The extended editions of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings present the greatest trilogy in film history in the most ambitious sets in DVD history. In bringing J.R.R. Tolkien's nearly unfilmable work to the screen, Jackson benefited from extraordinary special effects, evocative New Zealand locales, and an exceptionally well-chosen cast, but most of all from his own adaptation with co-writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, preserving Tolkien's vision and often his very words, but also making logical changes to accommodate the medium of film. While purists complained about these changes and about characters and scenes left out of the films, the almost two additional hours of material in the extended editions (about 11 hours total) help appease them by delving more deeply into Tolkien's music, the characters, and loose ends that enrich the story, such as an explanation of the Faramir-Denethor relationship, and the appearance of the Mouth of Sauron at the gates of Mordor. In addition, the extended editions offer more bridge material between the films, further confirming that the trilogy is really one long film presented in three pieces (which is why it's the greatest trilogy ever--there's no weak link). The scene of Galadriel's gifts to the Fellowship added to the first film proves significant over the course of the story, while the new Faramir scene at the end of the second film helps set up the third and the new Saruman scene at the beginning of the third film helps conclude the plot of the second.

What a Director's Edition Should Be

The LOTR extended establishes the precedent for quality director's edition. It's not like they added various unfinished parts that confuse the plot/characters (SW episode 4) and a making of video. This contains the various subplots and minor motives that weren't necessary, but useful, to tell the story. Therefore to keep it short, they got cut. Well, here they are and they really fill out the films. The characters are more robust (you learn that Aragon lived in Rivendale for a bit), the minor loose-ends tied up (like what happened toIf you plan on watching the DVD's more than once, you shouldn't even consider getting the non-extended. It's that simple.

About the length: Yes 11 hours is long. Only rarely should anyone, or any group, sit down and watch the whole thing mostly straight through. If you do this more than twice a year, you probably have too much time, or need a social life. But it is nice to come home from work and toss one of the DVD's in and watch about 2 hours. In that case the extra-tasty bits are excellent. They fill out the plot so much.

Again, if you actually plan on watching LOTR not just letting it sit on your shelf, get this version.
Also if you're a director, don't release a "Super Director's Extended Edition" DVD unless it's like this.

Will please even the most stubborn of skeptics...

If you're looking for a detailed synopsis, there's many well thought out reviews on this site which'll help you. I'm commenting from the perspective of someone who was completely out of the LOTR loop. I missed the theatrical versions & avoided the DVDs for some time, until a friend urged me to watch his copies of the Extended Editions. One rainy afternoon, I finally relented...and after sitting through all 11+ hours (over the course of two days), I must admit I was quite humbled by the experience. No way in a million years did I expect to be blown away like I was, and yet that's exactly what happened. I got so caught up in it, I had to remind myself I was watching a fantasy and not an actual historical re-enactment. Anyway, my point is that you don't have to be the proverbial "fanboy" to enjoy this trilogy. This is essential viewing for any self-respecting movie fan, and deserves all the praise it gets (most notably for Sean Astin's performance...remarkable). A slam-dunk 5 star purchase...if the Extended Editions seem too pricey for a "blind buy", just rent Fellowship Of The Ring for starters, and shortly afterward you might find yourself saving up for the entire trilogy...

Mine. All Mine. My Precious.

Certainly, if you're any kind of "Lord of the Rings" fan, you'll want these DVDs just for the extra scenes. They do an excellent job of fleshing out the story, filling in important details such as how Frodo gets the Phial of Galadriel or what happens to Saruman the Wizard. For those with serious time constraints, the six DVDs lend themselves handily to leisurely watching the movies one DVD at a time over six weekends. Or, of course, you can throw sanity to the wind and watch all of the nearly twelve hours in one, single, "ringathon" session.

About the only scene in the entire extended epic which I didn't much care for was the Mouth of Sauron; it was just plain creepy, and the way Aragorn dealt with the Mouth was out of character and differed too much from the book. But, the beauty of DVD players is that most come with fast-forward buttons, so no big deal.

However, the complete Extended Edition consists, not of six, but of twelve DVDs. Disks Three and Four for each movie are filled with extras: documentaries, interactive maps, still photos, and interactive videos. One of the latter allows you to go through a scene at Helm's Deep, and progressively add in different sound effects to a silent video until you get the finished result in the film. A similar video depicting the Mûmakil battle in front of Minas Tirith allows you to progressively add in the special effects.

