with him looking like he was an
abject failure about to suffer a nervous breakdown, while Arwen's jewel
falls to the floor and shatters. Say what?
Strange indeed, because in RotK, one sees clearly that Jackson wants to
picture Aragorn as the dominant figure of stength, confidence and
leadership, while Gandalf becomes ever more uncertain and somewhat
desperate. At several points, Jackson's Gandalf wants to believe that Frodo
is dead, and it takes the stronger Aragorn to elevate his spirits again.
The abjectly weak Aragorn we see with the palantir simply doesn't fit into
that concept or into any other concept that one finds in the film.
But the weakening Gandalf we see in Jackson's RotK is also the reason that
Mithrandir's encounter with the Witch King of Angmar fizzles into
nothingness. The Witch King destroys Gandalf's staff and appears to be
about to destroy a desperate and hopeless Gandalf when, instead, the Nazgul
lord flies off to attend to the horns of Rohan. This important scene, which
was missing in the cinematic version, adds nothing in the extended version,
simply because it fizzles. Never mind that the staff of Gandalf, which the
Witch King conclusively destroyed in this scene, is back in Gandalf's hands
not too many frames later, and it remains there until the end of the film.
Overall, the extended version is much like its two predecessors. It rescues
the viewer from the constant chop-chop-chop-but-let-nothing-develop pace of
the cinema versions. The extended edition still ignores large and important
parts of Tolkien's tale to spend incredible amounts of time running loud,
loud, loud battle scenes, many of which run so long that despite their
attempts to sustain with spectacle, they end up being boring. And in the
extended versions, the battle scenes, which already were too long in the
cinema version, were extended too.
Technically, Jackson's resources apparently were running out. For all his
technical marvels, Jackson could do nothing more in the long Mordor scene
than to show us still pictures in the background of Mt. Doom. The flames
never move. The smoke never moves. Ho-hum. That kind of technical marvel
you already can find in black-and-white in the Marx Brothers films from the
1930s. One saw this already in the cinema version, but the extended
material makes it come out even more.
All in all, if you want Prof. Tolkien's story, you'll still have to settle
for reading the books. Jackson didn't understand it and therefore couldn't
recreate it. Instead, he gives one an exciting action movie that, with the
extended versions, runs for just under 10 hours. In the extended versions -
if you can put Tolkien's tale aside and take the film on its own qualities,
which I've had considerable difficulty doing - you get one helluva action
film that runs a surface story based on the surface of Tolkien's tale.
The cinema versions are too choppy and too dedicated to not letting anything develop for me to have been able to watch more than once, but the extended editions I can digest, although I still regret at points that Jackson chose to tell his own story rather than Tolkien's better tale. The extended versions let Jackson's tale breathe and develop. Despite its remoteness from Tolkien, Jackson's Ring is the best fantasy film you're likely to see for some time. For those who can take it in that spirit, the extended editions are a good investment. I intend to keep mine, although I gave away the cinema versions of all three films.
The acting quality in RotK is about the same as in the two previous films.
Sir Ian McKellen's Gandalf and Christopher Lee's Saruman are superlative.
That there were no best actor and best supporting actor Oscars for their
portrayals is a crime. Computerized Gollum also is on that level.
Strong are Miranda Otto's Éowyn, Bernard Hill's Théoden, Andy Serkis as
Smeagol (also the voice of the computerized Gollum) and - surprisingly -
David Wenham as Faramir. It's hard to do much with the Faramir that came
out of the cinematic versions, but Wenham is given space and time to develop
a three-dimensional, sympathetic charcter in the extended editions. Orlando
Bloom's Legolas and Sean Astin's Sam belong in this category too, with an
asterik to remind the viewer that the characters Jackson gave them to
develop bear no relationship whatsoever to Tolkien's characters of the same
name. John Noble's portrayal of the absolutely non-Tolkienesque, ravingly
insane Denethor is on this level too.
Somewhere on the borderline between strong and mediocre is Viggo Mortensen
as Aragorn. Mediocre, as in the past, are Billy Boyd as Pippin, Dominic
Monaghan as Merry, Hugo Weaving as Elrond, John Rhys-Davies as Gimle and
Karl Urban as Eomer.
For the 3rd film in a row, Elijah Wood as Frodo and Liv Tyler as Arwen win
our where-are-the-afternoon-soap-operas-when-we-really-need-them Oscar for
godawful, lousy acting. Groucho Marx would have been as credible a Frodo,
and one can easily picture Margaret Dumont as having been able to create a
better Arwen.
Tuesday is the official day for the release of the Platinum Extended Edition
of Part 3 of Peter Jackson's LotR, "The Return of the King," in North
America. However, it already was released on Friday here in continental
Europe and in Great Britain. For those who'd like some advanced details,
read on.
