okay given that i have covid can nobody be mad at me for the next week? if anyone upset at me for any reason could wait 7-10 days to air those grievances, i would really appreciate it. thanks for understanding
waiting for the review how you'd rather have long covid than long LOTR
(I like em! but gotta joke about how they're long like the original xbox is large)
They vary, and all of the cut footage makes sense as to why it was cut, but the reason is almost always runtime and not quality of scene. IMO 3 remains weakest in both cuts, so I’ve also seen the first two more than all three.
I like the consistency from our responses and @starshine.bsky.social that RotK extended is either messy or the weakest. By RotK extended you’ve heard so much from the characters, and a lot of the extra stuff doesn’t benefit (like Gimli doesn’t get better material in extended TT or RotK)
It’s also worth noting for people born of a certain time, this was a technical phenomenon. You absorbed details via cultural osmosis that add to the rewatch:
-did you know she auditioned under a fake name?
-this is where he broke a toe!
-this is a meta nod to a scene repurposed from the books!
etc
I think they are best served over multiple days as a communal watch. Back-to-back is an endurance match without value imo.
If you haven’t seen them at all, I think I’d personally be distracted by that sort of commentary on first watch but appreciated it on rewatches, almost ala movie-as-ritual.
I can't unsee the theatrical before having watched them so it's hard to say on their own merits? I don't think they feel like the extra scenes drag them down (the edits in ROTK I bug on are still the same), and I like seeing more character and plot details
it's tolkein, the books are phone book thick, so everything is a time cut, but yeah I am very good with the extended and they are the keeper version for me, just depends on how much of that stuff you're up for, and it's like other director's cuts and such, it's very rare they're the first viewing
Yes. First and last have the best added material, though not all added material is the best. But imo they're the superior versions overall, especially Fellowship. You can easily watch in six segments without shotgunning each movie whole.
thats actually not true you legally have to watch back to back to back or else be officially branded a wimp you get a special ID card in the mail and everything
so fellowship extended is a perfect film, the latter two suffer from pacing issues and rotk extended is a mess but the extended scenes are amazing in all three and worth a watch just for those
This is entirely a subjective thing. I know *I* prefer the extended cuts, but I love all the little lore bits that are snuck in with those uncut scenes.
But you have to have a tolerance for *very* long viewing time. My parents? Lost interest an eighth of the way through the first movie...
imo the theatrical cut of Fellowship was far superior and the best of all 6 films/editions, the pacing was just INCREDIBLE like i don't think another blockbuster has ever done it better
towers i felt either version was good, maybe a slight edge to extended
king i prefer extended overall
theatrical king did have one or two things i liked better, but this is the only one where the extended has stuff that felt *missing* in the theatrical so for that alone i have to give it to extended
They're... Fine. The deleted scenes are generally as good as the rest, but making it 4 hours long makes the movies kind of a chore especially when we insist on watching them back to back. Jackson agrees, he cut them because it didn't hurt the movies and they were too long left in.
It's both one of if not the last major fantasy/scifi production to use a bunch of stagecraft and traditional cinematography, and maybe the biggest ever, so it's understandable wanting an extra four minutes of Hobbits at a bar to see the craft, but I feel like I need Adderall to make it through.
I have a very high tolerance for long movies as long as I'm finding them cool so I do worry about everyone's favorite zoomer hanging in through the walking simulator, but I do think there's very solid compelling stuff throughout to keep it going
The extended cuts are worth it alone for the commentary. The 4 hobbit actors watching together, mostly goofing on each other and just recalling the fun times.
I liked them.
But you have to remember that I also liked The Hobbit trilogy even though most people didn't because I just like the feeling of hanging out with Bilbo and Gandalf.
Same reason I enjoyed the Matrix 4, I'll always show up to watch Keanu stomp around as Neo.
yes and no. theres some scenes where it makes sense why they cut it
but theres other more essential scenes where i have no idea why they cut it, to the extent that it makes those parts of the theatrical cut not really make sense
but if you havent seen the theatrical cuts i’d start with those
