'The Lord of the Rings' Trilogy at the Cinema

‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ (online cinema ticket)

‘The Two Towers’ (online cinema ticket)

‘The Return of the King’ (online cinema ticket)

A couple of weekends ago, our local cinema had showings of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy – the extended editions!

This December marks the 20th anniversary of ‘Return of the King’, and I’m guessing the reason the trilogy was screened in September and not December, is because this year marks the 50th anniversary of Tolkien’s death.

Even though I’d already seen the films on the big screen when they were first released 20+years ago, the boys never have, and none of us have seen the extended editions on the big screen, so we kept that weekend clear as it was too good a chance to miss.

We could have had a marathon cinema session – watching the entire trilogy on the Saturday, starting at around 11:00 and finishing after midnight, with breaks in between – but we split them over 3 days.

Apart from knowing my lower back would not have been happy with that long in a cinema seat, comfy as they are, the cats would have staged a major protest over their long-delayed mealtime!

The one big downside of going to the cinema 3 times in quick succession – the same pigging trailers, and none of them were interesting.

But, hey ho, extremely small price to pay, and the adverts and trailers barely lasted 15 minutes, which was good.

As Howard Shore’s unmistakable score began, the buildup of excitement was as goosebump-inducing great as when I watched the film for the first time all those years ago.

Incredibly, despite having watched the films more times than I remember, there were still things I saw for the first time, probably because I was seeing it on a big screen.

For example, the river on the right of the screen during the opening for ‘The Two Towers’…

(the opening of ‘The Two Towers’)

And Isildur’s reflection in the Ring when Gandalf reads ‘the account of Isildur’ in Minas Tirith in ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’…

Isildur holding the Ring

One thing we appreciated even more was the scenery – talk about breathtaking, clichéd but true.

Nothing in the films come across as dated, not the cinematography, Howard Shore’s stupendous soundtrack, the costumes, the settings, the effects, nothing – these films certainly stand the test of time.

One thing that caught us by surprise – the intensity of the Nazgûls’ screams - each time, I almost covered my ears!

I could go on and on about the films; suffice to say, we had a fantastic time watching ‘The Lord of the Rings’ at the cinema, and we spent many a happy hour afterwards talking about it.

The 25th anniversary of ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ is 3 years away; fingers crossed, we may get some treats in the form of some of the unused footage, like when a younger Aragorn and Arwen first met… one can but hope.