Lord of the Rings films. Theatrical or Extended Edition

[V]

That diplomatic ethic might not have existed in the Third Age, and even if it did, we don't know that Gondor extended diplomatic courtesy to Mordor.

In the books, the Mouth of Sauron gets worried for a minute that Aragorn will try to kill him and Aragorn specifically says he won't because its against the rules of diplomacy that Mordor itself frequently does not honor.

And yes, ROTK was better without Saruman. However, I think that Saruman should have been in TTT, and the movie should have ended with the Nazgul coming and Gandalf taking Pippen away. Why Jackson thought that ending the movie where he did was a good idea is beyond me.

Plus, it would have meant that there'd be no reason to add that "Aragorn's dead" plotline that went nowhere and did nothing.

quoted for Truth (I HATE the Aragorn is "dead" plotline but that's not Theatrical vs Extended)

Yes, I think it odd that Saruman was moved to start of ROTK and not TTT

but consider: as now everyone owns the full set of all 3 films, Extended....the ending of one kind of blurs into the next, so I don't mind if they're shuffled around, so long as they're in there.

(Yes, while the taking of the Corsair ships was cool, the added Paths of the Dead scenes were not necessary; many scenes were just put in because they were left over and they thought we might want to see them anyway...nonetheless, on the whole the Extended scenes elevated the films immensely...i.e., emphasising that Gondor CAN fight and the gate of Minas Tirith is not penetrable with a normal battering ram and their initial assault fails, so the Mordor Orcs have to bring in the Middle-earth equivalent of a Death Star superweapon, Grond. (GROND!)

 

[davejames]

Even though I'm one of those people who thought the theatrical versions were far too long and drawn out, I still have to vote for the Extended. They just flow a lot better, and all the minor characters who briefly pop in and out of the story actually have a reason to exist now.

Of course it would have better if Peter Jackson didn't go off on all those hundreds of other tangents to START with, and kept a tighter focus on the core group of characters.

It would be like if George Lucas suddenly veered away from the main story in ANH to delve into the backstories for Leia and Chewie and Tarkin and Greedo. Yeah that stuff might be interesting, but the movie would lose the tight, effecient focus that made it so cool and fun in the first place. That's kinda like what watching LOTR feels like to me.

As good as they are, the movies would have been MUCH more powerful and effective if Jackson pared them down to their essential elements and kept them to 2- 2 1/2 hours each.

 

[Cmndr J Crichton]

Both! I love them all!

 

[BigFoot]

Extended, extended, and extended.

 

[Flavius]

As far as FOTR is concerned, there's no question. The extended edition is the real movie. One can argue about the two others.

 

[Delta1]

V said:

That diplomatic ethic might not have existed in the Third Age, and even if it did, we don't know that Gondor extended diplomatic courtesy to Mordor.

In the books, the Mouth of Sauron gets worried for a minute that Aragorn will try to kill him and Aragorn specifically says he won't because its against the rules of diplomacy that Mordor itself frequently does not honor.

In the book, Aragorn stares down the Mouth of Sauron who wigs out and claims ambassadorial sacrosanctity. Aragorn remains silent but Gandalf says, "Where such laws hold it is also the custom for ambassadors to use less insolence" (emphasis mine). The implication, of course, being either that "such laws" do not hold here or that the Mouth is not an ambassador.

That was all before the Mouth started lobbing serious insults and threatening Frodo with torture. After that, Gandalf says, "Get you gone, for your embassy is over and death is near to you." This is an unveiled death threat; Gandalf rejects any ideas of diplomatic privilege. To drive home his point, he says, "We did not come here to waste words in treating with Sauron, faithless and accursed, still less with one of his slaves." A slave does not possess ambassadorial dignity; it is property, and may be freely destroyed in warfare. Gandalf denies not only the Mouth's diplomatic privilege but his very humanity.

What you see in "The Black Gate Opens" is the subtle interaction under a diplomatic veneer of two foes who plan to utterly annihilate each other. There can be no doubt that Tolkien's heroes (and Pippin especially) intended to kill the Mouth of Sauron along with every other orc, troll, and man in Mordor if that's what it took to safeguard the West. PJ's approach was less subtle, but got the idea across.

