[jaf]

WOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!!, my boyfriend just gave me the Two Towers Extended Edition Collector's Gift set...

I LOVE IT!




[/fanboy mode]

[twifkak]

Originally Posted by jaf

[/fanboy mode]

Yeah, right.

[doughy white]

Originally Posted by jaf

WOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!!, my boyfriend just gave me the Two Towers Extended Edition Collector's Gift set...

Wow! It looks gorgeous, you lucky man. We've preordered it on Amazon, so I guess it is in the post to us as well.

BTW, I bought the tickets for RotK a few days ago. We're going on the 22nd, the premiere is sold out and there were not even official ticket sales.

[Garyos]

Damn you! This is a christmas present for me, since I've used way too much money lately...

[myhrik]

Same here, Geir... My new apartment is really sucking away my money. But it's worth it! And since my mom is SUCH a great fan of Lord of the Rings herself, and actually has NOT seen The Two Towers yet... she would be a fool not to buy it to me for christmas, wouldn't she? She's just so proud of me because I like the LOTR films! Finally her son got into Tolkien's world! Now she only has to convince me to read the books! I stink at reading books, so I won't. Yet.

[Garyos]

Originally Posted by myhrik

Same here, Geir... My new apartment is really sucking away my money. But it's worth it! And since my mom is SUCH a great fan of Lord of the Rings herself, and actually has NOT seen The Two Towers yet... she would be a fool not to buy it to me for christmas, wouldn't she? She's just so proud of me because I like the LOTR films! Finally her son got into Tolkien's world! Now she only has to convince me to read the books! I stink at reading books, so I won't. Yet.

Hey, cool mom. But then, my parents read The hobbit to me when I was little...

[Jake]

I don't know about anyone else around here, but I was supremely let down by the Two Towers Extended Edition. I'd like to attribute it to me getting a little over-hyped after liking the editing changes they made in Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition, but it's not just that... The TT:EE edit is just sort of not good.

Let me preface this by saying that while I liked The Two Towers (theatrical cut) quite a bit, I didn't think it was anywhere near as well done as Fellowship of the Ring (especially the extended cut). I was hoping the gap in quality between the two films (mostly caused in my opinion by pacing issues, and a lack of depth in the new characters and locations in The Two Towers) could be narrowed by a good TT:EE edit. The thing is, the new edit does solve my problems with TTT (except the Ent story), but then it goes wayyyy beyond that into craptown...

Some of the edits were excellent (mostly on the first disc), for instance...

Spoiler:

the opening scene with Sam and Frodo descending on the rope and talking about the salt Sam's been carrying is entirely great (I think they're stupid for not opening the film with it) as well as most every other addition to their plot thread, and Faramir's flashback is also really good

... And some were acceptable...

Spoiler:

the ent draught bit was good, the mysterious inclusion of old man willow was passable if a little silly, and the "you still speak in riddles" line was nice, and the inclusion of the Hurons was good if not totally 100% half-assed (Even though the Hurons were added, nothing else was really changed with the Ent storyline and it all remains weak from both a story and film/book adaptation point of view), for instance, but none of those were really top quality scenes

... But good lord! If ever there was a way to ruin two and tarnish three other characters in the film, it's by way of...

Spoiler:

including Eowen (or however you spell it) say the goddamn word "love" to Aragorn, including her serving him that bad tasting soup which was totally out of character and not funny, including Gimli making cracks about "squirrel droppings" and nervous systems, and really I thought Merry and Pippin's little bit at the end with the retarded "weed" jokes were poorly executed and not at all fitting with the rest of the film.

... Those four or five scenes, some a few minutes long, others only a line of dialogue, that Peter Jackson decided to insert back into the film have pretty much succeeded in ruining my viewing experience of The Two Towers. I sat down expecting a well told, well paced classy story like the Fellowship EE DVD but really got a bunch of jokes that have nothing to do with the characters delivering the jokes or with the story on the whole. The good stuff they put back in is really good, but it can't overcome the horrible turd scenes inserted later on. Man.

If they'd just left out, or severely trimmed down those extremely suspect crap scenes, I would be happy as a pig in shit. Instead, I'm sort of dubious of the quality of the third film, which is a shame considering how much I loved Fellowship and how much I was anticipating this DVD.

Its completely baffling to me that Peter Jackson can show so much confidence in his direction, but then can go full circle and throw in horrible joke scenes and cliche love plots seemingly to cover his ass like he's not sure of his scenes and storytelling ability. It's frustrating.


More than anything ever, this deserves a nice big [/fanboy].

