The first act is perhaps the greatest example of seamless exposition in filmmaking ever produced, as the production covers 6,000 years of history, a textbook’s worth of world-building, and the introduction of a dozen immediately compelling lead characters. There isn’t a wasted shot in the theatrical edition of The Fellowship of the Ring. Theatrical LotR is all killer, way less filler

The way Peter Jackson really imagined it. Finished with the movie? There are dozens of hours of cast and crew interviews about the techniques used to make the film and the friendships forged on set - enough behind-the-scenes adventures for their own trilogy.īut when I sit down to watch The Lord of the Rings, I want to watch it the way it looked in the theater. They boast “deleted scenes” fully integrated with the films themselves (so big you have to swap discs halfway through, like a VHS copy of Titanic or a 1990s video game), complete with fully treated special effects and a restrung score. The Extended Editions of the Lord of the Rings movies are legendary among the canon of home video releases, and rightfully so. This is Polygon's Year of the Ring.īut if there’s one controversial opinion the most likely to elicit a shocked gasp and an immediate accusation of being no real fan at all, it’s this one: I prefer the theatrical versions of The Lord of the Rings to the Extended Editions in the deluxe boxed set.

So each Wednesday throughout the year, we'll go there and back again, examining how and why the films have endured as modern classics. 2021 marks The Lord of the Rings movies' 20th anniversary, and we couldn't imagine exploring the trilogy in just one story.

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