The Lord Of The Rings General Discussion Thread

[BloodBoal 7,538]

9 minutes ago, JohnSolo said:

He's kind of like the Jar Jar Binks of Middle Earth.

 

[Bilbo 3,709]

5 minutes ago, BloodBoal said:

 

He wishes he was as likeable as Jar Jar. 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Hey I liked Radagast! The Doctor did a great job.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

Another senile comment by a member clearly getting way too old to still be posting on an online forum...

[John 2,032]

Stefancos stands not alone! I happen to like Radagast as well!

[BloodBoal 7,538]

Another juvenile comment by a member clearly way too young to be posting on an online forum...

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[mstrox 6,651]

Radagast was not one of my many problems with The Hobbit movies.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Radagast is redeemed, Alvar!

 

Embrace the madness of the Trump age!

[Nick1Ø66 4,711]

The only good thing about Radagast in those movies was the design of his house, which I'm convinced was a Del Toro leftover.

[John 2,032]

2 hours ago, BloodBoal said:

Another senile comment by a member clearly getting way too old to still be posting on an online forum...

 

 

I always wondered how old Stefancos was in real life...

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Alfrid is the Jar Jar of the Middle-Earth film series, obviously.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Tauriel isn't comic relief though.  A Jar Jar has to be cringe-inducing comic relief.  I see Radagast, but I loathed how Alfrid was used in BOTFA so much.  Awful.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I can take the Radagast silliness the most because Sylvester McCoy is such an entertaining actor.  Tauriel and Alfrid not so much.....

[Faleel 5,346]

26 minutes ago, BloodBoal said:

Tauriel was cringe-inducing all right! And her lines were rather comical!

So was Haydakin.

[Barnald 365]

Tauriel was shit

[Disco Stu 15,495]

At least we got a great love theme out of the mess.

[Faleel 5,346]

Tauriel and Kili ruined that for Barnald.

[Kühni 485]

.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

The links to the PDFs are bad.

[Kühni 485]

.

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

Eowyn should have gotten together with Merry instead of Faramir. 

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Merry should've gotten together with Pippin, tho

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

Just now, Disco Stu said:

Merry should've gotten together with Pippin, tho

No!  They're brothers! 

[mstrox 6,651]

Pippin should have ended up with The Mouth of Sauron

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Just now, mstrox said:

Pippin should have ended up with The Mouth of Sauron

 

Only if he has his teeth removed!

[mstrox 6,651]

They were removed, along with the rest of his head!

[Incanus 5,714]

12 hours ago, mstrox said:

They were removed, along with the rest of his head!

Aragorn's precise surgical procedure went awry and he ended up taking off the whole head instead of just the teeth. The lesson here is to never attempt these things with an Andúril-sized scalpel.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Aragorn got a bit over-excited

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

[Faleel 5,346]

https://www.slashgear.com/the-lord-of-the-rings-gollum-first-screenshots-revealed-04619182/

[Quintus 5,399]

Off topic but in regards to the TTT film, we're going to be watching it one evening this week, but I'm leaning towards the theatrical cut. It has been so long since I saw the extended version that I can't really remember anything particularly enjoyable or essential in the scenes added to the middle part of the trilogy. My main reason for sticking to the theatrical cut is because I recall there's some stuff inserted which I don't like, such as Eowyn's funeral banshee chant. But what really good or extended highlights am I perhaps forgetting?

[Jim Ware 526]

I find the pacing much better than the theatrical, although the finale drags a little. The Faramir/Boromir/Denethor flashback is a highlight.

 

[Quintus 5,399]

Yes that is the one really strong and near integral added sequence that I'm hesitant to give up. The thing is, I'm rewatching the trilogy with people who haven't seen it before, including children. So I'm having to weigh up the pros and cons of each version and whether the significantly increased runtime is worth it if we go with the EE. But other than that one extra part you mentioned, I can't really recall anything else about that cut which is especially worthwhile (read: essential) to the experience. 

 

In the case of the Fellowship of the Ring, I was torn so much between both versions there that I ended up taking the time to make my own preferred cut, something I'd long meant to do and which lockdown finally provided the opportunity. FOTR has so many wonderful additions in its EE version, but there was also a long sequence added which has bothered me greatly for meany years, so I removed it and I'm very happy with the outcome. 

[Kühni 485]

6 hours ago, Quintus said:

but there was also a long sequence added which has bothered me greatly for meany years, so I removed it and I'm very happy with the outcome. 

 

Which one, if I may ask?

[Quintus 5,399]

I get that most fans love it, but I cannot stand the reworked beginning Concerning Hobbits, and the way it greatly alters the original's utterly wonderful ebb and flow of the story as we arrive at Hobbiton and Bag End with Gandalf. It is no doubt trivial to most, but to me the change near breaks the experience and even its own filmic logic by ruining Bilbo's big surprise (to new audiences), and then prior to that we have what is to me the biggest offender of the added material: a panicked Bilbo rummaging for the ring on his person - intrusively spoiling Shore's original and best intro underscore for those first magical Shire scenes, and worse still, waylaying what was originally some beautiful uninterrupted interplay between Frodo and Gandalf. 

