Practicalmadness

We spent most of today in bed, laying about and watching the new-and-improved DVD edition of The Fellowship of the Ring, which is now 208 minutes long and still feels a little short.

The best changes:
- The extended opening sequence feels much less abrupt and gives more screen time to Ian Holm, which is always a good thing. In fact, the entire first hour or so of the movie has been retooled to be closer to Tolkien's storytelling, rather than the conventional narrative approach of the theatrical cut. (Basically, for the three-hour theatrical version they favored Frodo and Gandalf in the opening because we're going to have to spend three movies with them and only one with Bilbo.)

- Throughout the movie, Frodo's role has been expanded, which is great because it breaks up the pattern of 'oops, this scene's been running for five minutes, time to save Frodo' that the theatrical cut fell into. He is stronger and more of a leader tot he hobbits, and seems like someone who just might be able to pull off this crazy ring-destroying quest.

- More Gollum. And more Gollum. And that's great, because (as we can see in the trailers) Gollum will play a major role in The Two Towers and it's important to establish his presence throughout the trilogy, not just in Part Two. So important, in fact, that it'll be interesting to see how they deal with having left this information out to begin with. Despite all his claims to the contrary, the longer editions of these movies seem to be Jackson's 'official' cuts, and ten years from now what we will be watching and rewatching is the twelve-hour DVD series, rather than the nine-hour theatrical version.

- The entire Lothlorien sequence has been reworked, and again, I can't see how they could have left this stuff out to begin with. The Fellowship's entry into Lothlorien isn't nearly as easy as it was in the movie, and Galadriel's role is much expanded. We see that she is a ring-bearer, and we see her give parting gifts to all of the Fellowship which will become significant as the saga continues.

Basically, this version is the one they should have released originally, as it solves so many little problems without adding too much to the running time. That's not to say that the theatrical version was as flawed as most movies, but how can we go forward into The Two Towers and beyond without knowing (for example) how Sam gets his rope?

The making-of documentaries, meanwhile, are not only good -- they are long. We haven't even touched Disc Three yet (containing docs about Tolkien and the pre-production and design process); Disc Four alone (covering principal photography through the film's release) runs about three hours, on top of three and a half for the new cut of the feature.

Like the DVD Journal once said about the Criterion Brazil set: "Forget your weekend plans." (That set used to seem like such a big deal. Heh.)