The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

[a-dev]

I have no memory of Laserdisc......I never knew it.

 

[DiFabio]

VHS or GTFO


I remember Braveheart and Titanic were a pain in the ass.

 

[Khev]

The Fellowship extended is my favorite of all of them. It makes a great film even better.

The thing with the FOTR EE that just kills it for me is that it takes a "perfect" movie and adds imperfections. Yes it adds some extra cool stuff, but it can't shake the taint of added flaws, and the theatrical edition, while not literally perfect is just one of those movies where I basically have no issue with any scene for one single second of its three hour running time. And that is such a rare and amazing thing.

The EE isn't bad by any means but I've just got significant pet peeves with it:

1. Two opening narrators. To me the beginning loses some elegance having Galadriel and then Bilbo giving voice-overs. It was perfect the first time.

2. Sam's redundant awe about seeing elves. In the TE he got excited about Aragorn mentioning Rivendell because "we're going to see the elves!" And then when Arwen appears his awe struck whisper, "She's an elf." But then the EE gives weird redundancy to those scenes by having Frodo and Sam spying on the departing wood elves. By the time Aragorn mentions them they're already old news. It's just very clear to me that whenever PJ realized he was going to cut the wood elf scene he arranged Sam's later scenes to imply that he had never seen them before. The extended version just adds weirdness to his reactions. "Wow, wood elves!" "Hear that Frodo, we're going to see the elves!" "She's an elf!" Too much. It reminds me of the extra Jabba scene in the ANH SE where he basically repeats Greedo's dialogue to Han Solo. Clearly the two scenes weren't meant to share the same movie.

3. Boromir. He had a real gradual succumbing to the Ring in the TE, beginning with mere surface comments at the Council of Elrond and then his slight pause when giving the Ring to Frodo on the mountain. A nice evolution. But in the EE he practically goes full Gollum right in front of everyone, and then they just carry on like nothing happened. I see him standing up and reaching for it and the sky going dark and all I can think of is, "Well he's obviously disqualified from the quest, wait they're TAKING him?" And then when he is overcome at the end of the movie it just seems like "duh, what'd you expect." I don't care if any of these scenes were in the book, it really calls the wisdom of the group into question the way they are presented in the extended film.

4. The dumb dialogue about the Mithril shirt. In the TE its this private gift from Bilbo to Frodo that shocks everyone. And then in the EE five minutes before Frodo's shirt is revealed Gandalf gives this long speech about an awesome Mithril shirt that Bilbo had and how cool it is. Then everyone sees Frodo wearing it and...they're still shocked. "Mithril...." Yeah, duh. Everyone was just talking about it.

5. A minor one but I really liked how Galadriel's elves first apprehended the companions in the TE. Gimli's "these woods are perilous" line was cool and I didn't like that it was deleted out of the EE.

Anyway the EE is still decent and when I saw it uninterrupted in the theater in late 2003 the extra length did make me feel like I'd endured that much more hardship with the Fellowship (in a good way) and that their road was that much more grueling. Some of the extra battle sequences and dialogue between Aragorn and Boromir was really great. But the overall quality of the film was so marred by the additions above that I really did feel like I was experiencing a SW SE film when watching it, as harsh as that sounds. For every good new thing there's a bad/irritating thing. The TE gives me nothing but good, for three hours straight.

 

[a-dev]

Those were the days. ''**** sake whose watching these and not rewinding the tapes when they finish?!!''

 

[Khev]

.....Laserdisc was still around for the LOTR movies??? Or have I misunderstood...

LOTR just missed being released on laserdisc. "The Cell" from earlier in 2001 was the last film released on the format.

 

[DiFabio]

See, I thought the Extended Edition made Boromir better and more layered.

I agree about the wood elves though, that was unnecessary and stupid.

 

[jye4ever]

The thing with the FOTR EE that just kills it for me is that it takes a "perfect" movie and adds imperfections. Yes it adds some extra cool stuff, but it can't shake the taint of added flaws, and the theatrical edition, while not literally perfect is just one of those movies where I basically have no issue with any scene for one single second of its three hour running time. And that is such a rare and amazing thing.

The EE isn't bad by any means but I've just got significant pet peeves with it:

1. Two opening narrators. To me the beginning loses some elegance having Galadriel and then Bilbo giving voice-overs. It was perfect the first time.

