Lotr Extended Edition

[Mickie Bottiglieri]

Thedigital copies of LOTR that my wife purchased were listed as extended edition. This is a lie. They are just the theatrical versions and do not include the extra footage, nor are there any links to the appendices that one finds in the hard copy boxed set.

For years that approach has served me well and my annual or semi-annual marathon revisits of the series were enjoyed without caveats. The idea that the over 2 hours of additional footage added to the trilogy could be anything but unquestionably good seemed ludicrous to me. And then Peter Jackson made The Hobbit trilogy, an over bloated and annoyingly paced mess of a trilogy that stretched my usual penchant for patience to its near-breaking point. Unlike the LOTR trilogy, the announcement that the Hobbit was also getting the extended edition treatment inspired eye-rolls from me instead of genuine excitement. But the Hobbit did get me reevaluating my hallowed place for the LOTR extended editions. After finally going through the original theatrical releases again, it is clear that while the extended editions are wonderful love letters to fans, they ultimately are worse cuts than the theatrical releases.

The Fellowship of the Ring is without a doubt the most straightforward movie of the trilogy plotwise. Structurally it is divided into three major acts, with each mirroring the other quite closely. The arcs look like this:

Arc A: After an extended period in the Shire, Frodo and his companions frantically try and transport the one ring of power to safe passage in Rivendell while being pursued by the Nazgul of Mordor.

Arc B: After an extended period in Rivendell, Frodo and the Fellowship frantically try and transport the one ring of power to safe passage in Lothlorien while being pursued by orcs and a Balrog.

This marvellous symmetry is obvious in the theatrical cut, as periods of calm, reflection, and exposition suddenly change gears into a frantic journey in which our heroes have to defend themselves and try to evade their pursuers. But as we shall see, this rhythm gets disrupted in the extended edition starting with:

Just before the story really kicks off Frodo and Sam are shown in their local tavern where Merry and Pippin are engaged in a lively dance on the tables. It is a brief scene that once again illustrates the carefree nature of the Shire and ends with Frodo and Sam walking home slightly inebriated.

On the surface there is nothing wrong with this little scene, but it clearly illustrates a consistent problem in the extended editions because of where this scene is inserted in the narrative. It comes right after a scene where Gandalf learns the truth about the Ring and its inherent dangers which is followed by a shot of the Nazgul of Mordor approaching the Shire. It is clear that the movie is quickly upping the tension and switching to a higher gear, but that momentum gets brought to a screeching halt by this brief scene of domestic frivolity.

Without the dancing scene in the theatrical cut, the tension of the Nazgul approaching the Shire is immediately followed by an inebriated Frodo stumbling into his home that has clearly been invaded by an unknown person with it at least being implied that the person could be a Rider and that Frodo is in immediate danger (it turns out to be Gandalf ransacking his house). It is a clean transition where the stakes are increasingly raised, resulting in the quest to destroy the Ring firmly getting underway.

After the Fellowship is formed at the Council of Elrond, several vignette scenes are included in both the theatrical and extended versions before the Fellowship finally sets off for Mordor. These sequences are as follows (with extended version scenes in parentheses):

But in the extended edition, this scene goes on for five minutes where in her slow monotone, Galadriel bestows individual gifts to all the Fellowship and there is time for them to react to their gifts. It is a beautiful scene but it also brings the movie to a screeching stop, from which it never really recovers in Arc C. It is the most egregious offender in this movie of an extended scene both negating the pace and focus of the movie in favour world-building exposition.

In many ways The Two Towers is the movie that suffered the most from pacing and focus issues even in the theatrical cut. This is in part because the Fellowship, which had been united in their journey, gets split up into three groups:

In the movie Group A mostly meanders through the lands directly outside Mordor, and most of the focus in this movie is on building the relationship between Sam and Frodo, while introducing Gollum as their slippery and increasingly treacherous guide into Mordor. While this Group is perhaps the most psychologically interesting group to follow, it is also the group with the least plot progress as the end of the movie still finds them outside of Mordor looking to get in.

