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Post by Ryan_MYeah on Jun 23, 2021 1:16:20 GMT
So I spent a few days watching the Extended Editions on HBO Max, and oh boy. Maybe it’s The Hobbit boosting it, but I forgot how good these movies are. Seriously some of the best, most epic movies I’ve ever seen.
Ranking: The Return of the King The Fellowship of the Ring (these two can swap at ANY time) The Two Towers
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Jun 23, 2021 2:48:11 GMT
Just realized that we're coming up on the 20th anniversary of Fellowship this December. I love the whole trilogy, but I've seen Fellowship waaaaaay more times than the other two and think the theatrical version is pretty perfect. The Two Towers extended edition is almost on par with it - the extra scenes add so much that it's almost a completely different film from the theatrical version, which I can't even really watch anymore. ROTK is obviously the climactic finale, but I've always found it uneven in its pacing and more disjointed than the others, so it's easily my least favorite, though it's still an incredibly satisfying emotional ride. I recently discovered this YT channel, and this person is one of the best "first time" reactors I've seen. Very cute with a gentle soul, doesn't feel the need to artificially comment on every single thing - watching her react to these films for the first time is like watching them through fresh eyes and reexperiencing them anew (Also, the way she freaks out at some of the more horror-esque elements and the orcs is hilarious). Highly recommend:
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Post by stephen on Jun 23, 2021 2:57:12 GMT
A once-in-a-lifetime miracle of moviemaking that broke its filmmaker.
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Post by mhynson27 on Jun 23, 2021 3:34:09 GMT
Watched them for the first time in a LONG time last year, and yeah, they're pretty much perfect. Same ranking as you too.
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Film Socialism
Based
99.9999% of rock is crap
Posts: 2,557
Likes: 1,390
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Post by Film Socialism on Jun 23, 2021 5:22:42 GMT
not my thing
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Post by themoviesinner on Jun 23, 2021 11:02:26 GMT
Definitely fantastic films, but I just can't enjoy The Two Towers as much as the other two, because Jackson makes a few pretty bizarre changes from the book, that feel totally pointless and just rubbed me the wrong way (and I'm not talking about the elves in Helm's Deep, I actually had no problem with that). Otherwise it definitely is one of the best film trilogies ever made.
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Post by ibbi on Jun 23, 2021 17:25:52 GMT
Lotter Fotter is basically a perfect movie, and it basically was the first time out. I think the additions they made to the EE are a mixed bag. I love the added Blanchett stuff, but I hate the altered opening transition from past to present. The rest of it is fine. The other changes don't make a massive difference as far as I can recall (I don't bother with the theatrical versions anymore).
Two Towers to me was a YUGE disappointment upon initial release, but I was pretty blown away by how the Extended Edition for me literally fixed every single problem I had with it, and in its longer form it closely rivals the first film.
To me Return of the King's problems were not like Two Towers problems, and couldn't just be fixed by adding more scenes, and some of the stuff they add is fucking laughably bad, but I guess I still probably prefer the Extended version overall.
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wonky
Full Member
Posts: 596
Likes: 713
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Post by wonky on Jun 23, 2021 18:36:34 GMT
I guess it's probably one of my hotter movie takes that I prefer the theatricals. I think all three are a thrill from beginning to end. I recently rewatched the Two Towers and Return of the King EE's and they're just all over the place. A couple worthwhile scenes in Towers, mainly the Faramir stuff, but it just never bothered me that much? They're great as novelties for sure and I suppose marathoning them they work a bit like a TV miniseries, but as contained experiences I always go to those original cuts, I think they're fantastic.
But maybe it's just because they're the movies I fell in love with. There are all kinds of scoring and editing choices that I just have never gotten used to. "Concerning Hobbits" in the theatrical when the score swells over that beautiful shot of Hobbiton and in the EE at that point in the music they're like...turning a corner. Or the opening of ROTK which maintains this wonderfully subdued "calm before the storm" feeling that just builds and builds, which the EE undercuts with all the bombast of that Saruman scene. Idk.
