November 29, 2003

Happy Thanksgiving
Eric the Brown

I want to start by wishing all of you a happy Thanksgiving. As fans of the movie triology we certainly have many things to be thankful for not the least of which is the upcoming ROTK and of course the marvelous TTT EE.

I have watched the TTT EE twice and watched two of the commentaries with the actors and with PJ, Fran and Phillipa. The extra scenes are all wonderful but none more so than the twisted family relationship of Boromir, Faramir and Denethor. It is too bad that particular scene was not in the theatrical cut as after watching it my wife, who has not read the books, said that the movie made much more sense with that scene added. The shot with Boromir on the battlements of Osgiliath placing the flag of Gondor was thrilling. Also the dialogue between the two brothers and then their father helped develop not only Faramir's character but that of Boromir as well. However I also could see why many of the other scenes were cut for pacing reasons.

The commentaries are fun and I enjoyed the actors perspective except for Sean Astin at times when he constantly interrupts Elijah and Andy. Also when he tries to go to deep in his intellectualizing of the film. PJ and his writing team were really interesting and I enjoyed their explanations of changes and cuts they made. They made a very good case for all of them and it would do some good for the overly negative fans to watch the commentaries so they could better appreciate the difficulty in adapting Tolkien's work to film.

I bought my tickets to opening night ROTK for myself and two good friends. Can you believe that in just over three weeks we will finally be able to see ROTK! I can hardly wait!

Eric the Brown