The Two Towers - EXTENDED EDITION!

[Evil Agent]

So what did everyone think?

I haven't watched any of the special features yet, but they sound BRILLIANT (Especially the 40 minute documentary on the making of Gollum, and the cast commentaries which are the only DVD commentaries I've watched).

But as for the movie itself, how about all those extra scenes?
Being a LOTR maniac, I loved it immediately. There were a few scenes that felt a bit... odd, or out of place. But I felt that way on my first viewing of the EXTENDED FOTR as well. It's cause after seeing the movie 20 times, a new scene will obviously stick out like a sore thumb. I'm confident that after seeing it again once or twice, it will just be perfect.

As for the specific additions, there were some that I REALLY really loved:

-ALL the extra Gandalf dialogue... I wasn't expecting that!
-Aragorn and Brego's first meeting
-Merry and Pippin's Ent-Draughts, plus an unexpected homage to Tom Bombadil and Old Man Willow!!!
-Theodred's funeral

and above all, BOROMIR'S VICTORY SPEECH and the whole scene with Denethor/Boromir/Faramir. It was the scene I was awaiting the most, and it didn't disappoint me. It seems like EVERYONE loved Sean Bean as Boromir. And I was pleasantly surprised with my first viewing of Denethor in action as well.

What did everyone else think?

[Bear]

I loved it. Much better than the theatrical release, IMO. The pacing didn't feel so rushed, and it felt like there was a lot more to the movie than Helm's Deep.

[Shehzad]

C'mon Amazon, deliver already.

[Kamakhya]

The Gollum extra is fantastic. It really clarified how they made Gollum so real. The actor behind Gollum did a stellar job and after watching the making of Gollum, it was nice to see him get some credit.

[kater]

I have a question, will there be an extended edition box set or is it worth picking them up individually?

[rune]

I loved it :D
It felt like I was watching a whole new film :)

I definately think the extras in this and the FOTR fill in a lot of back story. There were things in the feature version that I couldnt understand, but this extended version enlightened me. I wish more movies would do this kind of thing.

rune

[Miriamele]

I am SO upset that I have to wait for Christmas to get this one. That's okay though, at least I know I'm going to get it.



But I can't wait! :(

[Tomsk]

I wish I had a DVD player!!!! I would definatly get it if I did, it sounds great. One quenstion though, who on middle earth is Brego? I feel I should know but, er, I don't. Can someone fill this in for me please?

[Frostmourne]

Brego is Aragon's horse. The main reason I saw it was to see Boromir in action again. As the only member of the fellowship who died and stayed dead, he has a special place in my heart. Plus his line

"One cannot simply walk into Mordor."

From then on, I'm like, this guy is one of my favourites.

[Evil Agent]

I have to agree, Sean Bean ruled from his first line. And the funny thing was, I wasn't expecting to really like his version of Boromir when I first saw film 1... now he's one of the best!

As for not watching it cause you don't have a DVD player, I'm 99% sure you can still rent it/buy it on VHS... It won't have all the special features, but it will have the extra 40 minutes.

Now, back to the extra scenes:

-I was SOOOOOOO thrilled to see more pipe-weed! I felt like after leaving the Shire, the pipe weed was almost forgotten... whereas in the book they still talk about it. It was great to see it included once more.
-The scene where Merry and Pippin find food and pipeweed after the flooding of Isengard was GREAT, but I have to agree with some reviewers who said it kind of took away from the original climax (where sam gave his speech and everything)... there was so much added at the end that it really changed the mood. But I still think that more is better, so I'm happy with it.

And now, after pondering it for 3 days, I think that my single favorite added scene is:

The Huorns at Helm's Deep!!!!! That was beyond cool. *@$^!ing brilliant! I ALWAYS had a problem with that aspect of the movie, since it didn't explain how all the orcs suddenly died/disappeared. So Gandalf arrived with Eomer, so what? But now the Huorns are there, to eat the extra couple thousand orcs, and it all makes SO much more sense. Also, they look freakin' awesome.