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Corporate siblings Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema dominated the box office during late-2001 with "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer´s Stone" and "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring". "HP 2" and "LOTR 2" are about to continue their predecessors´ battle in the winter of 2002, and I´m sure that AOL Time Warner must be itching to see if the sequels can out-gross at least "Star Wars: Episode 2", if not "Spider-Man". In the meantime, while filmgoers wait for the December release of "LOTR 2", New Line has devoted its resources towards creating a 4-disc Special Extended Edition Platinum Series set to complement the August 2-disc release.
As so many know by now, the 2-disc set offered the theatrical cut of "LOTR 1" as well as extras used to promote the film´s release. The new 4-disc set features a longer version of the film, but it should not be viewed as a "director´s cut". Rather, the extended version simply offers more scenes from the book that were shot but were not shown in theatres. The music score has been re-worked, too, as have the sound design and visual effects. The 4-disc set also includes supplemental materials not seen with the 2-disc set (vice versa applies, so those of you who want the trailers will have to buy both sets).
--The Film--
Fans of J.R.R. Tolkien must´ve breathed a collective sigh of relief when Peter Jackson´s "LOTR 1" thundered across movie screens world-wide. Previous stabs at adapting Tolkien´s novels yielded piddling results. Jackson directed "Heavenly Creatures", a psychological drama that included scenes from two young girls´ make-believe dream world, and his obvious familiarity with the fantasy genre translated into a respectful, lavish, gorgeously-mounted production that breathed fresh cinematic life into Middle-Earth.
In the movie, Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) inherits a gold ring from Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm), a distant relative and a most unusual Hobbit who once went on a grand adventure. The young hero discovers that his ring is the One Ring that belonged to the Dark Lord Sauron, and Frodo must travel deep into the heart of Mordor in order to destroy the ring in the fires of Mount Doom. Otherwise, a resurrected Sauron will re-claim his ring, bind the other subservient rings to his will, and cast a pall over the lands of Middle-Earth.
Frodo collects a band of companions to aid him in his quest: Gandalf (Ian McKellen), a powerful wizard; Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), the heir to the throne of Gondor; Boromir (Sean Bean), a warrior from Gondor; Gimli the dwarf (John Rys-Davies); Legolas the elf (Orlando Bloom, who won an MTV Movie Award in the category of Breakthrough Male Performance); Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin); Peregrin "Pippin" Took (Billy Boyd); and Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck (Dominic Monaghan). Together, these 9 adventurers form the Fellowship of the Ring, pledging to destroy the One Ring at all costs. The Fellowship must brave the perils introduced by the Nazgul (Sauron´s 9 Ringwraiths), various Orcs, cave trolls, goblins, and Saruman (Christopher Lee). Once Gandalf´s mentor and friend, Saruman has now allied himself with Sauron upon learning that the Dark Lord is regaining his powers.
The movie´s easy-going first hour quickly turns into a powerful, exciting, violent, and heart-rending 2-hour journey of derring-do and death. Make no mistake--"LOTR 1" isn´t just a coming-of-age fable. Rather, it is a mature adventure epic that involves a real sense of dread and loss on the part of the heroes. Sauron doesn´t just want to rule the world; he wants to enslave it. Also, 9 heroes, no matter how brave they may be, simply can not expect to fend off hordes of monsters without suffering their own losses.
Despite being populated with numerous faces, the film boasts memorable appearances by actors who aren´t overwhelmed by the production or simply lost in the crowd. McKellen received an Oscar nomination for playing Gandalf with equal parts sly humor and sagacity. Bean, so good as Alec Trevelyan in "Goldeneye", convincingly inhabits the skin of the uncertain Boromir. Tolkien´s elves are the "beautiful creatures" of his mythical world, and everyone who plays an elf in the movie--including Cate Blanchett as the Elf Queen--looks ethereally seductive. (Personal observation--while the actors chosen to play elves are certainly "beautiful", they also look a little cruel as well.)
