My four children all have different levels of geekiness but, so far, my youngest son (13) is the only one even mildly interested in The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. I devoured those books in junior high school and enjoyed The Simarillion as the cherry on top. To this day, yes, I can recite the family tree of the Noldor.
I thought, well, perhaps the best place to start would be the movies. I received the newly released single Blu-ray extended editions of each of the The Lord of the Rings trilogy to review, and my son agreed to sit and watch The Fellowship of the Ring with me. I suspect half the appeal was getting my undivided attention but that’s okay. I try to do unique things with each of the four of them.
The results? Now we’re planning on watching the next two. Success!
But with a few caveats.
First, he was finally old enough to sit still watching a movie for that long. And, even so, I didn’t have four hours in a row to spare, so we watched it in two separate sittings. We stopped at the same time as disc one, as the Fellowship forms in Rivendell. We picked it up the next day from the journey from Rivendell to the final confrontation that sunders the Fellowship.
I suspect younger children would not have as much tolerance for such a long movie.
Second, he hasn’t read the books. He still followed the story well without being confused. Part of this is due, no doubt, to the additions in the extended edition, which has much more about the war of men and elves against Sauron in the beginning, and a little more about Bilbo and the ring. This was the first time I’d watched the extended editions too — see not having four hours available at any one time — and it’s so much better than the theatrical release. There’s more of Middle Earth permeating this edition whereas the theatrical release felt truncated.
Because of this, I’d recommend the longer edition, always.
Aside: I wonder if Jackson was making these movies today if he’d split up the Fellowship into two movies, as they’re broken up on the Blu-ray set. At the time, the movies were a big gamble, so it’s clear why it wasn’t done.
Third, I’d forgotten how scary the movie is in places. My son was fine. His twin sister wandered in and out and noted how scary it was. Keep in mind your child’s tolerance for the Black Riders and the Balrog.
One technical issue. The score was louder than the dialogue, so we spent some time turning up the volume to hear the words being spoken and yet having to turn down the volume during some action sequences.
My favorite part of sharing the experience with my son is that his favorite scenes were invariably the ones I loved from the book: Bilbo’s party and the fireworks, Gandalf’s stand on the bridge in Moria (my all-time favorite scene in the books and one I memorized as a tween), and Boromir’s last stand.
We talked quite a bit about the changes from the books. I described Tom Bombadil and we both agreed the movie was right to leave him out. My son is also a bit obsessed with editing changes on movies and television shows and can already recite the differences in the different editions of Hayao Miyazaki movies, so he was fascinated with what the theatrical edition cut out of The Fellowship of the Ring.
All three movies are now available on these five disc extended edition Blu-ray sets, with all kinds of extras and bells and whistles. For example, Fellowship contains:
Disc 1 (Blu-ray)
· The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Feature Extended Edition Part 1
· The Lord of the Rings: War in the North – The Untold Story Trailer
· Commentary with Director & Writers
· Commentary with Design Team
· Commentary with Production and Post Production
· Commentary with Cast
· BD-Live™ enabled
Disc 2 (Blu-ray)
· The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Feature Extended Edition Part 2
· Commentary with Director & Writers
· Commentary with Design Team
· Commentary with Production and Post Production
· Commentary with Cast
· BD-Live™ enabled
Disc 3 (DVD)
· The Appendices Part 1 From Book to Vision
· Peter Jackson Introduction
· JRR Tolkien: Creator of Middle-earth
· From Book To Script
· Visualizing the Story
· Designing and Building Middle-earth
· Middle-earth Atlas Interactive
· New Zealand and Middle-earth Interactive
Disc 4 (DVD)
· The Appendices Part Two From Vision to Reality
· Elijah Wood Introduction
· Filming The Fellowship of the Ring
· Visual Effects
· Post Production: Putting It All Together
· Digital Grading
· Sound and Music
· The Road Goes Ever On…
Disc 5 (DVD)
· Behind-the-Scenes Documentary Created by Filmmaker Costa Botes during filming of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
The other two sets are similarly loaded.
I despair at ever finding the time for the commentary tracks myself but now that the son is interested, he’s determined to tackle them.
And I’m sure he’ll be first in line with me to see The Hobbit. At last, a convert!
