The Lord of the Rings (Special Extended Edition) (VCD)
Disc 1: Disc 2, Disc 3, Disc 4: Special Feature: A Day In The Life Of A Hobbit Movie:
* * * ½ Whether you'd buy this Special Extended Edition on DVD however
unfortunately doesn't only depend on your geekiness. It also depends on your
budget: the four disc DVD set would set you back US$39.99 at Amazon.com
(list price). This is a lot of money, no matter where you are from. Here in South Africa I can roughly buy ten new release music CDs with
what this box set costs. No matter how big a Tolkien fan you are, the
chances are that you'd spend more time listening to those ten music CDs than
you would watching the longer version of Fellowship . . . even though it is
a pretty long movie. (One can also buy a cheap DVD player in South Africa
for that price. Sort of puts it in perspective, doesn't it?) If, like me, you'd rather have some more Jimmy Smith or Joe Henderson CDs
nestling in your collection, then there is another option: the Special
Extended Version sells for a mere $12.97 at Eureka-Movies.Com.
This is almost half of what it would cost you on VHS ($24.99 Amazon.com list
price)!
You also get a small booklet outlining the new scenes added by director
Peter Jackson as well as the new musical cues added. Very neat and
professional - remember that these are the official VCDs. This is a set you
can definitely show off to your friends. On the fours discs you get the Special Extended Version stretched out
over four discs, sandwiched in-between the full trailer for The Two Towers
sequel and a small featurette titled "A Day In The Life Of A
Hobbit". This featurette details the hours of make-up sessions the
actors who played the Hobbit leads had to go through each day. In case you missed it, Hobbits have huge hairy feet and like one actor
remarked you could see this only in a few scenes in the final movie, whereas
the actors had to undergo all those tortuous make-up sessions during each
day of filming! (Luckily this featurette is at the end of the movie and not the start.
Otherwise I would have counted how many times you can see the feet of the
Hobbits - something I found myself doing while watching The Two Towers later
on!) The movie itself is presented in its original aspect ratio. The sound is
excellent and the image quality due to the VCD compression is of the best
I've seen in this format yet. No complaints there - you only notice
artefacting if you sit too close to your TV screen, something your mother
should have taught you not to do.
Some of the added scenes are quite good and it is a pity that they never
made it to the theatrical version. Fans of the movie would definitely want
to check out this version: I never found it to be a long slog despite it
running for three-and-half hours maybe because my sitting room sofa is a lot
more cushy than most cinema seats. RECOMMENDATION: At about a third of what the DVD will cost you,
this set is a bargain. With the money you saved you can even buy three other
movies on VCD at Eureka-Movies.Com
such as Lilo & Stitch, Minority Report and
E.T.
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THE DISCS: This is one of the handsomest VCD collections I've ever
seen. The packaging is almost identical to that of the DVD set and fits in
nicely with all my other DVDs in the handy DVD rack my wife bought me for
Christmas. (It looks like a small brownish book that you can fold open to
reveal the four discs and some beautiful artwork under the trays.)
WORTH IT? Checking out The Fellowship of the Ring again before
seeing its sequel is a good idea since Two Towers has no small sequence at
its start to get you up to speed again. (My wife and I watched it a week
before go to see the second instalment on the big screen.) Also, I found
myself enjoying the movie more the second time around. (Maybe its earnest
bombast is less grating on the small screen - I don't know.)