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Aside from taking one night off between the two series, we saw them one night apiece, and it was quite a slog as each of the Lord of the Rings movies were the extended editions and those things are 5 hours each! And we had a bit of a heart stop when the DVD player locked up about 10 minutes in to the first movie! No idea what happened, ended up having to unplug it to free it up, it was fine thereafter. Also odd was that I split the sound so that the audio from movies comes through my Onkyo receiver and my B&W speakers, and that worked for the first movie, but then I don't know what happened, but maybe the receiver died? Fortunately the new TV has pretty good sound, but it has to be turned up loud, like around 80+ on a 0-100 scale. We also ended up renting The Return of the King through iTunes: turned out that the surplus of Hobbit movies at the two used book stores in Las Cruces was entirely in my mind. We could have bought a new one easily enough, but were kind of fixated on a used copy. Of course when you look at the cost of the rental plus the used, we're probably at the cost of a new.
Now whenever someone does something stupid in traffic I'm likely to exclaim FOOL OF A TOOK! for some time.
It was nice seeing all of the movies in logical order since the movies were made in the Rings/Hobbit order. I have no idea what order I originally read them in, it's far too many years and books ago. I remember when my wife first found me online that one of the reasons she wanted to come to Phoenix was to see one of the movies in a good theater, which we did.
My wife made the observation that pretty much all of the female roles were added in, such as Tauriel in the Hobbit series - created whole-cloth for the movie, otherwise there wouldn't be any women in the first movies except for Galadriel's cameos, and I don't remember if she appeared in the book, too long since I've reread it. You had Eowyn, vital in the third Rings movie and just a foreshadowing in the second, and Arwen who wasn't much more than a plot complication except early in the first movie.
While I know we watched the Rings extended editions when we got them, apparently I really didn't remember them. The additional footage was quite good, and I think Peter Jackson - for the most part - did an excellent job bringing the books to the screen. There are somethings that were big mistakes, like Aragorn's "death", and some things that just did not work for me on a technical basis like when they used children or little people as stand-ins for the hobbits in long shots. They just didn't work. I don't know if costume alterations could have made it work or what, but a straight stand-in substitution just didn't work for me. I didn't spot a couple of editing mistakes that were made in the theatrical releases, so those must have been corrected for the extended DVDs.
The extended release DVDs are on two discs, I wonder if a single BluRay could hold the full five hour movie. Obviously it couldn't hold the movie and the bonus content. Maybe it's best to have it on two discs so you have a convenient intermissions point.
Still, we really enjoyed doing something that we've never done before. It's a heck of a time commitment, but my recovery made this an ideal time to do it. My one regret was not laying down a hard and fast rule to start the Lord of the Rings movies at 7pm, getting to bed for me at close to 3am was rough, but my wife had to do some remote work on the telescope so starting early wasn't in the cards. She really appreciated it as Middle Earth is a really special fanfic for her and she's written some really good stuff on AO3 for it.
Now whenever someone does something stupid in traffic I'm likely to exclaim FOOL OF A TOOK! for some time.
It was nice seeing all of the movies in logical order since the movies were made in the Rings/Hobbit order. I have no idea what order I originally read them in, it's far too many years and books ago. I remember when my wife first found me online that one of the reasons she wanted to come to Phoenix was to see one of the movies in a good theater, which we did.
My wife made the observation that pretty much all of the female roles were added in, such as Tauriel in the Hobbit series - created whole-cloth for the movie, otherwise there wouldn't be any women in the first movies except for Galadriel's cameos, and I don't remember if she appeared in the book, too long since I've reread it. You had Eowyn, vital in the third Rings movie and just a foreshadowing in the second, and Arwen who wasn't much more than a plot complication except early in the first movie.
While I know we watched the Rings extended editions when we got them, apparently I really didn't remember them. The additional footage was quite good, and I think Peter Jackson - for the most part - did an excellent job bringing the books to the screen. There are somethings that were big mistakes, like Aragorn's "death", and some things that just did not work for me on a technical basis like when they used children or little people as stand-ins for the hobbits in long shots. They just didn't work. I don't know if costume alterations could have made it work or what, but a straight stand-in substitution just didn't work for me. I didn't spot a couple of editing mistakes that were made in the theatrical releases, so those must have been corrected for the extended DVDs.
The extended release DVDs are on two discs, I wonder if a single BluRay could hold the full five hour movie. Obviously it couldn't hold the movie and the bonus content. Maybe it's best to have it on two discs so you have a convenient intermissions point.
Still, we really enjoyed doing something that we've never done before. It's a heck of a time commitment, but my recovery made this an ideal time to do it. My one regret was not laying down a hard and fast rule to start the Lord of the Rings movies at 7pm, getting to bed for me at close to 3am was rough, but my wife had to do some remote work on the telescope so starting early wasn't in the cards. She really appreciated it as Middle Earth is a really special fanfic for her and she's written some really good stuff on AO3 for it.
