Lord of the Trilogies

Mary and I got through watching the last disc of the Lord of the Rings Extended Edition on Wednesday night. All I can say is "Wow." That was a fantastic trilogy. Of course, it did take us about two weeks to make our way through the six DVDs/11 hours worth of movie. But it was worth it.

So many good scenes from the book were added to the final product. Most importantly for me, the Faramir character is somewhat rescued from the hack job that was done to him in the theatrical presentation. And including the "Mouth of Sauron" scene before the final battle in Return of the King was also crucial, just to see Gandalf actually go into despair when they are tricked into thinking Frodo had perished on the way to Mount Doom. I also enjoyed seeing Saruman's character restored (and then killed off on screen) for the final film, even if Peter Jackson took serious liberties with the manner of his death.

Finally, while watching these movies, I noticed that there were a lot of "Kevin Bacon game" trilogy connections flowing through Lord of the Rings:

Hugo Weaving -- Lord of the Rings and Matrix trilogies
Christopher Lee -- Lord of the Rings and Star Wars (II and III) trilogies
Ian McKellen -- Lord of the Rings and X-Men trilogies
Orlando Bloom -- Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean trilogies

The difference, of course, is that all those other trilogies had some serious flaws. Lord of the Rings really didn't.

Okay... enough wasting time. I have to get ready to go to Pittsburgh for the weekend.