The US debut was Dec 17, 2003, and I meant to post on that date but like Butterbur one thing drove out another and I forgot.
I will re-watch the extended addition sometime soon. Though I’m not happy with some things (army of the Dead) I’m very glad it garnered 11 Oscars (arguably awarded for the trilogy as a whole).
Brian
It was excellent. Hard to believe it was already 20 years ago.
Denethor eating could have got an Oscar.
Oh, man, that scene creeped me out.
What? No way. That movie came out when I was already an adult. Things that happened when I was an adult can’t have been 20 years ago!
Tell me about, I passed my 30th anniversary last year.
The scrubbing bubble army of the dead was not great.
As a major fan of the books, the confrontation at the gate between Gandalf & The Witch King pissed me off. Gandalf the White was not getting beat by that undead upstart.
Theoden’s death scene was really well done; as was the lead up with Éowyn & Merry killing the Witch King.
I still miss the Scouring of the Shire.
I think Jackson did a really good job, especially with locations, music, models / CGI and costumes.
(It was always going to be hard to adapt the books and satisfy keen fans.)
Apart from watching the extended edition, I recommend that you take in the extras (interviews with cast, backroom staff and much more.)
While I loved that part of the books, I agree that it was the right decision to omit it from the movies. The movies were very long as it was; if they weren’t going to do two movies per book, they had to cut a lot, and the Scouring of the Shire was something that they could cut relatively cleanly.
Same for Tom Bombadil.
Not great, but I forgave him/the writers on the spot because I was already so tired of the battle scenes, the piling up of disaster on disaster, that I wanted it to be over.
Me too. “Wait, what?” is what I said to myself.
Yes, it is hard to believe it was 20 years ago, especially since the one-year wait from the previous film seemed so damn long.
The entire malevolence of Saruman could fill a book or three Peter Jackson films. Unfortunately the only actor I could see playing him is gone. When did he “break bad”? The Hobbit movies plausibly portray him as at least scheming. And though Gandalf arrived after Saruman, Cirdan gives him a really good Ring of Power.
There is of course a book yet I always saw ol’ Tom as the author writing himself into the books. What possible confrontation or challenge could a guy who can make The Ring dissapear and laugh about it?
Tom was not the author, the closest to Professor Tolkien’s character was actually Faramir.
Believe it or not, Tom was literally his daughter’s doll. As far as how he fit into Middle Earth, Tom was an enigma. The wise did not know his origin or purpose or if he had a purpose. He was a non-rolling stone collecting moss. He was not overly concerned with much outside his borders.
The wise did think in the end Tom couldn’t withstand Sauron.
Tom WAS Sauron!
/ insane conspiracy theory
Yep, I concur, but I miss old Tom.
Also, dumping Glorfindel’s one shot for more Arwen was a great call,
I watch the extended version about once a year.
LotR is the greatest film trilogy ever. Period.
Amazingly, few studios had the guts to attempt what New Line did. Disney paid for two Pirates of the Caribbean movies filmed back-to-back, but when Disney decided to do Episodes VII-IX, I was stunned they wouldn’t pay for all three at once, from one director, with one clear narrative written by one set of screenwriters.
Nope, they went into Episode VII with only a vision for that and left everything else up to whoever came in after Episode VII to deal with. They ended up with total inconsistency and a story that made no sense.
Disney might have feared that the new Star Wars movies wouldn’t be awesome, but it would have saved money to film all of them in one long shoot and the first one would probably make almost all that money back.
The Hobbits also filmed this way, but that would be expected after Lord of the Rings.
Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that Sauron had nothing Tom would want? It wasn’t power as much as beings totally foreign to each other. I could imagine Tom’s land being the only green spot in a Middle-earth ruled by Sauron, but he’d never strike back. It just wasn’t him.
Makes me feel old too.
I was mid-30s when it came out which didn’t feel old. And it doesn’t feel like 20 years since the movies came out (probably because I re-watch them with some regularity so it seems less time has passed).
Such great films.
That could should have been couldn’t. Damn
Indeed. The effects still hold up 20 years later, which is more than you can say about a lot of early-2000s movies.
They do and Gollum looks better than many effects today. My wife and I have always cited Gollum and Davey Jones(Pirates 2 and 3) as the peak of digital characters. I just don’t know if it has been done better yet.
I’d add “Christopher Johnson” from District 9 to that list to make a trio of perfectly-realized CGI characters.
I think it was great, but I’m still disappointed with the depiction of Denethor. In the books he was a tragic but still sympathetic figure. I don’t know why they made the decision to get rid of his sympathetic attributes and turn him into a bumbling, cowardly leader and weasel of a parent.