While the massive battle scenes were created largely within the realm of computers, "LOTR 1" compares favorably to grounded-in-reality epics such as "Spartacus" and "Braveheart". The production design looks stupendous--New Zealand´s otherworldly beauty probably approximates the lush vistas of Tolkien´s Middle-Earth more than any other place on Earth. Prior to the film´s release, word that Arwen´s role had been greatly expanded from her presence in the novel elicited some concerns from fans, but Liv Tyler (in her best performance) does a great job of portraying a powerful elf princess. Also, it was refreshing to see a movie that took the word "epic" seriously. Sure, we´ve had "big" movies recently such as "Titanic" and "Gladiator", but "LOTR 1" is simply so massive that it dwarfs most movies in terms of sheer production size.
--The Extended Edition--
Substantively speaking, the added footage (about 30 minutes´ worth) does not really change the movie. It´s not as if entire sub-plots have been added, and the overall outcome of the film does not change. However, the added footage improves the movie´s esthetics immeasurably. In my review of the 2-disc set, I wrote that I felt that the 3-hour version seemed a bit rushed in its efforts to tell as much of Tolkien´s story as possible. Since the theatrical cut never paused to draw breath, the audience was plunged into a whirlwind of plot and action without any chance of gaining some bearings. I rated the theatrical version an "8". I´m rating the extended version a "9" because it is more expansive, grander, and more heartfelt. Moments like watching Bilbo Baggins writing his memoirs, listening to Aragorn singing in his adopted language, and chuckling at Gimli´s infatuation with the Elf Queen imbue the viewing experiencing with much warmth and humor.
The filmmakers put a lot of effort into the Extended Edition of "LOTR 1". Rather than just throwing chunks of footage into the mix, they actually re-edited the entire film at a microscopic level. New shots have been inserted in a variety of places, so the changes feel more organic than the additions seen in longer versions of other movies. A project with the kind of visual grandeur on display in this movie demands a lengthy running time, and I will be watching the Extended Edition of "LOTR 1" now that I have it in my hands. (The DVDs´ menus and the booklet tell viewers where new footage has been added so that you can jump directly to the new shots and scenes.)
If I like the extended version so much, why am I not giving it a "10" for Entertainment Value? Well, I´m waiting for the super-duper version, where every installment is 6-hours long for a total of 18 hours. I´m sure that Peter Jackson has enough footage somewhere, right? Also, as it stands, "LOTR 1" is not a complete story in and of itself. Before you flood me with e-mails about how the movie is only the first part of a trilogy, let me say that I agree with you and that I will happily rate the entire trilogy a "10" if "The Two Towers" and "The Return of the King" are as good as "The Fellowship of the Ring". This project feels like the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. :-)
Video:
Although the movie is split across Discs 1 and 2 of the new set, I feared that the addition of a DTS track and 4 audio commentaries would consume so much valuable space as to degrade the video quality. Thankfully, the 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen image actually looks better than the 2.35:1 image of the 2-disc release. The smooth image exhibits little grain, and I didn´t see any to the source print. Despite the fact that many scenes are set at night or in darkly-lit areas, the compression doesn´t falter. Images appear to have real depth, and you can see many visual details that you probably didn´t notice when you saw the film in theatres. Not once did the compression falter, and not once did I see halos, pixelations, or digital blockings.
To those of you looking for a Pan&Scan version of the Extended Edition, I say, "Good luck, buddy". If you really care about movies, you will always abide by the filmmakers´ artistic integrity. The Extended Edition is for movie-lovers, not the uninformed or misguided.
Audio:
I had the same fears about the audio quality of the 4-disc set as I did with the video quality, but again, the new release betters the old one. A DTS 6.1 ES English track joins the Dolby Digital 5.1 EX English track, and the mixes feature very smooth imaging across the channels. Directionality effects have been improved for the 4-disc release, and low end response has been tightened. In fact, my subwoofer sounded the mightiest that it has ever acted during the Moria sequence. The Extended Edition will be one of your favorite audio demos.
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