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Post by JangoB on May 18, 2022 21:07:00 GMT
I badly wanted to rewatch these movies for quite a while but I simply refused to do it in the extended versions because they weren't Jackson's preferred cuts or anything but instead, as I understood it, served as more of a gift for the fans who wanted more. I was always a fan but never that much of a fan so that I'd jump at the opportunity to watch all of these movies prolonged by a half-hour or so. But I could never find the theatrical cuts in the places I usually look for these things for ( ) so I gave up on my established principle and finally rewatched the trilogy in 3 daily installments. To say that it's a staggering achievement is to underestimate just how much of an accomplishment all of this truly is. I'd go so far as to describe these movies as a miracle of filmmaking. The sweeping grandeur of them, the heartfelt emotion, the attention paid to even the smallest moments, the magnificence of the production...basically what I'm trying to say is 'Holy Shit'. I think that after these rewatches my favorite of them is probably "The Two Towers" which it never was before. Aside from it simply seeming like the most exciting experience of this rewatch experiment, I think if I tried to put my finger on the reason why I loved it so much would be that it's not just a bridge-type movie that binds the other two together - it's also a movie that takes the things that make the first and the third one so distinct (the fairytale camping adventure feel of the former and the big battle-heavy epicness of the latter) and blends them in one big, great and damn tasty cocktail. You've got your magical quests with different worlds and characters, you've got your royal seriousness with the Rohan stuff, you've got your exciting action which culminates with one of the greatest battle sequences of all time...and you've also got your deep dive into Gollum who's of course one of the most fascinating creations of the fantasy genre. You've got it all, dammit! And it's all so beautifully exciting. The scene when Gandalf arrives at the battle at Helm's Deep is my favorite moment of the whole trilogy - it is so overwhelmingly powerful and beautiful and just plain thrilling that I caught myself involuntarily shaking my head in disbelief of the greatness before me. But "The Return of the King" would be a close runner-up and maybe it'll even overtake "TTT" in my heart fairly soon because I can't stop thinking about it either. The scope - both visual and emotional - is so tremendous that it makes the movie completely irresistible. "The Fellowship of the Ring" is also a masterpiece but this rewatch established it as a definite third place for me. Although there was a time when it was my favorite But it doesn't really matter much because it's still astonishing and because the whole trilogy is a total masterwork. As for the extended versions...I just don't know why the hell was I so stubbornly against watching them. I didn't even know these movies by heart or anything to tell all the tiny differences! OK, I could tell a few in "Fellowship" simply because I happened to remember that one the best but I never noticed anything about the other two which just means that the added stuff worked extremely well. There's nothing I'd remove. It just makes the experience fuller, I suppose. All I know is that all these extended cuts just flew by and never felt unnecessarily bloated or dull. So yay for them, I guess
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Post by JangoB on May 18, 2022 21:08:58 GMT
Just realized that we're coming up on the 20th anniversary of Fellowship this December. I love the whole trilogy, but I've seen Fellowship waaaaaay more times than the other two and think the theatrical version is pretty perfect. The Two Towers extended edition is almost on par with it - the extra scenes add so much that it's almost a completely different film from the theatrical version, which I can't even really watch anymore. ROTK is obviously the climactic finale, but I've always found it uneven in its pacing and more disjointed than the others, so it's easily my least favorite, though it's still an incredibly satisfying emotional ride. I recently discovered this YT channel, and this person is one of the best "first time" reactors I've seen. Very cute with a gentle soul, doesn't feel the need to artificially comment on every single thing - watching her react to these films for the first time is like watching them through fresh eyes and reexperiencing them anew (Also, the way she freaks out at some of the more horror-esque elements and the orcs is hilarious). Highly recommend: Lol, I don't watch reaction videos but the video of this sweet lady watching "ROTK" just randomly popped up on my YT yesterday after I revisited the film myself and I couldn't help but want to experience and share a few moments once again but with someone else so I skimmed through it. It was fun!
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Post by stabcaesar on May 19, 2022 2:02:38 GMT
The trilogy is quite good. All three are about equal. That said its rabid fans are really off-putting. I would probably like the trilogy more if I didn't know annoying people with LOTR tattoos on them.
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Post by JangoB on May 19, 2022 20:04:14 GMT
A hypothetical question to all you good folks - do you think "The Return of the King" would've won Cinematography and Sound Editing had it been nominated for those? Thus making it the most awarded movie in Oscar history?
Just been thinking about it and although I'm not a 100% sure about Cinematography (make it about 85%), I think the Sound Editing win would've definitely been included in its tech (and overall) sweep. Seems to me that it would've been an easy automatic pick for most of the AMPAS members. Not that the work itself isn't deserving - it is. Which means that the movie narrowly missed the all-time win record. Kinda interesting to ponder. I think it's pretty telling that the Academy members went to the next big technical nominee for those two categories that "TROTK" missed.
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Apr 23, 2024 7:13:03 GMT
Just rewatched Return of the King after not having seen it in a while (meant to rewatch it in December for its 20th anniversary but didn't get around to it), and I still stand by what I posted earlier in the thread. I love it, but it’s still comfortably my least favorite of the trilogy. My main issue with the movie is the pacing, which just doesn’t flow as well as it did in the previous films, and the multiple storylines are woven together kind of awkwardly and episodically. By necessity, it spends a lot of time shifting focus, but there’s no real logic involved in juggling the story strands, with some sequences clumsily inserted out of what feels like an obligation to not let too much time pass without spending time with certain characters rather than concern for what makes the most dramatic sense. There’s no rhyming of moments or meaningful overlaps, so the editing is generally more functional than it is artful.
Also, the CGI is weirdly much worse here than in the previous films (the Pelennor Fields battle especially). Overall, it’s still spectacular maximalist filmmaking and among the best BP winners of the last few decades... it’s just more of an 8.5/10 than a 10/10, which Fellowship and Two Towers are...