 

To me, these very early original moments in FotR are integral to my love of the film and my first memories of seeing it. So being able to finally restore at least those vital parts into the then terrific EE content which follows, has at last made me my ideal version of the first film.

 

I basically use the theatrical cut all the way up to Gandalf's hurtling up to the top of Orthanc, which is where I make the discreet switch to the EE as the screen briefly turns black; the following scene being Farmer Maggot's crop. 

 

If it has been a while for all you EE "purists", you should give the old original cut another look, just to see how stunningly perfect the introduction was, that first time in theatres.

[Chen G. 3,949]

I remember the theatrical cut very well.

 

I prefer the extended.

[Quintus 5,399]

I face the same dilemma with the uncomfortably prolonged Return of the King EE. But the significantly tighter and much more accessible theatrical version is never an option there, due to its jettisoning of Saruman's demise. To this day the one major misjudgement and bad call from PJ on this trilogy. 

[mrbellamy 6,278]

I still think cutting Saruman from the theatrical was justified. In context as a 206 minute new release and something that audiences would be watching in packed theaters as its own experience, the film had to get to Minas Tirith asap. Also that scene is extremely wordy and intense to show up in the first 15 minutes, cutting it gives the theatrical's opening a more consistently quiet foreboding overall. It's nice to have in the EE but I completely get why it came out.

 

Obviously it's a stronger resolution to his character to have that last confrontation and to have him murdered by Wormtongue and impaled on his own machinery, but I always felt it was effective in its own right that the last we see of him is pathetically retreating into his tower as Isengard is destroyed and I think it was enough for most people to have Gandalf simply saying he has no power anymore. You can believe it after his losses at Helm's Deep and Isengard and it sort of gives Sauron and the Ring a little more power in the final leg of the narrative that Saruman has instantly been rendered a non-entity. Again I think it's good in the EE because things like pacing and other conventional cinematic concerns aren't as relevant (honestly the EEs barely work as self-contained movies for me) but I think it was an appropriate call for the theatrical.

 

I agree about Concerning Hobbits, though. Especially as a musical sequence, the theatrical edit is just ridiculously superior. 

[Chen G. 3,949]

I understand why it was cut for time, but as a piece of storytelling having it there for TV is infinitely better. It not only gets rid of the central villain of the previous film-and-a-half, but it also resets the stage in a very organic way because Saruman is adressing the insecurities of each character in his attempts to appeal to them and/or undermine them.

 

I don't see an issue with Concerning Hobbits, although now as part of a six-film series it could stand to be reshaped: we don't need a long introduction to Hobbits after three films with one of them.

[mrbellamy 6,278]

It covers up some loose ends but as I said the sequence is also very bombastic and interrupts the muted tone of the theatrical's opening which I've always loved and still is one of my favorite things about the movie. I know most people probably don't care.

 

For me if I ever get the urge to watch any of the movies individually, I always go theatrical, no question. I think they're more artful cinema. The few times I've marathoned the trilogy, I go EE because it's more fun to pack everything in if I'm gonna do it all.

 

1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

I don't see an issue with Concerning Hobbits, although now as part of a six-film series it could stand to be reshaped: we don't need a long introduction to Hobbits after three films with one of them.

 

I don't need a long introduction to Hobbits, anyway.

[Wojo 2,453]

I don't watch the movies enough to care. The EE is the only version of 1 and 2 that I even own. 

[Chen G. 3,949]

Other than the live-to-projection I attended, I don't go back to the theatrical cuts. They're great and its good they're there, but the extended cuts for me are vastly superior. To my mind, the theatrical cut is much more a fantasy action movie: so much of the actual drama got pushed into the extended cut.

[Quintus 5,399]

The theatricals are the optimal "director's vision" versions. Hence why they were placed in theatres in that form. The EEs are simply more exhaustive, in as far as they help flesh out the less import aspects of the characters and story. Jackson is a culprit for over indulging in this regard, but he got away with it in Lord of the Rings, because it's erm, Lord of the Rings.

[Chen G. 3,949]

The EE is a TV-movie version. It’s paced for the small screen.

[mrbellamy 6,278]

That’s fair, the EEs altogether do remind me of the flavor of a big cinematic mini-series a la Angels in America or Mildred Pierce. It has a greater effect as a whole and I have a harder time separating them as individual films, like how those have good episodes but it’s really about the full thing.

 

Whereas with the theatricals it’s the reverse, I really can’t help but see those as three different movies and while they obviously play well back-to-back, the EE makes for a more overwhelming and singular experience as a marathon.

[Chen G. 3,949]

Yeah, that’s another thing the EE has going for it. It happens to no small extent because they were working on each EE while they were refining the cut of the next film, so they made Fellowship’s EE with an eye on Two Towers, and that EE with Return of the King in mind, and so they feed into one another beautifully.

[Disco Stu 15,495]