I don't know about all this best movie of all time talk, but I think it's definitely the best movie of the year. There was a lot more to cover in this movie than the others, so parts of it felt a little rushed, but I just don't think anyone could have done a better job than Peter Jackson did. After all, it's one of the most, if not the most ambitious movie ever made. I hope the extended edition is five hours. It probably needs to be.
DVD should probably end up being 4 hours, 25 minutes, or around there: http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Movies/12/15/film.rings.jackson.ap/index.html AP: "Return of the King" is about 3 hours, 20 minutes long. Yet you cut a lot ... JACKSON: We cut about an hour and 5 minutes. The books are so filled with detail and character, but we came to realize that even what we shot would be too long for what these theatrical cuts could sustain.
Just a few more hours. Watched the extended editions of the first two last night. There's so much I can't wait to see!
Is that trick question? Of course its worth it! Without giving much away, it goes into a little more detail about Faramir and his relationship with his dad.
You should have never bought the theatrical version in the first place. The extended versions just have more dialouge. Not really action scenes. So that way the film doesnt seem so rushed. And even whole parts of the books that are left out due to time constraints.
I would say, absolutely. If there is a Hastings or similar store near you, you can get $10 for your theatrical version and pay $30 for the extended version. Eases the sting a bit.
The extended edition of The Two Towers is definitely worth it. Has a lot of explanations and some cool scenes that were only cut because of time. The extended edition of FOTR is not quite as good IMHO, but it is definitely worth one viewing to see if you like. I liked it enough to buy it, but I could see how some might think the pacing was too slow.
I really didn't know they would have the extended version when I bought mine. I guess I will have to fork over a few bucks. Can't wait to see Return of the King. I suppose there is no use trying to get tickets at the door?
When I saw the extended version of the first one, I pretty much thought all the stuff that was cut from the theatrical version deserved to be cut. I wouldn't feel too bad about missing out. I saw the midnight show of Return of the King last night. Man, I'm tired now. Went to sleep at 4 am. Good movie though. Did some very impressive stuff for the battle at Minas Tirith.
Nomar...I am confused here. Your previous post stated that you had yet to see the film, yet you are saying that you already know that Last Samurai is better...and, moreover, that you will boo if it gets awarded the Oscar over Last Samurai. In that Oscars are ( theoretically) a relative evaluation, how can you say that TLS is better than a film you've never even seen? Even if TLS is the best film you have ever seen, by far, that in and of itself doesn't preclude ROTK being better, let alone explain your already decided decision on the Oscars. Doesn't it strike you as a bit of a prejudice, literally?
The funniest part of the film was near the end, when they put all rest to the curiosity about "sampling" from Return of the Jedi...I laughed right then and there... Of course, I caught the 12:00 showing at deerbrook mall,...Definitely the best of the three... I was surprised that Spiderman 2 was previewed as a showing for next year...I thought it would have been perhaps 2005...I am looking forward to that (my favorite of the recent superhero movies...), but I have a sixth sense it won't capture the allure of the original...
Relax MacB. If ROTK ended up as better than TLS, I would obviously change my mind. And of course I am predjudiced against it because it is the third part of a movie which I have already seen the first two parts of. Does that not make logical sense? ROXRAN - What do you mean about sampling from ROTJ? Anyway, I thought this movie was very mediocre. The battle scenes were very uninspired in my opinion. The only rousing moment was during the charge of the Rohirrim. Likewise Theoden's speech was the only rousing epic speech in the movie. Jackson really likes to shake the hell out of his camera and make it a hectic mess during battle, I suppose to give the perspective of being in the battle. However, for long battle sequences I think it would be more effective to show that POV camera as well as a sort of outsider looking on type shot where we can actually see what is going on instead of little snippets of fury. They cut out one of my favorite lines, the Lieutenant of Barad-Dur line about "It takes more than a piece of elvish glass and rabble such as these to make a king" at the Black Gate. But they made up for it by including the "From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken: The crownless again shall be king." line. Not surprisingly, Jackson was at his best around the Shelob area, where the movie took a "horror movie esque" feel. I felt as though he really did that part well. He is still lost with most other things though. The pacing was unique in that it felt rushed and also dragged along. The ending was really slow, but I guess if you watched all three back to back it would feel approriate. Oh yeah, and he totally cheapened the movie by making the dead into something else than the book. I could definitely not watch this movie a second time in theaters. I wanted to bolt after Pelennor.
I can't for the life of me understand why folks think this is the best movie of all time. By itself and without reading the books, major parts of it don't make sense or feel incomplete. I liked it and the combat stuff was very cool but still... For instance, what happened to Grima and Sarumon, how did they know that Sauron thought Merry/Pippen had the ring, Faramir's fate, Eowyn's next choice, why do people have to get in boats and leave, if Gandalf is such a powerful entity, why does he not use magic much? IIRC, the three books don't stand alone either unless one reads all of the appendices.
* boos at Nomar Wow, that was by far the best movie of the three. It was also the first one where I thought that the movie was better than the book. The battle scenes were incredible, especially the mangonels tossing HUGE boulders. Great movie - I can't wait to see it in the theater again. The ending did drag on a bit, but they had a lot of stories to finish up. Great job PJ - you really did a bangup job of turning the first great fantasy trilogy into the first great fantasy movie trilogy.
Wow. That was great, better than I thought it would be. Watching the first two movies over the past couple of nights was a good thing, Nomar....the movies do tie together very well. Now give me the Extended Version. I want to see Sauruman get his throat slashed.
Saw the movie with my girlfriend today, she was way into it. I thought it was great as well, usually the last of the trilogy is the worst but in this case I thought it was the best. I was a little disaffected by the endless number of little ending sequences. It didn't really explain why Frodo left on the boat (I didn't read the book). I would have been perfectly happy had the movie ended with "my friends you bow to no one." Interesting parallel with the last samurai, which should have ended with the translator guy walking over the hills.