The Two Towers Extended Edition - SPOILERS

Cafe Society
1

I know there is another thread, but it’s hijacked with a limerick and doesn’t have a spoiler warning. This thread is for complete spoilers. You have been warned!

I was up at midnight Monday, so I picked up a copy at the local Walmart. I got through about half of it before having to stop for sleep.

So far I’m enjoying the extended scenes with the exception of Theodred’s funeral. So much is missing from the book, why add this? It was fine as done in the original release. Also, Eowyn’s singing is… not good.

I’m liking the rest a lot. More Gollum is a good thing!

2

Just got done watching it. Loved it. The end is the best part. Kinda like what they did for the beginning of FOTR they did for the end of TT.

My key word for the DVD is “dynamics.” There’s a lot more character interplay and development in this one. Especially between the Treebeard, Merry and Pip. The added scene with Boromir, Faramir and Denethor adds a lot to Faramir’s purpose and reasoning for his decision to take The Ring to Osgiliath. We know this didn’t happen in the book and Faramir proved himself otherwise, but for the movie’s sake, it added his reasoning - his jealousy of Boromir and his wanting approval from his father.

Also, part of the flotsam and jetsam scene at Isengard from the book is in there, as well as a tribute to Tom Bombadil, but with Treebeard saying Tom’s lines from the old man willow scene in the book. I’ll let you find that one. There is really too much here and there to remember it all right away. Some scenes were blended so seamlessy that I wasn’t even sure if they were new or not. It wasn’t like they were all a full 5 minutes here and 10 minutes there (though some were that way), but 2 seconds here for someone to make a snide comment and 30 seconds there to add a scene that wasn’t important, but fans were looking for in the theatrical relase (the elven rope scene comes to mind) that makes it all pretty cool.

I must say that at one point I actually laughed and clapped outloud - and I was watching this alone.

This was the movie I wanted to see when I went to the theater. Much better than the theatrical release which seemed to just be trying hard to move the plot along.

Oh, and Eowyn’s singing… I was… um… floored. Very Celtic. Very unexpected. Very not good. I was expecting Fiona Ritchie from Thistle & Shamrock to fade in with a voice-over.

All in all, I thought it to be MUCH better than the original theatrical release. YMMV

3

There’s more Ent scenes!!! Whoooo Hoooooo!!! (I mean, Hrummm Hoom!!!)

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And Huorns!! it certainly made the end of the battle of Helm’s Deep alot more satisfying than the original cavalry charge and fade out. I loved the scene with Faramir and Boromir, and the nod to old man willow and Bombadil.

5

I was seriously considering taking this to the pit…

Not because of the extended DVD (which I just finished watching), but because of the theatrical release (in comparison with this).

Major spoilers a comin’…

OK, Faramir was one of my favorite characters from the novels. He got the shaft in the theatrical release. With all the cut scenes included, you get a much better sense of his “quality” ;). The entire scene of PJ’s invention (with Farimir and the ring returning to Osgiliath) seemed entirely gratuitous until the extended scenes put a context with it.

Also, as previously noted… more Ents=good. It was gratifying to see them show up at Helm’s Deep.

And another nod for the poem used by Treebeard that was originally from Tom Bombadillo. It makes me wonder if that was a retroactive nod to all the fan boys (OK, me included) that complained about that sequence being cut from the FOTR.

Oh, and the reason it may have been pit worthy is that the extended version was obviously the way the story was meant to be told by Peter Jackson. Somebody in marketing is deciding (for us) that we won’t sit through a three and a half hour movie (or maybe that interferes with the movie theaters scheduling and profits). In the meantime, we have to satisfy ourselves with the “real” home viewing, which while good, doesn’t add up to the entire theater experience.

Dave (the parentheses king)

“If you are in marketing or advertising, kill yourself. You think I’m kidding. I’m not. I’m planting seeds.”

