Return of the King - the proper way
You're reading Mikko Saari's blog Life and opinions. This entry was written 12/13/2004, at 15:05.
If you want read more of my entries in the same topic, this entry belongs to the category of Culture.
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Watching the extended editions of The Lord of the Rings movies was the primary reason Johanna bought a DVD player two years ago. Now the trilogy closes with the whopping four-hour edition of Return of the King. That includes 48 minutes of extra material, introducing the Mouth and then some. Extended edition indeed - the whole trilogy clocks in around 11 hours.
While I do think the movies are best enjoyed with the extra material, the extra materials on the DVD's are probably even more interesting. Few movies offer such extensive extra materials and if they do, they are rarely worth watching. However, this one's different. The crew at WETA who did all the special effects and props and all that were madly in love with their job. When people love their job, they'll put in amazing amounts of effort that's basically useless - the movie would be equally good without it, because you simply can't see it. Or did anyone notice the rat-catcher's hut in Minas Tirith, with the dead rats hanging outside the door? Not to mention the decorations everywhere, giving each culture distinct feel.
All that would be mostly wasted without the detailed documentation. Of course, there's also the wonder: how on earth they did that? Seeing how the locations and effects were done doesn't kill the illusion for me, because the creativity and enthusiasm of the team is a wonder in itself.
We'll be watching the movie Tuesday - it'll be a long and wonderful night. But what's then? Peter Jackson should do The Hobbit next and then start working on all the tales of The Silmarillion...
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