Home Theater: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Platinum Series Special Extended Edition and The Ultimate Matrix Collection

One DVD set to rule them all

By Bob Grimm

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Platinum Series Special Extended Edition

Movie:

Special Features:

No doubt many of you got this one for the holidays and you're waiting for that perfect time to set aside three days of your life to watch the whole damn thing. As with the first two parts of director Peter Jackson's trilogy, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King has been expanded for this second DVD release (a two-disc set featuring the theatrical version was released earlier this year). There are more than 50 minutes of new scenes, and they do not disappoint.

Christopher Lee, who was publicly irritated with the omission of his character Saruman's demise from the theatrical release, gets his time to shine. Actually, he gets his time to be stabbed in the back repeatedly by Brad Dourif before tumbling off his big tower thing and getting impaled on a water mill wheel. It's odd that Jackson cut this moment from the theatrical release but it's back now, so no harm done.

The majority of the added footage fits seamlessly into the production. If you're not actively seeking out the new scenes, you might not notice much of a difference from your theater and/or first DVD release experience. The movie is nearly an hour longer yet in a strange way it almost feels shorter. That's a good thing.

Jackson and friends won Oscars galore for King and they deserved every one. Now the film is even better, and it makes one wish J.R.R. Tolkien had written another 50 or so Lord of the Rings books because the journey is over. Actually, if Peter Jackson and New Line can get United Artists to release its death grip on rights to The Hobbit, the journey might have one prequel chapter left.

Special features: There are four commentary tracks from Jackson, the actors and the writers, and I think there's one with Peter Jackson's dog. That's more than 20 hours of viewing if you want to get them all in. The Appendices, Jackson's remarkable documentaries on the films that have been featured on each of the extended-edition releases, come to a mighty entertaining conclusion. Jackson had a videographer capture his main performers' last shots of the production and lots of tears and hugging ensue. The backgrounds and explanations on how the film was put together are unprecedented in scope. Many hours of informational goodness and all of them are entertaining to watch.

Extras outperform Matrix sequels

The Ultimate Matrix Collection

The Matrix:

The Matrix Reloaded:

Matrix Revolutions:

Special features:

The first film was a science fiction classic, the second provided reason for worry and the third sucked. The Wachowski brothers simply got carried away with their Matrix trilogy. It started as a scrappy techno wonder with good performances and great special effects and degenerated into an expensive, rather boring Sunday school lesson with Keanu Reeves looking like he wanted to take a nap. Wouldn't it be nice if Reloaded and Revolutions were just big expensive jokes, and the Wachowskis were working on the real sequels in secret? That would be fun.

Special features: Even if you don't like the sequels, this package is pretty good. Each film comes with a special features disc of documentaries and galleries, with additional discs dedicated to The Animatrix (anime inspired by the films), The Burly Man Chronicles (a look at those who participated in the making of the films), The Roots of the Matrix (technology and philosophy that inspired the films) and The Zion Archives (promo material galleries). In some cases, the behind-the-scenes stuff is better than the sequels. Best of the features would be the commentary tracks on each film provided by critics who are very honest in their hatred of the movies.

For Christmas, I received The Ultimate Matrix Collection Limited Edition Collector's Set, and I must report that the display case and Keanu Reeves statue are awesome.