 

[Garrett]

Extended for the first two, especially FOTR. To be honest, watching the EE of ROTK, there really wasn't much that was reinserted that didn't feel like something that could have just as easily been left out. Aside from some of the stuff in the beginning, I thought most of the scenes would have worked better as a separate selection of outtakes.

TTT had a few scenes like that, such as the one where Treebeard says some of Tom Bombadil's lines, but most of it added to the story in some way. And for someone who hadn't read the books up until that point, some of the reinserted scenes in FOTR helped clear up some confusion for the later movies. Like why Frodo's cloak just happened to take on the color and shape of the rocks around them.

 

[Skywalker]

The EEs for all, though there was some stuff added to TTT and ROTK that didn't feel very necessary (a skull avalanche? ).

If only I had the skill and motivation to make my own fan edits...

 

[Kolrad]

Well, ideally, I would want to create a "halfway in between" version that included some of the extended scenes but not all of them, because there were some additions I liked and some I didn't.

Changes I liked:
[*] The gift-giving scene at Lothlorien should never have been cut, especially considering that it's referred to later even in the theatrical version. (At least, I think it is.)
[*] The added flashback scene with Boromir, Faramir, and Denethor in TTT was excellent; it really established the characters well.
[*] Gandalf's confrontation with the Witch-King also should never have been removed, since the buildup to it is still there, and you're left wondering why Gandalf suddenly loses his staff and looks beat up.
[*] The Houses of Healing scene is one of the trilogy's most beautiful, between Eomer's wailing over his sister and the pretty song that comes after it. It's also very nice to have some closure for the characters of Eowyn and Faramir.
[*] The added scenes of Frodo and Sam making their way through Mordor disguised as Orcs really help; without them, Mordor seems about the size of a parking lot.
[*] In all three movies, the extended battle scenes are much better. I'm not saying that because of the violence, but because they feel more balanced and better paced. Whereas before, it seemed like some characters were doing little and the heroes had a bit too easy a time, in the extended versions, everyone contributes and the battle is not so easy.
[*] Similarly, I loved the little added struggle between Sam and Gollum at Mount Doom-- it helps to answer the questions some had about why Frodo was able to get so far ahead.
[*] There really are a lot of other little scenes that, while they aren't necessary to the story, they are neat to see and I have no problem with them either way.

Changes I didn't like:
[*] The theatrical opening to FOTR with Frodo sitting under the tree was much better than the extended version with Bilbo writing his book. It was more focused (on the movie's actual main character), more interesting, and communicated everything the audience needed to understand about the story; whereas the Bilbo opening gets bogged down in unnecessary details.
[*] Adding the funeral of Theodred destroyed one of the most powerful moments in TTT. After being rescued from Saruman's control by Gandalf, Theoden drives Wormtongue out, then suddenly stops, realizing something is still wrong. "Where is Theodred?" he says. "Where is my son?" Cut to Theodred's tomb. The pain of that Theoden's loss seems very real at that moment-- not only did he lose his son; he didn't even get to bury him. Putting a scene in between Theoden's question and the answer diluted the power of that moment.
[*] The scene of Faramir chatting with Pippin at Minas Tirith is nice, but it similarly screws up a transition from Gandalf asking Faramir "Tell me about Frodo" to Frodo climbing up the stairs of Cirith Ungol. It feels odd having that split up by an extra scene.
[*] I really don't like the additions to the Paths of the Dead scene. The original was paced very well and ended on a dramatic cliffhanger. In the extended version, we get more Gimli comic relief, then Aragorn yelling his line long after the scene seems to be over, and the Dead dumping a bunch of skulls on them for no apparent reason except to artificially extend the suspense. It worked much better when it was left as a cliffhanger.
[*] I wish the scene of Aragorn using the palantir had been able to save the very confusing "Arwen is dying because her fate is tied to the ring" story, but I'm afraid it only makes it more clear that they were never able to get that idea to come together the way they'd hoped.
[*] There are a few other scenes that I think hurt the pacing more than they're worth, but I have to admit I still enjoy watching them.