[Erwin_Br]

You're starting to scare me, Jake. :eek:

--Erwin

[Moosferatu]

Oh, man. I'll hopefully be seeing it sometime next week, but you've got me scared, Jake. I already know most of what the are adding in and I'm quite excited about most of it. The two things that I hated most about TTT were the Ents and Gimli's "jokes". I already knew that they weren't improving the Ent situation but I was hoping that they weren't going to be adding in anymore of that Gimli crap. I mean his character is completely trashed! Judging by what you said, Jake, my hopes were in vain.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

8-) Congratulations, jaf.

[emma]

Got my copy Friday! And since I'm single, it was the no frills extended version...

I loved it. There was a few things that might not be excellent, but as a whole, I felt that the extended version was better than the original movie version, and I LOVED that one. Loved the relaxed jokes, and the more personal quirks that got more space. Loved that there were more ent stuff... Didn't find any reason to gripe seriously over it at all.

[Kolzig]

Congratulations, jaf and also emma.

I'll be propably getting my copy around christmas...

[remixor]

Originally Posted by Moosferatu

The two things that I hated most about TTT were...Gimli's "jokes".

Good God, yes. This was present in Fellowship as well; it felt to me like Jackson was sometimes just incapable of keeping a moment serious without having Gimli burp or fall over or same some inane thing. He was my favorite character from the book, and I'm a fan of John Rhys-Davies, and I still hate his treatment in the film.

[MeddlingMonk]

Originally Posted by emma

Got my copy Friday! And since I'm single, it was the no frills extended version...

I loved it. There was a few things that might not be excellent, but as a whole, I felt that the extended version was better than the original movie version, and I LOVED that one. Loved the relaxed jokes, and the more personal quirks that got more space. Loved that there were more ent stuff... Didn't find any reason to gripe seriously over it at all.

Faramir is especially improved in the extended version. Postponing for the moment the question of the changes to the character, he works much better when the beginning, middle, and the end of his story arc are seen; not just the middle as is the case in the theatrical version.

As for the changes, the reasons are spelled out in one of the documentaries. The reasons are good--I don't entirely agree with them, but the point that Faramir's statement that he wouldn't take the ring even if he found it alongside the road seems to water down the ring's insidiousness has been made before (of course, the declaration could be taken as a sign of naive overconfidence in his strength of character). In terms of film drama, if nothing else, the changes are valid (in a qualified way) and they make much more sense in the extended version.

Helm's Deep is better with the inclusion of the huorns. The battle in the theatrical version ends with a bit of an inconclusive splat without them.

[Ninja Dodo]

I wonder....

I haven't seen the extended Two Towers yet... but to be honest I really didn't like the extended Fellowship. On the whole it was ok, adding some pretty good new scenes and generally explaining things better to those who haven't read the books.... but can anyone explain to me why they took out one of the best scenes in the film - Gandalf talking to Frodo in the carriage - and replaced it with an intensely silly voiceover by Bilbo??? That just ruined it for me entirely. If I'm ever buying that film on DVD I'm getting the regular version. The only reason I'd get the extended one would be to watch the extras...

[Curt]

I thoroughly enjoyed the extended version of Fellowship and I have to say that, after watching today, I thoroughly enjoyed the extended version of Two Towers even more. I'd even go as far as to say that much of the material that was missing in the theatrical version was a mistake on the part of New Line Cinema - the story seems much more complete (as complete as a middle part of a trilogy can be) in the extended version, especially that of Faramir, as MeddlingMonk pointed out.

Really looking forward now to December 22nd...................

And we still have the three extra discs to watch in this set yet..............

[Jake]

I came across a little insane in my previous post. On the whole I did really like TTT Extended Edition, really! I own it, and I'm not going to go sell it or anything, but it just made me sad that they killed off any subtlety in the Aragorn/Eowyn(sp) "love story," which was already hainging by a thread, and the inclusion of that soup scene really re-cast Eowyn as a weak female character ("Do you like it? Really?!? "), coupled with the extra jokifying of Gimli just made me wince repeatedly, which never happened really on the Fellowship Extended. I'd still recommend the DVD to any and all fans of the movie, and will be watching it repeatedly.

[PTDC]

I'm getting the Collector's set for christmas. I didn't like TTT at the cinema, and I can't remember why, it's been such a long time since I've read the book or seen the film. I still haven't watched FOTR:EE yet, apart from looking at the documentaries and features.

[jaf]

I loved it. I think it's way better than the theatrical cut, the new scenes and the longer ones give a slower pace to it, I found the theatrical one too fast.
I love the funeral scene, the Faramir flashback and most of the new parts.

*Is happy*

[Henke]

You lucky bastards. The company that is releasing it here had a problem with the machine that prints the boxes. So it won't be available here until a couple of days (except for imported and therefor really expensive versions). I will get it the day it hits the store.

I can't wait to see the extra scenes with Riders of rohan.