But in the extended editions, the additional appearances of Treebeard and the Enchanted Forest drag an already slow-paced movie to a grinding halt. In a three-minute scene we are treated to not one but two Ent poems that are so enrapturing that they end up putting Merry and Pippin to sleep, to speak nothing about how we the audience might feel at that point. Literally nothing else happens in the scene, other than Treebeard slowly lumbering through the forest. Sure, from a fan standpoint the chance to hear some Ent poetry is nerdily exciting, but compelling filmmaking this does not make.

In the second scene with Merry and Pippin, they find themselves waking up from their Ent poetry induced slumber, drink some water that makes them grow (but not enough to be noticed in the future apparently), engage in some general tomfoolery, get attacked and swallowed by a tree, and then rescued by Treebeard. The scene takes four-minutes to get through, and literally nothing new is added to the central focus of the story. The magical water does not seem to have any lasting effect on their growth, because none of their Fellowship companions ever comment on it and when all the Hobbits are finally reunited in Return of the King they all look exactly the same height anyway. It has already been established that Merry and Pippin are lighthearted pranksters in The Fellowship so their tomfoolery is nothing new to us.

Unlike The Two Towers, which even in the theatrical version suffered from pacing, the finale to the Lords of the Rings trilogy is packed in any of its forms. Most of this has to do with the fact that the movie version of The Two Towers really only covered two thirds of the novel, leaving The Return of the King to pick up the slack.

While I have spent a lot of time criticizing the inclusion of extended scenes as superfluous and breaking the pace and focus of the film, here we have finally arrived at the one scene that I do wish actually was in the theatrical cut. This is because at the very least, the great Christopher Lee deserved better than to be summarily dismissed as a threat offscreen especially when he has been the chief threat to our heroes in the first two movies. The inclusion of this scene in the extended edition also gives the movie some symmetry as the beginning of the movie details the death of Saruman, the master of the first tower, while the end of the movie details the death of Sauron, the master of the second tower.

But it is undeniable that the scene contributes to the beginning of the movie feeling a little bit slow in the extended edition as opposed to the economical speed at which the theatrical cut gets the gang back together. Fortunately I have a simple proposal: the banquet scene in Edoras really has no function but to get the Rohan side of the gang together and could easily be shortened to make way for this scene which is perhaps the only essential addition to the extended editions.

Most of the added scenes in LOTR commit the cardinal sin of breaking up the pace of the movie by inserting scenes with heavy exposition in it. However this four and a half minute sequence commits the added sin of inserting a heavy exposition scene in the middle of two other heavy exposition scenes.

I'd like to get the The Lord of the Rings motion picture trilogy on Blu-Ray. My preference is to get both the theatrical and extended editions in one set. Is this possible? Does the extended edition discs give the option to watch the theatrical editions, as well? OR do I have to buy both editions?

I just received the extended Blu-Ray set from Amazon last week and it only contains the extended version of each film. Each film is split onto two blu-ray discs and pretty much all the special features are actually on DVD.

Set in the fictional world of Middle-earth, the films follow the hobbit Frodo Baggins as he and the Fellowship embark on a quest to destroy the One Ring to ensure the destruction of its maker, the Dark Lord Sauron. The Fellowship eventually splits up, and Frodo continues the quest with his loyal companion Sam and the treacherous Gollum. Meanwhile, Aragorn, heir in exile to the throne of Gondor, along with the elf Legolas, the dwarf Gimli, Merry, Pippin, Boromir, and the wizard Gandalf, unite to save the Free Peoples of Middle-earth from the forces of Sauron and rally them in the War of the Ring to aid Frodo by distracting Sauron's attention.

The three films were shot simultaneously in Jackson's native New Zealand from 11 October 1999 until 22 December 2000, with pick-up shots from 2001 to 2003. It was one of the biggest and most ambitious film projects ever undertaken, with a budget of $281 million (equivalent to $514 million in 2023). The first film in the series premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on 10 December 2001; the second film premiered at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City on 5 December 2002; the third film premiered at the Embassy Theatre in Wellington on 1 December 2003. An extended edition of each film was released on home video a year after its release in cinemas.

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