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ebonlockSo I waited until last night (despite getting the dvds on Wednesday) to watch the extended scenes from ROTK with Aelf.
I'd say about 1/4 of the stuff made me shrug and say, "Ok, yeah I can see why that got cut." the rest made me howl, "Peter, what the fuck were you thinking?!" I cannot believe how he shafted poor Merry in the theatrical release, seriously, his extra footage was so great. And Pip having a strange moment with Gandalf at the party at Edoras was fascinating (just what did that significant look mean?). Most of the Sam/Frodo goodness was later in the film, but oh my god the crossroads sequence was so damn good. And fer chrissakes Sam even uses the "there and back again" line, how could he cut that from the film?
Best stuff put back in:
1) Crossroads, definitely.
2) Houses of Healing, hot damn did Faramir look yummy throughout, and the song playing while Aragorn heals Eowyn is just gorgeous.
3) Extended Paths of the Dead (that sequence in the game now makes *so* much more sense to me), even if in my head I kept hearing Aragorn say, "Bitches, come!" Ooh, and the corsairs bit was lots of fun.
4) Loved the extra Denethor/Faramir and Faramir/Pip stuff (and no, don't read that as "slash", sadly there's no man on hobbit action in the film, promise), it makes Faramir's sacrifice that much more poignant.
5) Gandalf's description of Minas Tirith's decay and the spreading of Sauron's shadow over the land.
6) A brief shot that pans over to the white tree and shows a single blossom to foreshadow Aragorn's return.
7) More Eowyn kicking ass!
8) The Witch King facing down Gandalf and "breaking him", when he shattered his staff Aelf and I both squeaked with surprise.
9) The Mouth of Sauron, I can't wait to find out how they did that, creepiest thing I've seen in a good long while.
10) Lots o' extra Sam/Frodo including being mistaken for orcs and forced to march with the army (yeah, kept hearing "Where There's a Whip, There's a Way" in my head the entire time), and Frodo's clever means of getting them out of the situation. And oh, Frodo collapsing under the weight of the orc armor and the Ring, I squeaked again at this point.
Now the one scene I was really disappointed in was Saruman's end. The worst staging ever, I mean he goes out on the roof to talk to people? Dude that's like 300 feet up, everyone should've been screaming to hear one another. And Theoden King kept forgetting to look up, rather looked straight ahead and I kept wondering if Saruman had installed a jumbo-tron down at the base of Orthanc for situations like these. And the poor guy gets stabbed, tossed off the roof, impaled on a spike and drowned, methinks Mr. Jackson's been reading up on Rasputin's death. Rather an undignified end, I think Pete's one big mistake in the series was not including the Scouring of the Shire and Saruman as Sharky, but if that's the only criticism I can come up with I suppose that's not too bad.
All in all, very worth owning the extended edition as the film now feels much more complete. I hope to get to at least some of the special features this weekend, but if not the week after Xmas will work quite nicely.
I also set up a quick Geocities page so I could throw some pics up for a new mood icon set I'd wanted to make for a while. My Dio set is awfully cute, don't you think? Am considering a Frodo set as well if I can find the time to do it.
I'd say about 1/4 of the stuff made me shrug and say, "Ok, yeah I can see why that got cut." the rest made me howl, "Peter, what the fuck were you thinking?!" I cannot believe how he shafted poor Merry in the theatrical release, seriously, his extra footage was so great. And Pip having a strange moment with Gandalf at the party at Edoras was fascinating (just what did that significant look mean?). Most of the Sam/Frodo goodness was later in the film, but oh my god the crossroads sequence was so damn good. And fer chrissakes Sam even uses the "there and back again" line, how could he cut that from the film?
Best stuff put back in:
1) Crossroads, definitely.
2) Houses of Healing, hot damn did Faramir look yummy throughout, and the song playing while Aragorn heals Eowyn is just gorgeous.
3) Extended Paths of the Dead (that sequence in the game now makes *so* much more sense to me), even if in my head I kept hearing Aragorn say, "Bitches, come!" Ooh, and the corsairs bit was lots of fun.
4) Loved the extra Denethor/Faramir and Faramir/Pip stuff (and no, don't read that as "slash", sadly there's no man on hobbit action in the film, promise), it makes Faramir's sacrifice that much more poignant.
5) Gandalf's description of Minas Tirith's decay and the spreading of Sauron's shadow over the land.
6) A brief shot that pans over to the white tree and shows a single blossom to foreshadow Aragorn's return.
7) More Eowyn kicking ass!
8) The Witch King facing down Gandalf and "breaking him", when he shattered his staff Aelf and I both squeaked with surprise.
9) The Mouth of Sauron, I can't wait to find out how they did that, creepiest thing I've seen in a good long while.
10) Lots o' extra Sam/Frodo including being mistaken for orcs and forced to march with the army (yeah, kept hearing "Where There's a Whip, There's a Way" in my head the entire time), and Frodo's clever means of getting them out of the situation. And oh, Frodo collapsing under the weight of the orc armor and the Ring, I squeaked again at this point.
Now the one scene I was really disappointed in was Saruman's end. The worst staging ever, I mean he goes out on the roof to talk to people? Dude that's like 300 feet up, everyone should've been screaming to hear one another. And Theoden King kept forgetting to look up, rather looked straight ahead and I kept wondering if Saruman had installed a jumbo-tron down at the base of Orthanc for situations like these. And the poor guy gets stabbed, tossed off the roof, impaled on a spike and drowned, methinks Mr. Jackson's been reading up on Rasputin's death. Rather an undignified end, I think Pete's one big mistake in the series was not including the Scouring of the Shire and Saruman as Sharky, but if that's the only criticism I can come up with I suppose that's not too bad.
All in all, very worth owning the extended edition as the film now feels much more complete. I hope to get to at least some of the special features this weekend, but if not the week after Xmas will work quite nicely.
I also set up a quick Geocities page so I could throw some pics up for a new mood icon set I'd wanted to make for a while. My Dio set is awfully cute, don't you think? Am considering a Frodo set as well if I can find the time to do it.
