The Lord Of The Rings - The Motion Picture Trilogy (Widescreen Edition)

Rating:
Summary: I'll Read the Book, You Can Keep Your Movies, Jackson!
Review: I saw "The Fellowship of the Ring" six times in the theatre within two months of its release in 12/01. I had a lot of the scenes and dialogue memorized. Then I re-read the book and was tremendously disappointed in the changes to so many little details and dialogue. I haven't seen that movie since. In 2003 I saw "The Two Towers" and was more than disappointed, I was outraged at the story and character breaks from my beloved book! No matter what PJ argues, there was and is no good reason for ALL those changes...period! I see absolutely no reason to view "The Return of the King". The last is the first movie that I can claim, "I DON'T NEED TO SEE THE MOVIE, I READ THE BOOK." This will never be "The Lord of the Rings" to me, and because I'll stop watching these alleged adaptations, I will no longer be confused as to whether or not something I remember happening in the story is in the book, the movie, or both. I keep re-reading the book so I know it happened in the book and I don't care what happened in the movies...unless it's to smile at how confused other people will be trying to remember the real story that's in the book.

Rating:
Summary: What a horrible release!
Review: Lord of the Rings has been the most boring, unorthodox, and pathetic excuse for the film-making industry since Titanic and the Terminator movies. From the moment I saw fellowship of the ring I hated fantasy b.s. there's no point to just sitting down and watching a bunch of made up creatures that go nowhere with their scripts. Later on I decided to give The Two Towers a chance and again it failed miserably to hold my attention so therefore I didn't bother on going out and checking out The Return of The King because I knew it was going to be the same thing just a load of ill-made fantasy without the proper support of a good soundtrack (what the hell was that untalented band Blind Guardian doing on the extended version) all in all these movies are so cheesy and overrated I wouldn't even watch them if they came out on TRL

Rating:
Summary: Great films, but still inferior to the extended editions
Review: By the fact you're looking at this package of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, it's a safe bet that you don't own it. So I'm here to tell you - don't waste your money. At least don't waste it on this version (and certainly not the full-screen version -- Peter Jackson paints in the corners!).

And I know what you're thinking - isn't this the motion picture trilogy just about everyone has been raving about? Didn't Return of the King win every one of the 11 Academy Awards it was nominated for, including Best Picture? Right on both points, and make no mistake, these movies earned every ounce of praise and every single award they received and then some. However, these are the theatrical versions of the trilogy films, and they are greatly inferior to the extended edition trilogy package, also available on Amazon.

Between the three movies, Peter Jackson and company added back in more than two hours worth of film that was lost in the theatrical releases. And it wasn't just film jammed back in that didn't really need to be there; every scene was carefully reviewed and screened, just as if Jackson was making the films all over again but without the time restrictions. Then they had their color re-calibrated, effects made a re-sequenced, and the entire film's music re-scored. Unlike the special editions of the Star Wars trilogy or E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, the special extended editions of The Lord of the Rings are truly the special editions, the ones to get.

I mean, did you ever wonder what happened to Saruman? In the theatrical version, the Ents take over Isengard, but we never see what happened to the White Wizard. In the extended edition, you do. Want to know why Faromir and Eowyn looked so cozy at Aragorn's coronation? That's explained, too. And a lot more. Much, much more than Amazon will allow me to type into one of these reviews.

Yet with all the added video, the extended editions simply don't "feel" longer. Actually, because they pace better and flow more smoothly, the longer films feel shorter. And they have the added advantage of each film spanning across two discs instead of just one, so there's twice the opportunities for natural intermissions during marathon sessions (or they spread out easier for a mini-series type showing, with a new chapter each night for six nights).

Also, there's the extras. For example, four commentary tracks per film. And two discs per movie outlining how the films were made in excruciating detail, as well as other aspects such as biographical material on J.R.R. Tolkein himself. Unlike the rehashed material on the second discs of this set (here it's all stuff that aired on TV to promote the film), the material on the extended editions is all produced especially for the extended DVD releases.

So again, don't waste your money on this DVD set. Get the extended trilogy set instead.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful, wonderful movie... that misses the point.
Review: At the time I posted this review, 119 other people had already had their say, and I took the trouble to read all of them. There seems little point in repeating their common themes, and I will keep this as brief as I can.

This is an exceptional set of motion pictures, and you should see them. If you have read the books you will grieve over the omissions -- other reviewers have pointed them out -- and regret that certain `unnecessary' elements have been added -- which have also been abundantly reported. Only very thin books can be filmed in their entirety, and "The Lord of the Rings" was not a thin book. Generally speaking, Jackson did what he had to do, and if his decisions weren't to everyone's liking, they were reasonable -- and they worked.

A few reviewers were bored. It seemed to me that most of them were (very) young. This is not to denigrate their opinions, but I think they will like the movie much better ten years from now.

Only one reviewer out of the 119 got close to the films' most serious problem. The movies are about good guys and bad guys, and the actors who played these roles did them proud. Well done, all! BUT, Tolkien's book is not about good guys and bad guys. It is about good and evil.

When the fellowship triumphs, it does not do so because of Aragorn's courage or Gandolf's wisdom or Frodo's endurance. It triumphs because of foolishness: Bilbo and Frodo pity Gollum, the ring is entrusted to a hobbit, elves and dwarves decide to trust each other, Faramir allows Frodo to take the ring into Mordor (one of those missing scenes), and so on and so on. But Jackson does not show us good as a force.

Jackson has magnificient bad guys, but they don't project evil. In "The Fellowship" one of the Black Riders stands on a path searching for the hobbits, while they cower just beneath him. They are frightened, certainly, but there is nothing of the black fear in the book that incapacitates armies when the Riders appear! If the hobbits can escape that close encounter, we already know that the bad guys are too stupid to beat the good guys, a far cry from Tolkien's major premise: the bad guys are stronger than the good guys, and they outnumber them.

Jackson could not or choose not to employ the numinous, that uncanny something that made the Black Riders so irresistible and the Dark Lord so terrible that to see him was to go mad, the numinous that made Aragorn a healer, while allowing him to challenge Sauron, the numinous that only Sam seems to possess in the movie, poor Sam, who steals every scene in which he appears.

So do see all three movies, do! And do read the book, to find out what it was all about.