The thread for the _Return of the King_ extended DVD

I've been meaning to ask: Is there a 4DVD set with no goofy GWP? I'm looking for like a $25 deal. Should I just sell the first 2 and get the new 3x set?

You can indeed just buy the basic four-disc set straight up without the box and the figurine and the symphony DVD stuff, etc. $25? Try http://www.dvdpricesearch.com

I'm also really anticipating Jackson's King Kong after watching some behind-the-scenes stuff on it recently. i think it'll be amazing.

http://www.kongisking.net/index.shtml

Tons of behind the scenes stuff is being hosted there, it's really quite cool! I've only dipped in a few times -- after all the obsessive tracking of the LOTR films, I want King Kong to pretty much be a surprise.

GWP = Gift With Purchase (like the argonath bookends or the gollum figurine). i ask because amazon didn't have it on their site last time i looked.

now looking at the link you provided there's some good deals... overstock.com looks like $24.39 with shipping which is about the same bestbuy will have it for.

Bruce Spence as Mouth of Sauron = SUBLIMELY CREEPY.

doesn't it seem like with each subsequent movie there was more and more of a rush job of editing and story-stuffing/less attention to detail? i guess you could say the same of the books...

I'm getting this for Christmas!

Thing about the books is that Tolkien did more or less rush the ending there as well, in ways -- keep in mind that as the story was published in its tripartite way, Fellowship actually had the most text of all and Return the least, if you discount the appendices. The films reverse this, actually, in that Return is the longest in its final form, though at the same time it incorporates the ending of Two Towers as a core part of the structure.

Whatever rushing was done (and it was done, no question) was also dictated by the locked in schedule of release year-by-year. Perhaps in retrospect they would have spaced it out more, who knows? But the long version here does include much more of the quieter details and reflective moments that do show Tolkien able to capture that atmosphere, and which Jackson teased out as he chose -- I'm thinking of the part in the new cut where Sam sees a star through the clouds of Mordor, taken straight from the book but relocated elsewhere in Mordor. Even more time and understatement would have suited that sequence all the more, but as it stands a truncated take is better than none at all.

he had nice chompers.

The commentaries (heard all but the actors one) indicate that the trick was that the mouth was resized up by about 15% to give it and the character a more unsettling appearance -- they also note that the character is in fact lipless.

So, this makes Bruce Spence the only actor to appear in the Lord of The Rings, the Star Wars films, and the Matrices. Fair enough.

Apart from that - more of a wonderful thing. Love it.

what was up with Gandalf's staff? He has it later right?

I'm going to double check that at some point, but he uses a spear taken from a Gondor soldier to whack Denethor from the pyre -- can't recall if he has a staff at the Black Gate. Keep in mind the film has established that he can regain/remake a staff as needed, apparently (lost his old staff to Saruman in Fellowship, has a new one later, film commentary indicates that this was intentional but left unexplained). I suppose theoretically Saruman could have remade his but he had other things to worry about.

(Side note on Saruman's death scene, which is nice to finally see -- in either the Jackson/Walsh/Boyens commentary or the design team one, a story comes out about how Jackson and Lee were doing that scene and this conversation came out [background: Lee is not only a WWII vet but did some high level security work on the ground in Europe he still can't talk about due to the Official Secrets Act]:

JACKSON: "When you get stabbed, I'd like you to act it out this way...*explains whatever it is, apparently it's somewhat showy*"

LEE: "Peter, do you know what someone sounds like when they get stabbed?"

JACKSON: "Well, no."

LEE: "I do. Let me act it out that way.")

Also: the cast commentary is pretty funny, especially some of the bits Andy Serkis does AS Gollum/Smeagol.

I'm looking forward to that -- I've gone through all the other commentaries already, yay me. (One of the funniest moments is when the main sound editor breaks out in an amusing rant about how Elrond's character just complains all the time! Meanwhile, editors Jamie Selkirk and Annie Collins have some sharp if implied words for Hollywood unions at one point, which I found intriguing...)

It was pretty cool when Eomer saw Eowyn on the ground and went 'NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!' as well.

Hahaha, I like that idea. I always saw it as a distended skull grin myself, so I never think of it as funny. Figures. ;-)

Now I have to watch this on Netflix just to find out what wizard stabbing is really like, thanks Ned

It's subtle, I'd say.

And no, he didn't just die. He sorta died three times (in the space of fifteen seconds).

I wonder if Lee was upset by Sean Bean's woefully inaccurate depiction of what it's like to be hit in the chest with three arrows.

We could shoot Bean for real and find out the difference.

And thus we are agreed. (I have no idea if Bean is a dick or not, but as Jocelyn notes he's certainly died enough times. I think the only film he might have lived all the way through was Caravaggio and I'm not even sure about that!)

Good lord, that lasted about four weeks more than it should have. Rent it as cheaply as possible, and be bibulous beforehand.

No, he gets killed in Caravaggio (stabbed?)

Does anyone NOT get stabbed in that movie? (It's been a while since I saw it, I admit.)

I betcha Sean Bean never caught an axe to the face.

Well, Gimli could have misfired, but there ya go.

That Mouth of Sauron scene is really all about the editing and quick cuts and the way the guy keeps looking around all creepy-like and grinning.

Anyway, Jared Leto in Alexander:

HEPHAISTION: "I wear eyeliner and long hair to prove my love for you, o Feria-blonde king of Macedonia."

ALEXANDER: "Stay with me tonight, and bring the grease."

(some years later)

ALEXANDER: "...and we're going to see the sights! We'll go to Arabia, and Africa, and Disneyworld! Our kids will play together, even if they're not really our kids together because I guess that's why we have wives and concubines and all that, but it'll be just great and..."

HEPHAISTION: *vaguely gurgles and dies*

When I said "axe", I did not mean "dwarf penis".

"We march on! To India!"

*Alexander gets taken out*

"Hurts, don't it?"

When I said "axe", I did not mean "dwarf penis".

A lamentable condition.

It's been a long time since you saw Black Beauty, isn't it Dan?

Little Women, starring Claire Danes as Jason Voorhees.

Nickalicious's vision is most compelling, mind you.

http://images.usatoday.com/inside/photos/2003/10/21-21-rue-fxdphoto-0.jpg

The extended Two Towers and ROTK help flesh him out more, at least, and there are parts where John Noble I think nails the icy dignity of his character to a T -- most notably the eating/Faramir charge/Pippin's song sequence, unsurprisingly. But the decision to externalize what was mostly an inward collapse, while arguable from a cinematic point of view, meant it was always going to fall short a bit (thus the beacon sequence is interesting because in the book Denethor had already sent for Rohan for aid via beacons and riders both long before Gandalf and Pippin arrive).