I don’t find the extra scenes with Merry and Pippin that bad. They are not great but they don’t hurt either.
Find the scene with Eowyn and Aragorn (stew scene) more troubling.
And all the extra Army-of-Dead-Scenes in ROTK ruin the movie for me.
Thats why I Cut those.This guy actually edited that scene with Eowyn and Aragorn in a way that cuts around the out of place stew joke and keeps the mention of Aragorn’s age. It’s not a bad edit at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdbV-97esNcIt’s funny, like half the EE scenes (while I loved them as a kid watching the movies), just don’t really justify themselves worth keeping. Army of the Dead scenes that remove all later suspense, the stew scene, drinking game scene, Merry and Pippin, Gandalf vs the Witch King (this is the worst). But of course it’s different for everyone. Hal9000’s extended edit of Kerr’s edit (while it does certain things I dislike to try and stay closer to the book) literally makes pelennor fields so much better by cutting it in a way that maintains tension and doesn’t let the dead army immediately win. I am nowhere near talented enough to do things like that on my own, so I hope someone can make a “less extended edition” of the 4K EE Dremasters when they’re all done.
It’s funny, because Gandalf vs the Witchking works absolutely fine in the movie. It’s being nitpicky to think it’s a bad call to make this moment slightly more cinematic. The fact that they never faced off in the books doesn’t mean Gandalf would have automatically won. I tried to edit it only to realise removing this is just petty. If gandalf can defeat the witchking it makes Eowyn’s moment less powerful. It’s good screenplay, honestly.
I did remove Saruman’s huge ugly fireball and Sam walking down the stairs, those moments annoy me on a cinematic level.
Anyway back on topic: can’t wait for this extended cut by Dre. Fellowship deserves it!
Will you also be regrading Two Towers and Return of the King, or are those deemed accurate color-wise?