  • Bill Hicks (RIP)
6

Hmm, well, the other thread had no OP. How could it not get hijacked? The first post is a hijack, no ?:slight_smile:

I got my TTT EE DVD just this afternoon, and I’ve only viewed just the changed/added scenes and some of the appendices so far. I’ll watch the whole thing this weekend. I haven’t watched the whole EE film or finished the extras or listened to commentaries (GOK when I’ll have time for that).

I liked the added Boromir/Faramir/Denethor scene. It was an economical way to introduce Faramir and Denethor, and the echo of the later dialog “a way for Faramir to show his quality” would have completely explained that character in the theatrical cut. A shame we missed this in the theaters.

The new scene in the sewers of Osgiliath didn’t quite work for me; Sam’s line “you’ve shown your quality” etc implied a connection between these characters that wasn’t demonstrated previously. To make this work we would have needed more footage in Faramir’s Ithilian hideout (sorry, the elvish name is eluding me, Henneth-something) with a couple of lines where Sam questions or judges Faramir somehow. The footage of Faramir questioning Gollum about Cirith Ungol was forgettable, except for the next dialog about “bygones” between Sam and Gollum, which advanced the coming Gollum treachery fairly well.

I loved the glimpses of the Huorns. It was all too brief, and lacked much supporting material. Merry’s prior allusions to “trees that move” and “the shepards of the trees” makes more sense as a way to make the Huorns fit into the footage that was cut out. The trees showing up at Helm’s Deep was very nice, and really fixed up the end of the battle.

However, the dialog during the Huorns scene - “Stay away from the trees!” shouts some passing rider – was bizarre: how do they all know what these things are? It would have made more sense for Gandalf to say that line or something similar: “These trees are peaceful. Except to Orcs. Keep back, my friends.”

The mention of Aragorn’s age and Saruman thinking about the ring of Barahir was way cool, but it didn’t seem to add much to the film beyond some foreshadowing that doesn’t get realized (yet).

I liked the “Merry & Pippen find pipe weed” extra. Sweet! totally!

Interesting documentary stuff, especially a) the discussion about Arwen really being originally scripted to fight at Helm’s Deep (!) and b) The Gollum work.

I’m sure there are several other cool additions, but I’ve run out of time to watch. I’ll finish the DVD sometime in the next few days.

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I thought Gandalf was the one warning people to stay out of the trees, not some random rider.

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SPOILERS WITH NO BOXES BELOW*****

I loved Theodred’s funeral, especially Eowyn’s singing. Very beautiful and haunting.

DaveX, sadly a 3 hour and 43 minute cut would’ve kept some people away. I don’t understand this myself, but I remember on another board whining that the theatrical version was too long! To me, these people aren’t movie lovers, but to each their own, I suppose.
How on Earth did Jackson cut this movie? Everything that was cut belonged, IMO. He did a hell of a job, I don’t think I could’ve handled it.

Totally loved the following:

Aragorn revealing to Eowyn that he’s 87 years old.
Elven rope loosening from the rock by itself.
Seeing Boromir again and how reluctant he was to go to Rivendell.
Everything in the extended ending: Faramir looking out for the Hobbits as he bids them farewell, Sam telling him he’s “proven his quality,” the trees massacring the Uruks, Legolas “tying” Gimli’s 43 kills, Merry and Pippin finding Saruman’s food & pipe weed stash, lots more.

Like the extended FotR set, this was a much richer viewing experience. It’s too late to watch any of the appendices tonight, but that gives me something to look forward to tomorrow.

Less than a month to go before Return of the King–but what will I have to look forward to next Christmas? :frowning:

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“He’s twitching because my axe is embedded in his nervous system!”

I watched the film itself last night, and I’ve just started with the cast commentary - did they decide this time not to have the little captions at the top that say who’s speaking? I liked that feature from FOTR:EE, but I guess it’s no big deal that it’s left out of this one.

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As it turns out, the first disc of the set I got yesterday is defective, so I didn’t get past the Dead Marshes on that, but did see the new stuff on disc 2.

The Boromir flashbacks were my favorite addition, for the set-up of the “show my quality” quote, and also to get a look at this family dynamic, which has always been interesting to me. We never see Denethor and his sons all together in the books, and this first glimpse of Denethor gives us a good idea of why his sons are the way they are. It does provide more motivation for both, especially the movie-version Faramir.

