(New HD Version in the works) Sharkey's "Lord of the Rings" Purist Editions (Released)

Sweet!  I'm a huge Tolkien fan, and would love to see a cut of the films that is more faithful to the books. All your changes sound great. I have some sugggestions that you may want to consider:

- Remove the subplot of Saruman spawning Uruk-Hai, which wasn't present in the book. At the very least cut Gandalf saying that Saruman is mixing orcs with "goblin-men", a statement which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

- In TTT, when Wormtongue is describing the Ring of Barahir, his delivery of the line is... weird. Sounds like he's saying "Two serpents: One devouring, the other crowned with golden flowers." Something should be done to fix it.

Also, some suggestions for RotK, when you get to that:

- Remove the mystery of where Sauron will attack. He has already attacked Osgiliath, so it should be obvious that he means to attack Minas Tirith.

- The end of Aragorn challenging Sauron with the Palantir should be cut. I think it would be more effective to end it with "Behold the sword of Elendil!", as was done in the trailers.

- Recolor the army of the dead, as they are described as grey in the books.

- Cut as much as possible of "Sauron the Lighthouse".

Looking forward to seeing these! Any idea of when the first discs will be released?

Hal 9000 said:

About your suggestion for ROTK that we remove the mystery of what Sauron will do, this would raise some trouble. In the movie, they want information of Saruon's plans from Saruman but don't get them because he is killed. So then Pippin accidentally gets some from the Palantir. And that is why they go to Minas Tirith, to get the heads up on Sauron's plan.

The only way I can think to bring this in better line with the book is to remove Gandalf saying that they got a glimpse of the enemy's plan, and maybe get rid of the "information" aspect from Saruman's final scene.

I took a look at these scenes, and think it could be doable. The Saruman scene will be difficult to edit, but the scenes at Edoras can be made to work. After Pippin has looked in the Palantir, Gandalf asks him what he saw. You could cut from this to "I saw... I saw him!". Later, in the Golden Hall, you could cut from "...he told Sauron nothing of Frodo and the Ring" to "His defeat at Helm's Deep showed our enemy one thing etc." This would also make Gandalf a stronger character, since he already knows Sauron's next move and how to respond to it.

Some more suggestions: Use the theatrical versions of the Council of Elrond and the fellowship entering Lorien. I thought Gandalf reciting the ring verse in Black Speech in the EE was weird and out of character. It was in the book, sure, but not like that. As for the entrance to Lorien, the costumes of Gimli and Legolas are different from the ones they wear in the rest of the movie in the EE version of the scene. Also, some of the shots were reused when Frodo looks in the Mirror of Galadriel. Oh, and in RotK, I suggest using the theatrical version of the Paths of the Dead. The EE added too much slapstick to the sequence.

Hal 9000 said:

I've never actually seen the theatrical versions, to be honest. I became a fan just a year or so ago. 

What are the differences between the two versions when they enter Lorien?

The theatrical continues the scene after Haldir saying "The dwarf breathes so loud we could have shot him in the dark". Aragorn greet Haldir in elvish, and Gimli says that the woods are perilous, and they should go back, to which Haldir replies "You have entered the realm of the Lady of the Wood. You cannot go back. Come; she is waiting." Cut to the fellowship ascending the stair of Caras Galadhon.

The EE version is better in many ways, but they should have reshot it with the updated costumes. As it stands, it really sticks out as a scene that was never meant to be in the movie.

Hal 9000 said:

By the way, in my version Gandalf now says Saruman is breeding orcs with men. I removed the "goblin" prefix.

Great! That line has bothered me to no end... I just don't understand how PJ can have misread Tolkien's books, as I can only assume that the line was taken from TTT, where Tolkien writes about the "half-orcs and goblin-men" that attack Helm's Deep.

As for the Council of Elrond, I had forgotten that Boromir's dream wasn't in the theatrical. It should stay, of course, and I guess it would be impossible to remove just Gandalf's Black Speech. Oh, well.