2. Sam's redundant awe about seeing elves. In the TE he got excited about Aragorn mentioning Rivendell because "we're going to see the elves!" And then when Arwen appears his awe struck whisper, "She's an elf." But then the EE gives weird redundancy to those scenes by having Frodo and Sam spying on the departing wood elves. By the time Aragorn mentions them they're already old news. It's just very clear to me that whenever PJ realized he was going to cut the wood elf scene he arranged Sam's later scenes to imply that he had never seen them before. The extended version just adds weirdness to his reactions. "Wow, wood elves!" "Hear that Frodo, we're going to see the elves!" "She's an elf!" Too much. It reminds me of the extra Jabba scene in the ANH SE where he basically repeats Greedo's dialogue to Han Solo. Clearly the two scenes weren't meant to share the same movie.

3. Boromir. He had a real gradual succumbing to the Ring in the TE, beginning with mere surface comments at the Council of Elrond and then his slight pause when giving the Ring to Frodo on the mountain. A nice evolution. But in the EE he practically goes full Gollum right in front of everyone, and then they just carry on like nothing happened. I see him standing up and reaching for it and the sky going dark and all I can think of is, "Well he's obviously disqualified from the quest, wait they're TAKING him?" And then when he is overcome at the end of the movie it just seems like "duh, what'd you expect." I don't care if any of these scenes were in the book, it really calls the wisdom of the group into question the way they are presented in the extended film.

4. The dumb dialogue about the Mithril shirt. In the TE its this private gift from Bilbo to Frodo that shocks everyone. And then in the EE five minutes before Frodo's shirt is revealed Gandalf gives this long speech about an awesome Mithril shirt that Bilbo had and how cool it is. Then everyone sees Frodo wearing it and...they're still shocked. "Mithril...." Yeah, duh. Everyone was just talking about it.

5. A minor one but I really liked how Galadriel's elves first apprehended the companions in the TE. Gimli's "these woods are perilous" line was cool and I didn't like that it was deleted out of the EE.

Anyway the EE is still decent and when I saw it uninterrupted in the theater in late 2003 the extra length did make me feel like I'd endured that much more hardship with the Fellowship (in a good way) and that their road was that much more grueling. Some of the extra battle sequences and dialogue between Aragorn and Boromir was really great. But the overall quality of the film was so marred by the additions above that I really did feel like I was experiencing a SW SE film when watching it, as harsh as that sounds. For every good new thing there's a bad/irritating thing. The TE gives me nothing but good, for three hours straight.

 

[DiFabio]

I always loved the little additions like Lurtz licking the dagger before throwing it at Aragorn and all the neck slits and decapitations that didn't make the theatrical version.

Extended Breaking of the Fellowship/Departure of Boromir > Theatrical Breaking of the Fellowship/Departure of Boromir

 

[Khev]

I always loved the little additions like Lurtz licking the dagger before throwing it at Aragorn and all the neck slits and decapitations that didn't make the theatrical version.

Extended Breaking of the Fellowship/Departure of Boromir > Theatrical Breaking of the Fellowship/Departure of Boromir

I won't argue with that.

 

[The Ween]

I like it all.

 

[The Josh]

In the intro narrative of FOTR, it is mentioned that the rings were created for the elves, dwarves and men and that Sauron deceived them by creating his own master ring to control.

But it specifically never mentions who created the other 19 rings.

Was it Sauron?

Sauron goes to the Elves and tricks them into teaching him how to create the Ring of power. It's a skill only they know so he has to learn it from them. So he uses the fair form of Annatar to fool them and the ring maker of the High Elves was Celebrimbor (you see him in The Shadow of Mordor game) that teaches him the skill. He was able during this to make it so he could control those wearing these rings with the one ring, which he created away from the Elves. The three Elven rings were taken off when they realized what Sauron was up to so they could not be controlled by Sauron. After Sauron is defeated in the second age they wear the rings in secret and once The One Ring is destroyed they being to lose (the Elven rings) their power.

 

[The Josh]

View attachment 146542

Just trust me JYE. You know the correct path.

 

[DiFabio]

I won't argue with that.

Have you listened to the commentaries? There's so much great insight with the Director/Writers supplement. Some abandoned concepts were so solid that you go "too bad they didn't do that" and others where you feel they made the right decision because their original intention was kind of weird.

The one I find most fascinating is the beginning. Originally, there wasn't going to be a Prologue. That was thrown together at the last minute. The original intention was going to be an opening with Bilbo/Bag End/Concerning Hobbits. The account of Isildur, Sauron and the one ring would have been told later on with flashback when Gandalf returns and explains the situation to Frodo. Gandalf would have narrated. As much as I love the Prologue, I do wonder if that original, simplistic opening would have been better before the execs pushed for a prologue.