First of all, Amazon US (www.amazon.com) and Amazon Canada (www.amazon.ca)
are offering the extended edition at very reduced prices for Christmas.
Amazon US is selling it for US$23.99, compared to a list price of $39.99.
Amazon Canada is selling it for CDN$34.99, which Amazon says is 40% off list
price.
The cover ad says that the extended version has 48 minutes more film than
the cinema version. That checks out. The seconds are rounded in the times
below.
Cinema Version DVD
------------------
Total running time: 3:13
Film running time: 3:04
Title music at end: 0:09
Platinum Extended Version DVD
-----------------------------
Total running time: 4:12
Film running time: 3:51
Title music at end: 0:21
So, the advertised 48 extra minutes do not include the extra 12 minutes of
titles and title music at the end. You really get another 48 minutes of
movie. You also get four CDs instead of two, but I have no comments on the
extras. I never look at them (One exception: the "Bowling for Columbine"
DVD), and therefore, there's nothing I can say about them.
So, what's in those 48 minutes?
The following scenes were extended:
Finding of the Ring with Smeagol & Deagol, the way to Isengard, the return to Edoras, the palantir, Minas Tirith, Gandalf and Pippin in Minas Tirith, Théoden's decision on going to Minas Tirith, the fall of Osgiliath, Rohan's war camp, Aragorn chooses the Paths of the Dead, the besieging of Gondor, the crypt of the stewards, Denethor's immolation, battle on the Fields of Pelennor, victory at Minas Tirith, Pippin finds Merry (new version), the tower of Cirith Ungol, the last war council, the Land of Shadow, Mount Doom.
The following scenes are new:
The voice of Saruman (see below), Éowyn's dream, the fall of Gondor, the
trail past the fallen king, Sam's warning of Gollum, Denethor's rage at
Faramir over letting the Ring go, Pippin's joining the guard, the Corsars
from Umbar, Merry encourages Éowyn, Gandalf and the Witch King of Angmar
(see below), Aragorn and the palantir (see below), the Houses of Healing,
Faramir and Éowyn, Frodo and Sam forced to march with the orcs, Mouth of
Sauron (see below).
The main additions are the Voice of Saruman, the new material on the Paths
of the Dead, Aragorn and the palantir and the Mouth of Sauron. Gandalf and
the Witch King of Angmar should be a main addition too, but it is another of
many things with which Peter Jackson had no idea what to do, so instead of
being a strong scene, it fizzles out and creates a glaring inconsistency in
the process.
If Jackson had understood Prof. Tolkien's books and had been true to his
professed commitment to remain faithful to them, the Scouring of the Shire
could and would not have been eliminated. This ending after the ending has
everything to do with what Prof. Tolkien's tale really is all about.
Without endorsing its omission, one must say that Jackson's method of
dispatching Saruman without the Scourging of the Shire is well executed.
The scene atop Isengard's tower is at the root faithful to the book, until
the end, when Tolkien's death scene from the Shire is shifted to Isengard.
King Théoden's attempts to talk Wormtongue into descending the tower and
returning to the ranks of Rohan is not from the books, but it lends a
Tolkienesque quality to the altered series of events at Orthanc. Saruman
humiliates Wormtongue atop the tower, and Wormtongue stabs Saruman in the
back with a dagger, slaying him. An arrow from Legolas ends Wormtongue's
life, as Saruman's corpse falls from the tower onto a waterwheel.
The scene is well run. When the body hits the waterwheel, it sets it slowly
into motion, like a wheel of fate slowly sinking the fallen wizard's body
into the waters of oblivion, as the palantir Pippin finds falls out of
Saruman's sleeve and into the water. None of this happened in the book, of
course, but if one is going to deviate from the book, this is a credible and
convincing alternative. Much better than the cinematic alternative, which
was simply to ignore the fact that there was a Saruman.
Best done is the Mouth of Sauron. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent! I'll
add no more. This has to be seen to be appreciated. For those who saw the
cinema version of RotK, this well may be the highest point of all in the
extended version.
Also superlative is the greatly extended journey down the Paths of the Dead,
suspenseful, scary and exciting, with a great climax as Aragorn, Legolas and
Gimle flee from the tunnel, Aragorn despairing, thinking he has failed, as
villages burn below him. Only then does the King of the Dead emerge to
swear to serve Aragorn. Not from Tolkien, but well done.
Less satisfying and more puzzling is Aragorn's encounter with the palantir.