A suggestion for TTT: When Legolas and Gimli compare kills, you should cut Legolas shooting the dead orc that Gimli is sitting on because it was "twitching".

I 100% agree with using the theatrical Paths of the Dead sequence.  The EE totally ruined any suspense there, plus it made the cool moment of the Dead attacking the ships into something redundant and boring.

And I'd suggest cutting the EE addition of Frodo and Sam wearing orc armor in Mordor - I always thought that bit was just stupid and didn't fit with the movie at all.

This sounds like an awesome project!  I'm a huge fan of the books--the movies, not so much.  When they get things right, they're spot on, but when they're wrong, they're way the hell off, not to mention plain awful.  My biggest gripe is with Gollum: he is completely mischaracterized in my opinion.  The movie oversimplifies him into "good Smeagol, bad Gollum", which while not contradicting the books directly, really misses the point.  Gollum does not really have a split personality; he merely argues with his conflicting feelings about how best to get the Ring.  In a way it's as if the "two sides" are Gollum and the Ring arguing, the Ring being his temptation to slip back into his old ways, which of course he ultimately succumbs to.  There is no "evil persona" that is separate from the rest of him--I really hate the way the movies portrayed that.  It reminds me a lot of similar scenes in Spiderman, and that's not a good thing to have to compare it to.  I don't know how much can actually be done about it, but if there's any way to reduce the parts where he argues with mirrored evil versions of himself it would probably go a long way towards rectifying this grievance.

Another thing to consider is to try to eliminate Saruman's reference to "the union of the Two Towers" near the beginning.  Not only does this go along with what you were saying about making Saruman be out for himself, but I dislike the way it misrepresents the title of the story: what the two towers actually are.  In the book the two towers are Isengard and Cirith Ungol, the place where Frodo is captured and imprisoned before Sam rescues him.  Since this is shown in the 3rd movie, where it lines up chronologically, while in the books it is at the end of the 2nd, the change I suppose makes some sort of sense, since Cirith Ungol isn't actually seen in the 2nd movie, but I still don't like it.  It just . . . sounds dumb.  That isn't Christopher Lee's fault, he's brilliant as always, but it just isn't a good line.

My other big gripe about the movies is the way Frodo is made into an ineffective weakling, cowering and wimpering away from the Nazgul and from Gollum instead of bravely facing them, even when gravely injured.  Unfortunately, I'm at a loss of how to make that any better.  It happens so many times--Weathertop, the Ford, Mount Doom, to name a few--that it's probably unfixable.  Alas . . .

At any rate, I'm quite interested in this project.  Keep at it!

Sweet! I'm looking forward to watching this. It's great that you haven't compressed the DVD files, as I would prefer to watch these in maximum quality. I think I'll post a detailed review once I've finished downloading and watching, which will probably take a while. Anyway, congratulations on finishing FotR, and good luck on the next ones!

I'm surprised that no one has commented on these yet.  I watched FOTR tonight and I thought the cuts were seamlessly.  Only one cut that wasn't as smooth, but it might be from the extended edition and not from the fan edit.

I'll soon watch TTT.  I noticed that ROTK is now available as well.

Good job on the work.  I liked Peter Jackson's FOTR, but didn't like TTT and ROTK as much as they were cheesier and more action orientated.

Yea these are great!  Just finished watching your Fellowship...  The edits are very well done!  Can you tell more about the 'revamped' book cuts you mention??? Also... does anyone know of a place where Lord Phillock's book cuts are still available?  Thanks!  

I finished the 3rd movie last weekend.  I think the film is much more improved and will be watching this set over my originals.  Very nice!

I didn't mention it earlier, but for some reason many of the Rohan extras in The Two Towers bugged me.  I think it's bz their acting is poor.   My reaction was similar to when Arnold Schwarznegger grieved for his dead girl in beginning of the End of Days -- I had no emotion emotion attachment to his lost daughter from his acting and lack of the girl's character development.

Are you planning on filtering the Book Cuts for TT and ROTK like what Lord Phillock did to better match how FOTR looked?