I have to say that, as excellent as the movies are, the extras are even more fascinating, if you can imagine such a thing. I've already been through all of the documentaries not once, but twice. Each DVD has, on average, about three hours of video, so I find that it takes me about six to eight weekends to work my way through the entire lot. If you're interested in the art of filmmaking, this material is an absolute must. It takes you through the entire process of adapting the novels to screenplays, storyboarding, animatics, on through production (the actual filming), pickup shots and post production: adding the special effects, sounds and music, and figuring out how to put it all together and what to leave out.

Collectively, these movies won 17 Academy Awards, with "Return of the King" alone tying "Ben Hur" and "Titanic" for 11, the most ever for a film. By the time you get through all the documentaries, you'll fully appreciate what a staggering accomplishment director Peter Jackson pulled off, and why he deserved every award he got. He could not have done it at all were it not for the shared vision of hundreds of fanatically dedicated workers working sometimes around the clock to make sure every detail was exactly right. It was a stroke of genius on Peter's part to recruit Alan Lee and John Howe, both of whom are well-known Tolkien artists. This allowed Peter to give the movies such an uncannily familiar look and feel. You look at the Golden Hall of Edoras and say "of course that's what Meduseld looked like! I knew it all along!"

It would be impossible to cover all of the extras, so I'll just focus on some of my favorites. At the start of Disk Three for each movie is a biographical section on Tolkien and the kind of things that inspired him to pen "The Lord of the Rings". There is a documentary on the various tricks used to take normal-sized actors and shrink them down to hobbit or dwarf size, and make it look utterly convincing. The bane of earlier fantasy films, such as "Willow", was their inability to portray realistic "little people". One technique, called "forced perspective", has been around at least since the 1950s, but Peter came up with an interesting new twist.

In the sections on adapting the books into the screenplays, they do an excellent job of explaining why they felt it necessary to depart from the books in some places, up to and including dropping whole sections, such as the scouring of the Shire.One major issue they had to deal with was how to introduce Arwen, who basically in the books just shows up for her wedding with Aragorn, and we have no idea who she is. They went so far as to try to portray her as a sort of warrior princess at Helms Deep, but then, thankfully, hit upon the idea of using flashbacks instead.

By far the best documentaries, in my opinion, are those which deal with Gollum. I can remember sitting in the theater at the start of "The Return of the King", watching as Gollum hid under the mountains ("we even forgot our own name!"), and thinking to myself: "I wonder if Andy Serkis really liked having his eyelashes plucked out," seeing how it didn't look like he had any. Only then did it occur to me that I was looking at a computer-generated character. It was so utterly convincing that I completely forgot. Now that's movie magic.

In the documentaries, we learn how Andy Serkis was initially brought in just to do the voice of Gollum, and to interact with Sam and Frodo in practice sessions before they would proceed to do the actual shoot talking to thin air. It didn't take Peter very long to figure out that it just looked better with Andy present. In post production they painted him over with the animated character. Also, his facial expressions as he said his lines were absolutely priceless. They actually redesigned Gollum to reflect this more accurately, which is why the few glimpses we get of him in "The Fellowship of the Ring" don't look quite right. Several times the documentaries show a split screen with Andy on one side, speaking his lines, and Gollum on the other; the resemblance is most startling. It's a shame Andy didn't get an award for his performance, but there wasn't any real category that could describe what he was doing. Was it acting? Voice acting? Something totally new?

Another thing which I came to appreciate was that, in undertaking such an enormous project spanning up to eight years, it really has to be fun. Peter Jackson made it fun. He has a wonderful sense of humor. He gave everyone free artistic rein, checking in on them from time to time to make sure everything was in line. They came to feel like family. Forget joining the circus. When I grow up, I want to work for a digital effects company!

Well, now that I've been through the extras, I'm probably due to actually watch the movies again, with an artist's eye to how it was done. Then I'll probably go through the extras once more. I can truthfully say that this is by far the greatest DVD production I've ever seen. I can only hope that Peter eventually gets permission to film "The Hobbit". The Middle Earth saga will not be complete without it, and it's impossible to imagine any other director doing it justice.

A final note: another thing which really strikes me about Peter Jackson is his compassion. Case in point: the inclusion of a special memorial documentary called "Cameron Duncan: The Inspiration for 'Into the West'". This tells the story of a very talented young man whom Peter, and indeed many of those working on "The Lord of the Rings", befriended. Cameron showed great promise as a filmmaker but, sadly, succumbed to cancer. One concern he expressed near the end was his fear of being forgotten. To paraphrase Peter: "He's on the DVD. He will not be forgotten."