ebonlock | Musings on a DVD set

Guess who got her copy of TTT the extended edition yesterday?

First, I didn't get several sequences I was hoping for. I wanted a little more tacked onto the beginning of the whole rabbit stew scene, second, no sequence with Faramir that actually showed the angle that was used on so much pre-release publicity, and third there's an amazing image that was in all the commercials of Frodo gazing skyward at the winged wraith over Osgiliath. None for me.

But, a more troubling thing was the fact that the huge, gaping, obvious editing errors in the theatrical version were not fixed in this one. Gah!

Ok, enough bitching, here's the good stuff:

1) I was right, all the most charming and heartwarming scenes and about 90% of the character development did end up on the list of "For the extended DVD". It makes me feel a bit cheated that we didn't get it in the theatrical version, but at least it's here.

2) Gandalf actually acted/sounded like Gandalf in the added scenes. Go figure.

3) Why, why, why didn't they open the trek to Mordor stuff with the "Elven Rope" scene? I think it's my favorite scene from the entire film...though I was puzzled by the dropped box bit. I know what I expected it to be, and it wasn't.

4) Many (but not all) plot holes filled!

5) More Saruman plotting and not just being "Exposition Guy"!

6) Two really nice Merry and Pip scenes, including my second favorite in the movie, "Flotsam and Jetsom". Pip's skyward look for invisible apple trees harkening back to FOTR damn near broke me. Though it made me sad that the Hobbits were given so little to do in the theatrical version so we could make time for more Arwen looking pensive and sexy and Aragorn taking a header off a cliff. Grr.

7) More direct dialogue from the novels!

8) I kinda dug Faramir's nattering on about the dead Easterling, though I had to MST it slightly when they cut back to Frodo. "Dear god, I've been kidnapped by a philosophy major!"

9)

tersa's head is going to explode when she sees the new Boromir stuff. The Faramir line about showing his quality actually has a context now, and nice foreshadowing with Denethor. Faramir's character makes a good bit more sense now, thankfully.

10) Finale of Helm's Deep finally explains what happened to all the thousands of Orcs that were retreating when Gandalf showed up all glowy. Sure they were spooked, but couldn't they just turn around, organize, and attack again? In this version, thankfully, no. Though why not one of them paused to ask, "Say, I don't think I remember that forest being there when we marched through, do you?" Legolas' expression at the seriously pissed off trees was priceless. Almost makes up for that dumbass animated horse mounting scene earlier.

11) Nice Frodo and Gollum moment when they first enter the Dead Marshes. The line, "Once it takes hold of us it never lets go." makes me shiver. Andy Serkis was so robbed at the Oscars.

12) More Eowyn! She's still my hero even if she can't cook. And the scene where Aragorn tells her how old he really is was fabulous.

That's all I can think of at the moment, only having watched new and extended scenes, of course. Can't wait to view it with the commentaries, which I hope will be as enlightening as the first DVD set's. It's probably a good thing I have class tonight or I'd be tempted to stay up way too late watching the extras as well.

Is it time for ROTK yet?