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Apr 25, 2024 4:56:17 GMT
To me Return of the King's problems were not like Two Towers problems, and couldn't just be fixed by adding more scenes, and some of the stuff they add is fucking laughably bad, but I guess I still probably prefer the Extended version overall. What problems do you have with the theatrical cut of ROTK? Just curious if they're similar to mine.
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Post by ibbi on Apr 25, 2024 15:23:38 GMT
To me Return of the King's problems were not like Two Towers problems, and couldn't just be fixed by adding more scenes, and some of the stuff they add is fucking laughably bad, but I guess I still probably prefer the Extended version overall. What problems do you have with the theatrical cut of ROTK? Just curious if they're similar to mine. To be honest, I've not watched it in so long I can barely even remember in any detail. Off the top of my head, I have bad memories of the CGI, think some of the cast are not actor enough to nail the melodrama of the finale, and think it flits between subplots poorly in a way that kills its pace. It has scenes in it that are just cheesy and awful, and some of the stuff it leaves out is criminal, but then they put them back in and you see why they left them out (Saruman's finale above all). What are your issues with it?
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Apr 25, 2024 17:12:55 GMT
did a marathon of the extended editions last December and it was a mixed bag. Great movies but soooo exhausting. And in that heightened state of tiredness the flaws of the extended versions really make themselves known, especially Two Towers and Return of the King. I wish there was a way to pick and choose the added scenes lol because some are really important and help build out the world and story, but others are useless bloat (90% of Merry & Pippin's scenes in Fangorn, Eowyn's bowl of soup, the Indiana Jones-ification of the dead army scenes, Gimli and Legolas' drinking game, etc)...but this is coming from someone who grew up with the extended edition so I've had lots of time to marinate with the flaws while still loving to escape into this world every couple years or so. Because these movies are truly one of a kind and the amount of love and effort that went into them is evident in every frame. The visuals are jaw-dropping, and still 20+ years later it's a visual masterpiece and VFX landmark. Yeah some of the CGI looks wonky now but it's not like action-piece animations look any less wonky or video-gamey now, but where the CGI matters most is when it operates supportively in conjunction with the hand-crafted sets & miniatures -- rendering Middle Earth, Minas Morgul, Minas Tirith, Moria, Mount Doom, Isingard, etc -- and that's where it's aged like fine wine. Also, all these years later the Balrog is still terrifying and looks incredible. That's an accomplishment. But then you have Shore's beautiful music, and all the props and extensive makeup work, and extras, and long battle scenes, and the movies just feel EPIC in a way that only gets captured cinematically once every couple decades at best, especially to LotR's level of popularity and success. Narratively the simplicity of the plot and its themes work towards its benefit, because PJ coalesced and perfected a universal hero's journey structure with characters you care about and root for who are in constant peril throughout. This is why the movies (and books) are so popular. Beyond the incredible world-building and one-of-a-kind highfantsy filmmaking made with real care and effort, there's a story with universal ideas of hope vs. despair, light vs. dark, and fighting for those you love that everyone can understand and relate to. It's not a perfect trilogy and it definitely has some flaws (especially the extended editions) but I love them with all my heart and always will. also just love how obviously gay Frodo & Sam are for each other. Don't care what anyone says, the gaydar is off the charts.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Apr 25, 2024 17:31:52 GMT
I recently discovered this YT channel, and this person is one of the best "first time" reactors I've seen. Very cute with a gentle soul, doesn't feel the need to artificially comment on every single thing - watching her react to these films for the first time is like watching them through fresh eyes and reexperiencing them anew (Also, the way she freaks out at some of the more horror-esque elements and the orcs is hilarious). Highly recommend: I just discovered her a few months ago! I think her reaction to The Departed with her sister popped up in my recommendeds and I was curious (their reaction to the ending was priceless lol). Yeah her LoTR videos were like watching them again for the first time all over again and I loved when she rewatched them with her sister too. She's got a really nice & positive energy, must be the Canadian influence. btw her Fargo reaction is great too. Adorable how excited she gets about the accents
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Apr 25, 2024 20:02:26 GMT
What problems do you have with the theatrical cut of ROTK? Just curious if they're similar to mine. To be honest, I've not watched it in so long I can barely even remember in any detail. Off the top of my head, I have bad memories of the CGI, think some of the cast are not actor enough to nail the melodrama of the finale, and think it flits between subplots poorly in a way that kills its pace. It has scenes in it that are just cheesy and awful, and some of the stuff it leaves out is criminal, but then they put them back in and you see why they left them out (Saruman's finale above all). What are your issues with it? Mostly what you said about the pacing and editing, which I talk about a few posts above along with the CGI being noticeably worse than it is in the previous films. It’s funny, those things never used to bother me when I was younger, and they only started to stand out after rewatching it a couple times over the last few years. But I only ever watch the theatrical cut because the Saruman scene is so bad to me that I’d rather his fate just be left unresolved.
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Apr 26, 2024 5:47:51 GMT
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