Michael.Hoffman
Agent
- Joined
- Aug 2, 2002
- Messages
- 33
I think I'll do the same as I did last year. Rent the theatrical and buy the EE. If I really feel like it I may end up buying the theatrical, but truth be told the EE will probably suffice.
This will be probably the only series of movies that I would do this for.Hey! Quit picking on Star Wars!
These are goofs that were in the theatrical version and didn't detract from the overall quality of the film at all in my opinion. They are movie goofs, they happen. I feel the same about the costumes/make-up in this EE scene (the differences are subtle as well). The story was improved, and that is what is most important. Can you honestly say that Boromir's character didn't benefit from his kind words to Frodo in the trees in this scene, or were you too distracted by Gimli's hair style to notice?Enjoying the improvements to the story doesn't keep me from being annoyed by flaws that should have been corrected the first time around.
Yes, Sean, I believe everyone knows that "after sunset, it gets dark". However, the transition from a brightly lit afternoon to night time was too brusque, something that could have been easily fixed with a two-second shot of the Fellowship walking deeper into the woods as the sun sets.I've always felt that FOTR had a lot of time-compression problems making it hard to tell how much time has passed. This falls right in with the rest of them, I guess. I few fades or something would have helped the movie with time-compression issues.
But, I remember them walking into Lothlorien in the theatrical cut, then walking up the path to meet with Galadriel and it's suddenly dark, with the city suddenly brilliantly glowing ...
Big fan here, fantasy/sci-fi reader, I am a sucker for good fantasy. I will own both again. Despite never watching the theatrical cut again. I might though!!!!
They arrive at the border at sunsetNo, they don't. It's afternoon, maybe even late afternoon, but it's still several hours till sunset. Thus the continuity problem. The scene does make a very jarring transition from day to night. And if they were going to insert a completely different scene there, they should have held Gimili's reaction a hair longer on "The Dwarf breathes so loud." It's too clipped to come at the end of a scene. I think if they had gone back to the raw footage and held his reaction maybe half a second to one second longer, the jump to the night scene wouldn't have seemed quite as abrupt. It's a bad cut, in my opinion.
So even aside from the costume continuity errors (the night scene was done on the fifth day of shooting), I think the theatrical version of the arrival in Lothlorien is far superior.
In this case I believe the EE to be what Peter Jackson really wanted the movie to be.I tend to disagree with this statement. I think Jackson understood from the beginning that the growing DVD market gave him the opportunity to make two very different versions of the same movie for two very different mediums, which is exactly what we have here (and all the justification you need to purchase both versions!).
I can definitely understand why some people prefer the EE - it's got some great character moments that add more depth to the overall story, and it does really bring the movie closer to the books. But those extra moments come at the expense of damaging the overall narrative flow of the movie. Fact is, while I really do like the extra Shire stuff, it serves as a secondary prologue at the time when the story really needs to get going, and get going from the perspective of Frodo, not Bilbo.
Fortunately, I think home viewers (or at least the hard core fans) are more willing to accept a "looser", more episodic version of these movies, which is why the EE does work so well. Sure, you can argue that the theatrical is far from nimble at almost 3 hours, but to me, it works much better from a standalone, cinematic perspective.
With that said, I fully expect to prefer the EE of Towers over the theatrical because I don't think Towers, as the middle chapter, works as well as a standalone film or is anywhere near the cinematic masterpiece of the theatrical Fellowship, so we might as well get more Gollum/Sam/Frodo interaction. But seeing as how PJ & Co. felt compelled to play around with Boromir's death scene, I just hope they resist the temptation to make further crimes against perfection in the Towers EE.
But those extra moments come at the expense of damaging the overall narrative flow of the movie.Exactly!!!