The Lord Of The Rings Extended Edition Blu-ray Boxset review

Extra features

It’s hard to imagine any future Blu-ray release ever delivering a longer and more satisfying set of features than the package supplied with the extended edition of The Lord Of The Rings. So far as we can figure out with our relatively underwhelming grasp of maths, if you watched absolutely all of the extras supplied in this stunning Blu-ray package you’d be looking at a viewing time of around 72 hours. Which equates to three days. And when we say days, we mean full 24-hour, no-sleep ‘viewathons’. Crazy. But in a good way. Especially as almost without exception every minute of this extra content deserves to be watched or listened to.

The full list of content appears below, with some general comments afterwards. We haven’t done our usual thing of providing written reviews of absolutely every feature on the discs for the simple reason that we want to have the time to write about some other things before we die. But hopefully we can give you a gist of the special features extravaganza the discs treat you to.

Part 1: The Fellowship of The Ring
* 4 commentaries by the Director and writers; the cast; the production team; and the Design team.
* 6 From Book To Vision documentaries covering J.R.R. Tolkien, the adaptation process, planning the film, designing and building Middle-earth, plus a visit to the Weta Workshop taking a close-up look at costumes, weapons, armour, creatures and miniatures created for the film
* An interactive Middle-earth map tracing the journey of the fellowship
* Galleries of art and accompanying slide shows with commentaries by the artists (this includes an archive of nearly 2,000 images)
* Storyboards and Previsualisation sequences with film comparisons.
* 11 documentaries under the heading ‘From Vision to Reality’, covering the cast, principal photography, a day in the life of a Hobbit, visual effects, post production, editing, music and sound, and the release of the film
* Galleries of behind the scenes photos.
* A 1 hour 24 mins documentary by Costa Botes containing raw, behind the scenes footage of the film-making process.
* ‘Easter Eggs’ on each main film Blu-ray disc, accessed by pushing right when you’ve got ‘Commentaries’ selected on the onscreen menus. On disc 1 you get a hilarious MTV spoof of the Council of Elrond featuring Jack Black, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and the reincarnation of the ring as, well, a Prince Albert… On disc 2 you get the preview for The Two Towers that appeared on the original Fellowship DVD release.

Part 2 – The Two Towers
* 4 commentaries by the Director and writers; the cast; the production team; and the Design team.
* 5 Documentaries under the theme ‘The Journey Continues’. These cover how the book was adapted into a screenplay, the origins of Middle-earth, designing Middle-earth, and a visit to the Weta Workshop for an in-depth look at how Gollum was brought to life
* two interactive maps: a Middle-earth atlas and New Zealand as Middle Earth
* Galleries with audio commentaries (includes over 1,500 images)
* 8 documentaries under the theme The Battle For Middle-Earth Begins, covering the filming process, visual effects, editing, music and sound, stunts and fight training, and a visit to Weta Digital
* an interactive sound demonstration of The Battle of Helm’s Deep
* Galleries with audio commentaries (includes nearly 300 images)
* Another of Costa Botes’ behind the scenes, feature-length documentaries.
* Another Easter Egg on disc 1 of the main movie, accessed in the same way those on The Fellowship…, features Gollum’s acceptance speech for the MTV Movie Awards.

Part 3 – The Return of the King
* 4 commentaries by the Director and writers; the cast; the production team; and the Design team.
* 6 documentaries under the theme The War of the Ring, covering how the book was adapted into a screenplay, designing Middle-earth, a visit to the Weta Workshop, costume design, and ‘more’
* 2 interactive maps: Middle-earth Atlas and New Zealand as Middle-earth
* Galleries with audio commentaries (includes an archive of over 2,000 images)
* 7 documentaries under the theme The Passing of an Age, covering the filming process, visual effects, editing, music and sound, and a tribute as cast members bid farewell to Middle-earth and the characters they played
* Production photos gallery
* The last of Costa Botes’ behind the scenes, feature length documentaries
* Two final easter eggs, accessed in the same way they were on the previous discs. The first is a very funny clip of Dominic Monaghan interviewing an unsuspecting Elijah Wood via satellite while pretending to be a German journalists, the second is a spoof pitch by Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn making a pitch for the release of more Lord of the Rings sequels.

Let’s start our more detailed look at some of the features with the commentaries. The lead one each time features Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh (writer/producer), and Philippa Boyens (writer).

First, the bad news: we found it a touch irritating how the disc keeps putting up the name of the speakers on this commentary track, as you really don’t need to be told who it is. Especially as the voices are mixed so that Peter Jackson takes the centre channel, while Philipppa gets the right and Fran gets the left.

The content of these director/writer commentaries is consistently brilliant, though, packed with great anecdotes, humour, and loads of fascinating talk about stuff like structuring the story across three films and the sort of minutiae that goes into making huge films work. It’s fascinating to learn, for instance, that Andy Serkis directed some of the scene where Smeagol strangles his friend, for the simple reason that ‘nobody else was available to do it’!

These lead commentaries are also particularly useful if you want to trace the extra content that’s been inserted into the Extended Editions. And terrifyingly, there’s even some talk of further material that hasn’t been added!!

All three speakers are very personable, chatty, and self-effacing, ensuring that these commentaries are fascinating from start to finish, and absolutely not to be missed.

The second commentary on each disc is by the design team, comprising Production Designer Grant Major, Costume Designer Ngila Dickson, Weta Workshop Creative Supervisor Richard Taylor, Conceptual Designer John Howe, Supervising Art Director/Set Director Dan Hennah, Art Department Manager Chris Hennah, and Weta Workshop Manager Tania Rodger.

These commentaries are overall the least interesting of the four found on each disc. This is partly because the sheer number of speakers makes them feel a little disjointed, partly because the content just isn’t as interesting, partly because the speakers sound a bit shy, but mostly because Richard Taylor has possibly the most annoying – and loud – nerd voice we’ve ever heard. Basically, if you’re looking to save yourself 12 hours or so, then these Design commentaries would be the thing to skip.

It’s back to form with the third commentary on each disc, though, from the production and post-production team, comprising: Producer Barrie M Osborne, Executive Producer Mark Ordesky, Co-Producer & Editor Jamie Selkirk, Additional Editor Annie Collins, Co-Producer Rick Porras, Composer Howard Shore, Visual Effects Supervisor Jim Rygiel, Supervising Sound Editor/Co-Designer Ethan Van der Ryn, Supervising Sound Editor Mike Hopkins, Visual Effects Concept Designer Christian Rivers, Visual Effects DP Alex Funke, Weta Visual Effects Supervisor Joe Letteri, Animation Designer and Supervisor Randy Cook, and Weta Visual Effects DP Brian Van’t Hul.

This is better than the Design Team one because the speakers are consistently more engaging and because they cover a wider variety of content. There’s a little crossover with the director/writers commentary, inevitably, but all three of these production/post production commentaries are still well worth a listen – especially for learning more about the sound design process that’s often overlooked by most commentary tracks.

The last commentary on each disc is the Cast one. This includes Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Sean Astin, John Rhys-Davies, Bernard Hill, Christopher Lee, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Orlando Bloom, Hugo Weaving, Miranda Otto, David Wenham, Karl Urban, John Noble, Andy Serkis, Lawrence Makoare, plus both Gollum and Smeagol!!

Each one of these cast commentaries is great fun. Clearly not all the actors were together at the same time, so the talk has been edited together, possibly from interviews in some cases. And as often happens with edited commentaries, while there’s not a lot of continuity, you do get consistently good stuff. There’s a real mix of characters too, varying between the very earnest, the laid back and the often downright hilarious in the case of Boyd and Monaghan.

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