My roommate is the sort who would watch TTT and be like, "Wait, isn't the White Wizard the bad guy? Surely he --" and I'd have to shush her for the 0:59 that it would take for the story to explain that part. She is very much with the unspoiled anticipatory quibbling.

the reason that I, as a non-Tolkien-reader, expected Frodo to die is that Galadriel says that Frodo is beginning to realize he won't survive (or something to that effect).

"The quest will take his life." Which is actually sort of true, but only sort of. The films don't make nearly so clear how wrecked he is when he gets back to the Shire. Instead of being sore on the anniversary of getting stabbed at Weathertop, he spends the whole day in bed moaning. In the books, it's sort of a relief that he's going someplace where the pain will stop.

I don't know about the extendo-Return on DVD come May. That's pretty fast -- 5 months -- for a normal theatrical film, and leaves not a lot of time for the recording of interviews, the editing and assembling of appendix materials, and then the (1) re-edit of the film, (2) the [re-]completion of the digital effects, (3) the re-recording of dialogue, (4) the reworking of music, and then (5) the recording of commentary tracks. Having nobody busy working on a next film frees up some people-hours, but there are still things that need to be done in sequence, so the process can't be sped up that much.

I heard that the five hours was a mis-statement -- that the > 4 hours and 50 minutes was supposed to be > 4 hours and 15 minutes.

The main reason I can't see the EE coming out in May is that the movie will have only been out of theatres for a month or two at that point. Studios usually like to leave more space than that.

4 hours and 50 minutes was supposed to be > 4 hours and 15 minutes.

That makes a lot of sense. It's still pretty damn long.

I wonder if the May date refers to the release of the theatrical version on DVD.

Not five hours?

t chin quivers

Suela, we can watch the countryside beauty shots in slomo. That will make it 5 hours.

(Although I would prefer a 5-hour cut, because at least there's a chance they'd cover all the story in as much fullness as would make the story flow properly. I.e., nobody disappears for 1/3 of the movie. I'm looking at the time-budget, and all the scenes that got cut, and 4:15 doesn't look like enough.)

My Tolkein-virgin cow-orker saw it the second time this weekend, and came in to pepper me with questions. Given that he said things like "You know, they mention a balrog once in the first movie, but you never see one" and "No, the things the black riders ride are called "nazgul" - remember, the Witch-King says "Never get between a nazgul and his prey" ?" he was very emotionally into the movies.

He wanted to hear all about how Saruman dies in the books, so my roomies and I told the story of the Scouring, and he was almost tearing up at the end. His comment, "Wow. I mean, I like the bit where they are at the table and the pumpkin is more exciting than they are, but wow. That would've been so awesome. Just perfect."

I'm guessing the DVD in May is the theatrical version, based on past performance.

4 hours and 50 minutes was supposed to be > 4 hours and 15 minutes.

I did hear that Jackson's first rough cut of the movie WAS in the 5 hour range, though.

watching FotR after seeing RotK is absolutely heartbreaking.

Last night, the Encore Action channel had the theatrical release of FotR on (fullscreen, damnit--grumblegrumbledamnmoviechannelscan'tevenshowwidescreen versionsgrumble), which I haven't seen in a very long while, and I watched it (well, I spent the first hour flipping back and forth between it and The Frighteners on SciFi). Considering I haven't seen any version of FotR since Trilogy Tuesday, I was practically in tears seeing laughing, cheerful, healthy Frodo in the Shire.

he spends the whole day in bed moaning.

Was there a Beta unit involved? (Sorry, my mind went into The Last Starfighter mode for a minute...)

(well, I spent the first hour flipping back and forth between it and The Frighteners on SciFi)

That must have made for an interesting combined movie....