Extended Additions

So maybe you've seen The Fellowship extended edition and thought, "well that was cute, we got to see Galadriel's gifts and a few wood elves." But if that's what you expected from The Two Towers extended edition you were sorely (or happily?) mistaken.

This film is just chock full of all sorts of extra scenes and dialogue; too much, in fact, to actually go through it all and talk about it… so we're going to hit some of the big ones and then think about it holistically.

The first addition that stands out is Faramir's flashback. In the theater versions, Boromir appeared in the first movie and Denethor II appeared in the last. But in the extended Two Towers, we get to see them all together in the not so distant past, a perfect family reunion.

Well, maybe not perfect. It's painfully obvious that Denethor favors his eldest son, even though Boromir tries to help out his little bro. While we were already made aware of the nature of their relationship (especially in the third film), this scene affects how we think of Boromir. In The Fellowship we saw him as dangerously greedy and selfish, but here we see the man he was before the temptations of the Ring, full of vigor and kindness, a person who would rather stay and fight with his men then travel to some foreign meeting of elves.

But aside from Faramir's memory, there are plenty of other small scenes, mostly scenes of dialogue that don't affect the plot (which is probably why they were cut in the first place). By why were these scenes cut? What makes a scene worthy or unworthy of making the theatrical release? Sometimes it's obvious. Merry and Pippin drinking Fangorn water and being attacked by a huorn might seem a little out of place.

But what stands out the most is the addition of comedy in the extended edition. It seems like every other added scene plays a role in creating humor: Aragorn hating of Éowyn's soup; Gimli and the forest; Merry and Pippin in awe of all the goodies in Saruman's storeroom; Treebeard's story…

The point is that, while most people think of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy as being very somber in tone, its sole comedy resting in a few winks from Gandalf, it was only brought to this after editing (for better or for worse is just a matter of opinion).