 

[Khev]

Have you listened to the commentaries? There's so much great insight with the Director/Writers supplement. Some abandoned concepts were so solid that you go "too bad they didn't do that" and others where you feel they made the right decision.

The one I find most fascinating is the beginning. Originally, there wasn't going to be a Prologue. That was thrown together at the last minute. The original intention was going to be an opening with Bilbo/Bag End/Concerning Hobbits. The account of Isildur, Sauron and the one ring would have been told later on with flashback when Gandalf returns and explains the situation to Frodo. As much as I love the Prologue, I do wonder if that original, simplistic opening would have been better before the execs pushed for a prologue.

You know if I remember correctly Jackson mentioned during one of the commentaries of the FOTR EE that he had Galadriel do an opening narration and that it would be followed by a nice bookend narration at the end of ROTK. I remember actually being surprised when she didn't close out the third film after he said that. Obviously when he edited ROTK he changed his mind. I wonder if he even went so far as to have her record anything.

I thought it was interesting that the Moria flashback featuring Azog was originally supposed to be told by Beorn but that when the two Hobbit films were changed to three that meant Beorn got moved to the second movie and PJ decided that it needed to be mentioned somewhere in the first. So he took Beorn's history lesson and gave it to Balin. I kind of wish that it worked out that the flashback was told later.

I always thought it was a little cheesy in AUJ that after Azog was unseen for 60 years that he conveniently appears just a couple days after someone describes his backstory at length. What is he like Candyman or Beetlejuice? I think it would have been better if he appeared after being gone for so long and that his reappearance prompted someone to tell his tale, which is obviously how PJ originally planned it.

 

[DiFabio]

Those were the days. ''**** sake whose watching these and not rewinding the tapes when they finish?!!''

Just caught this.

We had one of those nifty rewinding machines. Throw the tape into the cassette thing, press down and you could go and chill till it was done going back to the beginning. I broke so many tapes from over watching them. Star Wars, Terminator, Batman and Indy come to mind. You could tell whatever my favorite scene was from how worn out that section was from repeat viewings. The "snow" and tracking problems were prevalent in all the iconic scenes.

 

[Irvy]

I love laserdisc covers, I've picked up a few but have no way of playing them what a hipster

 

[jye4ever]

I always loved the little additions like Lurtz licking the dagger before throwing it at Aragorn and all the neck slits and decapitations that didn't make the theatrical version.

Extended Breaking of the Fellowship/Departure of Boromir > Theatrical Breaking of the Fellowship/Departure of Boromir

I thought he licked it in the TE version as well.

I must be thinking of something else.

Sauron goes to the Elves and tricks them into teaching him how to create the Ring of power. It's a skill only they know so he has to learn it from them. So he uses the fair form of Annatar to fool them and the ring maker of the High Elves was Celebrimbor (you see him in The Shadow of Mordor game) that teaches him the skill. He was able during this to make it so he could control those wearing these rings with the one ring, which he created away from the Elves. The three Elven rings were taken off when they realized what Sauron was up to so they could not be controlled by Sauron. After Sauron is defeated in the second age they wear the rings in secret and once The One Ring is destroyed they being to lose (the Elven rings) their power.

I will inform the wife that I just remembered this detail.

Just trust me JYE. You know the correct path.

I can't wait for the arguments when additional footage is added onto the EE.

 

[The Josh]

I must be thinking of something else.

:

I will inform the wife that I just remembered this detail.

I can't wait for the arguments when additional footage is added onto the EE.

With the fact that I don't watch the TE I don't recall exactly what's been put back in unless someone jogs my memory. He licks the sword on the TE version as well if my memory does serve me correctly.

No problem. Glad, I could help.

I will be curious to see exactly what he has left. I think when he does it they won't be put back into the movies but just attached deleted scenes.

 

[Khev]

Lurtz dagger licking is EE only.

PJ will have to be very careful about adding any new footage to the LOTR now since visual effects have advanced greatly in the last 13 years. He wouldn't want a Lucas-esque hodge podge of different eras of tech present in one film.

 

[The Josh]

You're correct as I just checked. I'm so used to the EE that I've forgotten what was added back in to be honest. There is only one version of each movie at this point.

That's why I don't think it will be anything more than attached in a menu option.