In a parallel universe, people are watching LotR movies one at a time, and not the entire extended trilogy in one go. Pathetic.
my mother in law does this! Drives me insane! "I just wanted to watch the two towers". That's IT? You didn't feel the drive to immediately start RotK?
First I watch the scenes with hobbits but not Frodo. Then I watch the scenes with Frodo but no other hobbits. Then I watch the scenes with Frodo and Bilbo but not Gandalf. Then I watch the scenes with dwarves and without Boromir. Then I seek psychiatric help.
To be fair, that's a little like how the books are structured once the Fellowship breaks up. Book 3 is entirely following the Three Hunters, Merry, & Pippin. Then book 4 gives us Frodo & Sam. Book 5 returns to what Aragorn, Gandalf et al. are doing in Rohan & Gondor. The book 6 starts with Frodo & Sam in Mordor and their rescue from it. Then returns for the hobbits' return trip to the Shire and the Scouring, and the denouement.
Are you getting fanfic mixed in there? There are only 3 LOTR books. An argument could even be made that they're all one book since that's how it was written, and it was the publisher that split it into 3.
LotR is generally published in three named volumes, but each volume is broken up into two "books" (in this context, meaning a major division of a literary work, not a set of bound pages). FotR, Book II starts with the chapter "Many Meetings" (when Frodo wakes up in Rivendell).
There are only 3 LOTR books
No, there are 6. To quote the "note on the text" at the beginning of my 1-volume edition:
The Lord of the Rings is often erroneously called a trilogy, when it is in fact a single novel, consisting of six books plus appendices, sometimes published in three volumes.
Each of the common three volumes consists of two books, which should be clearly delineated as such in any copy.
I once watched the extended cut in a cinema, all in one sitting. If I remember correctly, we started at 9 in the morning and went home after 10 in the evening. It was really cool. There weren't many people attending. We got Chinese takeout in between and ate it during the second one, the cinema didn't care about people bringing in food. Some people a few rows away looked at us annoyed. Might've been the smell, but I think they were just jealous that we had real food.
It was definitely the smell. Broke their immersion, as Chinese food is not lore friendly. Right?
Next time bring some baked goods and people can pretend they're smelling Lembas bread.
Nah, if anything, we get to Eowyn's soup and that just became a 4d experience.
It actually works great as a mini series if you watch it like a TV show over a week or weekend.
Also, if you can find the Hobbit fan edit called 'M4', that's actually worth adding into the marathon.
Also, if you can find the Hobbit fan edit called ‘M4’, that’s actually worth adding into the marathon.
Is it better than the Tolkein edit? That's the one I am used to.
Yeah, they really went all out on the M4, loads of thought and time went into it.
Much better than the other one, I felt they only made a Tolkein effort.
Sorry, that one I'm not familiar with. Probably similar goals, although I think M4 is supposed to be one of the most ambitious. It certainly radically changed the tone and pacing. I didn't even bother finishing the original trilogy when it came out I found them so disappointing and generally boring.
Out of interest does M4 cut it down to only the content from the book, or does it keep the White Council & Dol Guldur storyline?
The only way I'll ever watch the theatrical release again is if it's re-released in HFR 3D. Watching them in that form was amazing, even though the movies themselves were not good.
I wasn't super keen. HFR is a real double edged sword. It makes everything look more realistic, but unfortunately what you're looking at is Martin Freeman in rubber feet.
Shame you can't watch at home though. 3D HFR may be dead on TVs, but VR headsets have been around a while now. If I can watch 60fps 3D 180° porn livestreamed from Eastern Europe, I'm pretty sure a multi-billion dollar corporation could figure it out as well to let me watch a movie.
And none of it helps me look past the fact that the movies were gash.
The tech is there for sure, just not in any format major studios are interested in. The market is too small. Hell, we don't even get Blu-ray releases for a lot of stuff anymore.
I mean, we're talking about an industry that hardcodes black bars in streaming movies. They don't give a shit about the tech.
The Tolkien edit removes the White Council & Dol Guldur storyline, right? Or am I thinking of something else?
To be honest it's not that extra storyline that ruins it for me, it's the awful cgi, pacing, and those assholes in Laketown.
Yeah I agree completely. I actually view the removal of the White Council storyline as a negative. Adapting The Hobbit as a book on its own was never on the table, and giving us more detail about what was going on concurrently with it was a great idea. The execution wasn't great, although in my opinion this part of it is actually executed quite well.
Legolas running up the collapsed bridge...
Like, I get it, Jackson was trying to play up that elves are literally superhuman, walking on top of snow and such, which didn't really make it into the movies, but Legolas wasn't that kind of elf and it's a bit late to introduce it, even after Negative Zone Galadriel.
not a super-fan but I do remember Legolas walking on top of the snow when they climb the mountain before being forced into the mines in the first movie
Yeah along with a bunch of other stuff. It's cut down to like 4.5 hours of complete runtime.
Yeah that's a shame. That's one bit that honestly was a good move from the original movie. The adaptation of the parts that are in the book was awful, but adding the extra context was a fantastic creative decision.