In the book, Aragorn used the palantir atop the High Seat and held his own
against the Dark Lord. In the extended version, Aragorn is just somewhere
or the other using the palantir. It ends with him looking like he was an
abject failure about to suffer a nervous breakdown, while Arwen's jewel
falls to the floor and shatters. Say what?
Strange indeed, because in RotK, one sees clearly that Jackson wants to
picture Aragorn as the dominant figure of stength, confidence and
leadership, while Gandalf becomes ever more uncertain and somewhat
desperate. At several points, Jackson's Gandalf wants to believe that Frodo
is dead, and it takes the stronger Aragorn to elevate his spirits again.
The abjectly weak Aragorn we see with the palantir simply doesn't fit into
that concept or into any other concept that one finds in the film.
But the weakening Gandalf we see in Jackson's RotK is also the reason that
Mithrandir's encounter with the Witch King of Angmar fizzles into
nothingness. The Witch King destroys Gandalf's staff and appears to be
about to destroy a desperate and hopeless Gandalf when, instead, the Nazgul
lord flies off to attend to the horns of Rohan. This important scene, which
was missing in the cinematic version, adds nothing in the extended version,
simply because it fizzles. Never mind that the staff of Gandalf, which the
Witch King conclusively destroyed in this scene, is back in Gandalf's hands
not too many frames later, and it remains there until the end of the film.
Overall, the extended version is much like its two predecessors. It rescues
the viewer from the constant chop-chop-chop-but-let-nothing-develop pace of
the cinema versions. The extended edition still ignores large and important
parts of Tolkien's tale to spend incredible amounts of time running loud,
loud, loud battle scenes, many of which run so long that despite their
attempts to sustain with spectacle, they end up being boring. And in the
extended versions, the battle scenes, which already were too long in the
cinema version, were extended too.
Technically, Jackson's resources apparently were running out. For all his
technical marvels, Jackson could do nothing more in the long Mordor scene
than to show us still pictures in the background of Mt. Doom. The flames
never move. The smoke never moves. Ho-hum. That kind of technical marvel
you already can find in black-and-white in the Marx Brothers films from the
1930s. One saw this already in the cinema version, but the extended
material makes it come out even more.
All in all, if you want Prof. Tolkien's story, you'll still have to settle
for reading the books. Jackson didn't understand it and therefore couldn't
recreate it. Instead, he gives one an exciting action movie that, with the
extended versions, runs for just under 10 hours. In the extended versions -
if you can put Tolkien's tale aside and take the film on its own qualities,
which I've had considerable difficulty doing - you get one helluva action
film that runs a surface story based on the surface of Tolkien's tale.
The cinema versions are too choppy and too dedicated to not letting anything develop for me to have been able to watch more than once, but the extended editions I can digest, although I still regret at points that Jackson chose to tell his own story rather than Tolkien's better tale. The extended versions let Jackson's tale breathe and develop. Despite its remoteness from Tolkien, Jackson's Ring is the best fantasy film you're likely to see for some time. For those who can take it in that spirit, the extended editions are a good investment. I intend to keep mine, although I gave away the cinema versions of all three films.
The acting quality in RotK is about the same as in the two previous films.
Sir Ian McKellen's Gandalf and Christopher Lee's Saruman are superlative.
That there were no best actor and best supporting actor Oscars for their
portrayals is a crime. Computerized Gollum also is on that level.
Strong are Miranda Otto's Éowyn, Bernard Hill's Théoden, Andy Serkis as
Smeagol (also the voice of the computerized Gollum) and - surprisingly -
David Wenham as Faramir. It's hard to do much with the Faramir that came
out of the cinematic versions, but Wenham is given space and time to develop
a three-dimensional, sympathetic charcter in the extended editions. Orlando
Bloom's Legolas and Sean Astin's Sam belong in this category too, with an
asterik to remind the viewer that the characters Jackson gave them to
develop bear no relationship whatsoever to Tolkien's characters of the same
name. John Noble's portrayal of the absolutely non-Tolkienesque, ravingly
insane Denethor is on this level too.
Somewhere on the borderline between strong and mediocre is Viggo Mortensen
as Aragorn. Mediocre, as in the past, are Billy Boyd as Pippin, Dominic
Monaghan as Merry, Hugo Weaving as Elrond, John Rhys-Davies as Gimle and
Karl Urban as Eomer.
For the 3rd film in a row, Elijah Wood as Frodo and Liv Tyler as Arwen win
our where-are-the-afternoon-soap-operas-when-we-really-need-them Oscar for
godawful, lousy acting. Groucho Marx would have been as credible a Frodo,
and one can easily picture Margaret Dumont as having been able to create a
better Arwen.
Ankh-Morpork Guard
First Post
Mark Oliva said:
Um...the "Official Day" is the 14th as far as I know...
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