Re: Lord of the Rings Extended vs. Theatrical
My 1 and one half cents
Fellowship of the Ring: EE, but only by a hair. The Theatrical version was so enthralling that night I sat and watched it in a theater with my friend Dennis. I had no idea it was going to be that good. A lot of people forget that it was still a very iffy prospect when Fellowship was being made. "The guy who made Dead Alive?" "The kid from Flipper as Frodo?" "Rudy is Sam?" "Who the hell is Viggo Mortensen?" "Agent Smith is Elrond. Okay." At the time the movie was considered well-nigh unfilmable. so I went in pretty trepidatious. And was blown away. Still the best movie of the trilogy, for me. What the EE fleshes out it does well and it flows almost as effortlessly as the TE. On first viewing there was a lot I didn't realize was added back until I checked the chapter listings and was surprised at how many "content added" asterisks there were.
The Two Towers: TE. The EE fills in a lot of blank spots, but it seems to do it awkwardly. And the pacing is off in some spots, leading to a semi-disjointed viewing experience. The editing on Two Towers was always the most problematic, and I think if Jackson was given an extra two or three months, he'd have improved Two Towers considerably for the theatrical, and a lot of the problems that Return of the King had to overcome in it's first hour would have been non-existent. The EE sometimes feels like a slog--but a FUN slog, sort of like the middle half hour of Star Wars, after the droids land on Tatooine, but before they finally hit the Death Star. Except in Two Towers EE, it's about an HOUR of that slog.
Return of the King: EE, mostly because it's such a full, rich dish that I end up not caring how much food is on the plate. I've thrown in the 1st disk of the ROTK EE about 3 times now, and each time, I'm doing it intending to only watch that first disk and finish up the next night. And every time, me and my girl just automatically throw the 2nd disc in--fully expecting to stop it about halfway through and finish the next night. And it never happens. We always end up bleary eyed and sniffly at 2 in the morning. Every time. The first time I watched the EE, I actually cried MORE than during my first time watching the TE in theaters--and I was a sniveling WRECK at the end of that theatrical viewing. Yes, it's 4 hours long. But it's so utterly transporting at all times that I don't care. It's like a waking dream, almost BECAUSE of it's length. And while I still believe that the EE of Fellowship is the more riveting movie, the sheer emotion coming off of every frame in the EE of Return of the King is just more satisfying, maybe even because of the length. It revels in the buildup and that's why I think the 20 minute endings sequences are earned.
That said, my friend Mike detailed to me how to perfectly truncate that ending so that it works perfectly: Kill the movie after they toast to their health, silently, in Hobbiton. I took it one step further--you also cut the pillowfight sequence. Go from Frodo being flown over what's left of Mordor, unconscious, fade to black--and fade in at Aragorn's coronation. The inference is that Frodo and Sam DID die after "Here at the end of all things" and lends a wistful, bittersweet tone to the celebration that I think would be welcomed--and then when you SEE all 4 hobbits, you're overjoyed and elated that they DID live. And then when he says "you bow to no one?" floodgates from the tearducts.
Improves pacing AND emotional heft, and you kill probably 8-10 minutes from the film. Sure, you lose the grey havens, which is such an important part of the book, and you almost NEED to make that concession to the fans after axing the Scouring of the Shire, but in pure movie language, I think chopping the pillowfight and everything after the toast works better.