Please keep in mind that I am being extremely picky about these movies in this post, and I think that Peter Jackson's trilogy completely surpassed what I ever dreamed could be done in a movie version of The Lord of the Rings. So I am very happy to take even the things I didn't like as much; these movies are terrific, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Jack Bauer]

All the extended versions are superior to the theatricals. Not far superior but superior nonetheless.

 

[Cutter John]

EE's FTFW!

Unless you're one of those shlubs who thinks the movies are already long and boring.

Actually for me the only obvious misstep I saw in the EE's was using the 'You and what army?' gag twice with the army of the dead.

 

[DanTheGrey]

Straight EE ticket for me. They are the definitive versions in my mind. Deliberately waited on buying the DVD's until the EE's came out.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Extended editions across the board. There is no other version.

 

[Smiley]

The EE is definitely better for TTT, but I can go either way on the other two.

It comes down to how much time you have and who you're with. If I'm introducing somebody to the films, I'll start with FOTR TE. If I only have 10 hours instead of 13, then I'll watch the TEs. Given the time, though, I prefer the EEs as a unified experience.

 

[General Kang]

Kegek Kringle said:I've seen some interesting arguments critiquing the ROTK release on other grounds, such as Aragorn killing the Mouth of Sauron in cold blood. That never sat well with me, it seemed to go by the action movie logic that 'well, he's venal and repulsive, so cutting off his head is way cool'. You simply don't execute messengers, it violates the diplomatic ethic. The same goes for kicking them into bottomless chasms while snarling with idiotic bravado, incidentally.

The problem with your logic is that Aragorn NEEDED to provoke a rash and violent reaction among Sauron's armies in order to give Frodo and Sam the window they needed to get to the Crack of Doom. Whether he would normally have done such a thing or not, or whether one could make an argument that he was grief-stricken after seeing the mithril shirt and was lashing out, I think the BEST argument was that he needed to provoke a violent, over-the-top reaction and did what was necessary to do that.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

General Kang said:

Kegek Kringle said:I've seen some interesting arguments critiquing the ROTK release on other grounds, such as Aragorn killing the Mouth of Sauron in cold blood. That never sat well with me, it seemed to go by the action movie logic that 'well, he's venal and repulsive, so cutting off his head is way cool'. You simply don't execute messengers, it violates the diplomatic ethic. The same goes for kicking them into bottomless chasms while snarling with idiotic bravado, incidentally.

The problem with your logic is that Aragorn NEEDED to provoke a rash and violent reaction among Sauron's armies in order to give Frodo and Sam the window they needed to get to the Crack of Doom. Whether he would normally have done such a thing or not, or whether one could make an argument that he was grief-stricken after seeing the mithril shirt and was lashing out, I think the BEST argument was that he needed to provoke a violent, over-the-top reaction and did what was necessary to do that.

But he managed to do that already with presentation of Andúril to Sauron via the Palantír which lured Sauron's forces to the Black Gate in the first place. I agree with Kegek. The sudden beheading of the Mouth of Sauron bugged the hell out of me as well, especially considering that scene was one of my favorite scenes of all three books.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

HIj'Qa said:
Theatrical versions have to take in to consideration the amount of time people can sit still in a movie theater [bladder issues].

During The Two Towers, my friends just went during all of the mushy Arwen/Aragorn stuff. They called that section the film's official bathroom break.

 

[Magisterfrodo]

I voted extended for FOTR and ROTK, but theatrical for TTT. TTT is my favorite of the three, but the extended scenes only seemed to slow it down and had little point. The only exception is the Boromir scene, which I thought was pretty good. I wish I had a version that was the theatrical cut with only the Boromir scene added. That would be the ideal version for me.

 

[Hyperspace05]

I actually think TTT is the film that is most improved by the extended edition.

FOTR is least improved. (I do not like the extended opening)

That's just my take on it.

 

[Magisterfrodo]

Really? I love the extended opening of FOTR. Different things appeal to different people, though.

I personally feel that ROTK was most-improved by the extended edition. I was very disappointed with the theatrical edition. The extended added much more depth to the situations and characters as well as adding a scene that should never have been left out - the confrontation between Gandalf and the Witch King.

I could have done without the added "mouth of Sauron" scene.