Lord of the Rings Revisited (1 Viewer)

[JohnEF]

During the Christmas break we had our second annual Lord of the rings extended edition marathon at our house. I have a front projector system (Infocus 5700) with a 110" diagonal screen and a 7.1 surround sound system.

We began our viewing (my son, my nephew, his girlfriend, my 90 year old aunt and of course myself-others including my wife came and went)in a comfortable and very dark setting.

The viewing started at 10 am and ended 1 am the next morning with lunch and dinner breaks between films.

I again found the experience moving-a tale of heroism and comradeship-satisfying from the beginning to the end.

I am now rereading the original Tolkein books again for about the 5th time. J.R.R. Tolkein and Peter Jackson, congratulations to both of view.

John

 

[Vader]

I do the same, but at a semi-annual basis: June-July and December. Watching an 11 1/2 hour movie in one sitting is too much for me (old age, I guess? ), so we watch them over a six night period, as each of the extended editions are perfectly cut between discs (except Reurn of the King, but they had very little "wiggle-room" on that one because of it's length). I concur that it is an extremely involving and moving experience (I broke down in tears when returning from "King" and my wife asked how it was; I told her that I felt that like I had been on a three year journey with the Fellowship, and I now had to say "good-bye", I had become so emotionally involved in the story). I second the Kudos to both Tolkein and Jackson!

 

[Mark Zimmer]

Hey I do the same for New Years, starting at noon and ending at midnight (11:56 this year) so I guess we must take shorter/fewer breaks. The number of people who show up keeps increasing too. It's a lot of fun and it's amazing how well these movies hold up no matter how many times you've seen them (though I still hate Brego the Wonder Horse). Since I've perforce seen ROTK the fewest times, it still gets to me---the signal at Minas Morgul (and Howard Shore's score), Pippin's song, the faces of the heroes as Mount Doom explodes. Great, great stuff.

 

[Andrew Bunk]

I am so disappointed in myself. I had planned to do the same thing over the holidays, as I haven't watched the films since the ROTK EE came out last year. Still haven't found the time. :frowning:

 

[Dave H]

I've rewatched these recently as well. On a different note, after getting a new, well-calibrated display and good DVD player, I'm pretty disappointed in Fellowship's transfer; the filtering is quite evident to me now. Two Towers was a good improvement and King was even more so.

 

[Carlo_M]

I'm not due for my regular re-reading of LoTR for another year or two (I seem to pick it up every 4-5 years).

While I like PJ's movies, I really am not motivated to watch them by myself or with my girlfriend (she's a big novel fan too), despite the fact that we own all 3 (6, actually if you count the EEs) movies.

However in a group setting, like the Los Angeles chapter of HTF who meet semi-regularly) I think it would be really fun.

Of course I also know there's a subgroup of that group who are novel fans and we'd launch into deep discussion right afterwards.

 

[Lynda-Marie]

My brother gave me the extended versions of The Two Towers and Return of the King for Christmas.

I spent a weekend watching all three... THAT'S a test of endurance!

I love the extended versions, over the theatrical cuts, and I am at a loss as to WHY the cuts had to take place, considering the restored footage adds so much to each movie as a whole.

I am also in love with the extras - the one on Return of the King, where PJ backs New Line into a corner publicly, so that the World Premiere is in Wellington. The other in that particular extra was Andy Serkis getting into Gollum/Smeagol mode, "Wellington sucks!" "No, no Precious!" etc. and the Kiwis just eating it up.

 

[Jack _Webster]

Because each extended cut is like Lawrence of Arabia in itself. That doesn't tend to play well with modern audiences. Hell, I can only manage to watch those cuts once or twice a year (and that's in the comfort of my own home!).

 

[Chris Tedesco]

Ahh...I remember my marathon last year with this. It definately is a whole day/night event. I loved it, but I'm not sure if I could do it again. I could give it a shot though....

 

[Craig S]

I did my marathon last year as well on New Year's Eve. Picked up a mess of wings from WingStop, loaded up the changer with all 6 EE discs, and hit "Play" at 6 PM. I took brief potty breaks during each film's disc break. When each film ended, I watched all the production credits, then got up and heated more wings, refilled drinks, etc. while the fan credits were playing (listening to the music kept me in the mood).

I gotta say, I almost keeled over about halfway through TTT. But I got my second wind and made it through to the end just about 6 AM.

Quite an experience. I thought about making it an annual thing, but I'll probably end up doing it every couple of years or so.

 

[Justin Bauer]

I am actually planning on doing this sometime this week. I have a month off of work and alot of time on my hands.

I have yet to watch the ROTK EE DVDs that I bought when it came out.

 

[BrettGallman]

I haven't watched all three films together since Trilogy Tuesday; I think I had my fill of LOTR marathons that day. I have watched each film separately at least once since then though.

 

[Chris Bardon]

Ah, trilogy Tuesdays. We started this up years ago in our Student bar/lounge in Waterloo. Had to start getting creative with making up trilogies though to avoid repeating the same ones over and over again. Missed many, many classes watching movies in POETS...

An extended LOTR trilogy would probably have had to run over a couple of days though-I don't know if I'd be able to do all three in one sitting. Congratulations to those who managed to make it-it's the film equivalent of the NYC marathon.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

I've already hosted *two* LOTR "extended cut" marathons. So rewarding. And the image quality of the (even not-perfect) DVDs is BETTER in my mind to the (bad) 35mm prints I saw in several theaters.

I'd love for my NEXT marathon to be with the Blu-ray version. Hopefully LIVE will announce that SOON.

-dave

 

[Mark Zimmer]

Yeah, I was appalled by the CAPS codes that they imprinted on prints of the movies; I remember Galadriel's face having big sets of spots printed in to try to deter bootleggers (why, when this was after it was already out on DVD, I'll never know). I pretty much stopped going to movies because of that.

 

[Seppo]

I've had my first projector (Sanyo PLV-Z3) installed for three weeks now. One of these weekends we're going to have a 2-part LOTR marathon. We'll probably watch The Fellowship Of The Ring and The Two Towers during one day and Return Of The King on the second day.

PS: A Star Wars saga marathon would be nice as well.

 

[JasonB]

I am saving the viewing of these masterpieces on DVD until my home theater is completed. Watching them on a 26" widescreen tube with stereo sound would be a huge disservice to the films.

50" plasma can't arrive soon enough!

 

[Lou Sytsma]

Great to read all these posts and the fact that the power of the story compels so many to revisit the films. I've done several viewings myself but only one trilogy gulp. The movies work great on a one disc per night basis. Its like a miniseries marathon!

On another note the soundtracks have never left my listening rotation and I am really enjoying the recently released full score of FOTR.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Regarding the cut issue, isn't it true that most of that stuff on the EE's didn't even exist until later when New Line gave PJ more money to go off and film more footage specifically for those dvd's?

I've been hankering with the idea of watching all three back-to-back for some time, if only I could find the time. :frowning:

 

[Ric Easton]

Geez, the closest I have come is watching them on 3 consecutive nights!