Before I could even recollect watching The Lord of the Rings as a child its incredible story was being seared into my brain from the many times I watched it. When I was finally old enough to appreciate and understand the epic fantasy film I’ve absolutely loved The Lord of the Rings trilogy ever since. Peter Jackson is hands down one of the greatest directors of all time because of his stunning job with those three films. And the casting was ultimately brilliant. I could easily go on and on about how great The Lord of the Rings is on all of its different levels but this post isn’t about that. It is instead about the wondrous discovery I found out just a few days ago.

Last week I was watching the extended version of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, which I enjoyed thoroughly by the way, and I found out that there were extended versions of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Now, I enjoyed The Hobbit Trilogy, especially the second one, but I LOVE The Lord of the Rings. I mean, I know every single movie by heart, that’s how much I love these movies. So when I found out that there were extended versions of these films it was like discovering the Holy Grail.

The Fellowship of the Ring is my favorite installment in the trilogy because it’s so marvelously enjoyable. And it has the most emotional significance due to Gandalf’s “death”, Boromir’s death, and the fragmenting of the Fellowship by the end of the movie. It’s simply a great film, but it is 2 hours and 58 minutes long. It’s a very long movie. The extended version, however, is literally 3 hours and 48 minutes long. Can you believe that? It’s nearly an hour longer! That is unbelievable and so I had to watch it. I’m glad to say it was just as great as I hoped it would be.

Like I said before, I know these movies backward and forward so it was amazing seeing these unknown scenes that clarified the trilogy’s story even further.

So, since I watched the first Lord of the Rings I had to see what the second one would be like and I was even more surprised.

First of all, the extended version of The Two Towers is 3 hours and 57 minutes long and let me tell you, there is so much content in this movie, original and new, that I recommend you to watch it over two days. It was so very long but it was so interesting as well. I mean I learned, thanks to the extended version, that Aragorn is literally 87 years old! That helps a very interesting reference in The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies. Let me explain.

At the end of the third Hobbit when the battle was over King Thranduil told Legolas when he was about to head on his way to go find a man named Strider. Now I remember being super confused about this because in my mind Aragorn was between 35 and 45 years old in The Lord of the Rings. So if The Hobbit was set 60 years before The Lord of the Rings how could Aragorn even be alive? Well, now that I know that because Aragorn is actually 87 then Aragorn had been 27 at the time. That’s amazing!

I’m telling you if you are a Lord of the Rings fan and you haven’t seen the extended versions of these movies you have to check them out. They are worth every second and are absolutely wonderful. Now, I haven’t watched the extended version of Return of the King but I’m sure it’s just as marvelous.

I thank you for reading this post and I hope you enjoyed. Happy Veteran’s Day!