Monday, February 07, 2005

The Lord of The Rings Extended DVDs

All of the extended DVDs for LOTR are great, even though the extended version of Fellowship is probably the best. The real value is in the commentaries and "making of" features. I especially like the parts where the art department shows the evolution of their design ideas. It's really inspiring. They didn't just design some random outlandish costume and think, oh, how fucking clever we are.

For example, they go into this whole thing about these faint little ovals etched on the Gondorian helmets. It turns out these are stylized seagull feathers and they're there because Gondor was founded by Numenor, a maritime power. The Gondorian armor in the Third Age is a watered down (pun) version of what you see Isildur and Elendil wearing in the prologue of the first movie, 3,000 years before. The sea motif is in the design of Minas Tirith too. The big jutting piece of rock that Denethor jumps off of is supposed to remind one of the prow of a ship. That's cool, and it makes sense. I also like how on the Fellowship DVD they talk about the dwarvish architecture and how they hit on the idea of using geometric designs for them (to represent minerals). There's tons of stuff like that on the extended DVDs.

So buy them already.

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