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Peter Jackson
The Films: The Lord Of The Rings trilogy
Years: 2002-2004
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What makes them special? In general, names are not important when it comes to special editions – collector’s edition, extended edition, ultimate edition, super-mega-money-grabbing edition – even Director’s Cut, which is misused more often than not – all mean the same thing. When it comes to the Lord Of the Rings extended editions, however, the name is all-important because not only does Peter Jackson still consider the theatrical versions his director’s cut, but boy are these DVD releases extended, each film receiving between 30 and 52 additional minutes.
For the most part the additions are pure fan-pleasers and not required for a full enjoyment and understanding of the films. The additions are too numerous to list, but our favourites are Frodo and Sam seeing Wood Elves on their way to the Grey Havens, Aragorn visiting his mother’s grave and the gift-giving flashbacks (the scene which really should have been included in the theatrical cut as it explains where the gang got their fancy gear from) in Fellowship ; Merry and Pippin drinking Ent Draught and Boromir at Osgiliath in The Two Towers (more Sean Bean is always a good thing); and the appearances of Saruman and the Mouth Of Sauron in Return Of The King . Christopher Lee was very vocal about his opinion of being cut from the cinema version at the time, as he has a point; his ranty exchange with the Fellowship from the top of Orthanc is crucial to the themes of the film, and help give it more depth.
The additions make the films unbearably long for anything other than a lazy Sunday afternoon, but with just as much care and attention put into the extended scenes we haven’t watched the theatrical versions since, and wouldn’t dream of doing so.
The Film: King Kong
Year: 2006
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What makes it special? At almost twice the length of the original 1933 film, King Kong was already too long to start with, and this special edition adds a further 12 minutes, bringing the total runtime for the popcorn monster movie to three hours and 20 minutes – almost as long as The Godfather Part II . What makes it worse is that the new scenes don’t add a whole lot besides a few new creatures and some more Kong destruction. The most notable addition is a scene set on the river, where the explorers are attacked by a giant piranha-like fish, a triceratops attack and a climax to the canyon scene where Jimmy takes the hat of Hayes and bids him an emotional farewell.
What’s interesting is that the new and extended sequences included in the Extended Edition are almost all action oriented, whereas most of the character-centric cut scenes are left to the Deleted scenes section of the DVD – almost 40 minutes in all. Clearly Jackson didn’t think his theatrical cut was exciting enough; unfortunately these new scenes are little more than a drop in the ocean.
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