When watching the theatrical version, and knowing that there would be an extended version, I would pick out bits that seemed somehow truncated and guess that this was where new footage would go.

One of the things that seemed cut short to me was the Sam&Frodo vs. Faramir subplot. Near the end, Sam tells Faramir how his brother dies, and his tone suggests that Faramir has been questioning them about Boromir incessantly, even though no one’s mentioned Boromir’s death since that first conversation in the caves. I was certain something had been cut out here that would appear in the extended version… but it doesn’t. There still seems to be something missing in the interaction between these characters.

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It was apparently Eomer, shouting “keep out of the forest! Stay away from the trees!” We’re never lead to believe Eomer knows squat about Fangorn (and in the books Ents (and Hobbits) were considered old wive’s tales), so I thought it would’ve made more sense for Gandalf (who actually knew Treebeard) to warn the Rohirrim about the trees. Not a big deal, but TTT seems to have several scenes of this sort, where someone knows something in an inexplicable way.

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I complained about the length of TTT, simply because it was too long and plodded. The pacing was terrible, and the characters were terribly fleshed out. I expect TTT:EE to be much better, and to flow much easier because of that.

A slow 2 hour movie with terrible pacing seems a lot longer than a 3 1/2 hour movie that flies by.

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A few people have mentioned Faramir. There was an interesting interview with Peter Jackson where he was asked about that. Here is what he said.

Just an interesting insight, I thought. The full interview is at http://www.greencine.com/article?action=view&articleID=62&pageID=104&

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If I have the first copy (theatre version-it was a gift I didn’t pay for it) is it worth spending $40 to get this one? Do the scenes really add that much more?

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Well, I got to watch the rest of it. It was very good and helped fill in some holes. There were several times that my girlfriend would make the comment, “I was wondering about that.”

The scene with Faramir, Boromir, and Denethor probably should have been included in the theatrical release. I said this after I first saw FotR, but again, I really enjoyed the way PJ and Sean Bean brought the Boromir character to life. This extra scene just adds to it. That character seemed pretty flat and under-developed in the book. My feelings towards the book character were mild dislike and indifference. However, in the movie I was truly sad to see the Sean Bean character go.

It seems like they may be doing a similar thing with Eomer. I don’t recall the name of the actor playing the part, but he has been excellent so far.

The flotsam and jetsam scene was a great little addition for fans of the books. I also liked the parts about them growing.

This is definitely the way the movie should be seen. Even if I still think Eowyn’s singing was lacking… :wink:

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Mr Jim, it’s probably worth the $40 you mentioned, but I got mine for $28 at the local Walmart. It’s definitely worth that.

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No, it’s not worth spending $40. But it is worth spending $29 at Best Buy, and getting a $5 rebate since you have the first version.

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I am guessing Mr Jim is Canadian. I don’t think there are too many places where it’s selling for 40 in the US. I got mine for under 25.

BTW my DVD player can’t see to switch layers and I can’t play the second half of any of the DVD’s. I have gotten them to run on another player so the problem probably lies with my player. However it did run FOTR-EE properly. Anyone else has this problem?

As for the additions they are really good and add even more to the film than the ones in FOTR. I haven’t read the books and I found the extra character development very interesting. Still I can understand why they didn’t want a three and a half hour theatrical film. I would have chosen different things to cut though. I would have kept more of the character interaction including the Faromir/Boromir flashback and trimmed some of the Arwen scenes and the buildup to the battle.

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Probably correct. I just assumed he was a landscaper at Lambau Field.

Cyber, I have problems accessing one of the sections in FOTR:EE - I think it’s the “Creating Middle Earth” part. I expect more of the same with TTT:EE. (For what it’s worth, my DVD player also won’t accept any copy of “Old School” I’ve encountered, and freezes on the Trafalgar Square scene in “Casino Royale”).

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Sorry I should have mentioned I am speaking in canuck money.