Cinema Experiences – ‘The Lord of the Rings’ Film Trilogy (January 2024)

Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

For the past three weeks in January, my parents and I have been checking out ‘The Lord of the Rings’ film trilogy on the big screen at Showcase Cinema in Nantgarw near Cardiff. We’ve greatly enjoyed ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’, ‘The Two Towers’ and ‘The Return of the King’ at the cinema. 🙂

Back in April 2018, my parents and I saw ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ at Showcase Cinema in Nantgarw. We hoped it would be followed up by ‘The Two Towers’ and ‘The Return of the King’ afterwards, which sadly never happened. Thankfully, that was made up for in the first month of 2024. 🙂

When we saw ‘Fellowship’ in 2018, it was the extended version of the film. The same applied to our recent rewatch of the entire film trilogy on the big screen. We saw the extended versions of ‘Fellowship’, ‘Two Towers’ and ‘Return of the King’ on the big screen, which is pretty exciting indeed.

Of course, that meant the films were pretty long, with ‘Fellowship’ and ‘Two Towers’ lasting for about 3½ hours and ‘ROTK’ lasting for about 4 hours. Knowing the films inside out and knowing when the halfway points would be, I decided to take comfort breaks after sitting in a seat for so long.

I wish that there were intermission breaks when my parents and I went to see the ‘LOTR’ films at the cinema, as it would’ve benefited me to see the entire films without missing out on certain scenes. Regardless, watching these movies were amazing. They truly do stand out in being great epic films. 🙂

It’s also amazing that we got to see the ‘LOTR’ films in extended form instead of their theatrical cuts. I think many people prefer the extended versions of these films nowadays, and it makes sense, considering ‘LOTR’ fans would want to see the long versions of the films instead of the shorter ones.

When watching the ‘LOTR’ films on the big screen, you pick out certain details and hear pieces of dialogue you never heard of before from seeing the films on DVD and Blu-ray at home. I was able to see new aspects of characters walking about particular places in Middle-Earth, which is incredible. 🙂

In a scene in ‘Two Towers’ where Frodo and Sam are being brought into the Window of the West waterfall by Faramir and his men, I didn’t realise that they were coming in from the right instead of the left. I assumed they came in from the left when watching ‘The Two Towers’ on the small screen.

For ‘Two Towers’ and ‘ROTK’, my parents and I enjoyed Frankie & Benny’s meals of cheesy garlic bread and lasagnes before we went into the cinema. Whilst watching the ‘LOTR’ films on the big screen, I enjoyed having cups of hot chocolate and marshmallows from Costa in Showcase Cinema. 🙂

I never saw ‘Two Towers’ on the big screen before, so it was pretty thrilling to see the film at the cinema for the first time, particularly with the Battle of Helm’s Deep scenes. I saw ‘ROTK’ in 2003, but that was the theatrical cut. Seeing ‘ROTK’ in extended form recently at the cinema was amazing.

You do get more out of watching the extended versions of ‘LOTR’ compared to the theatrical cuts. I appreciate the scene of Pippin meeting up with Faramir before swearing his service to Denethor in ‘ROTK’ more, as that was never shown in the theatrical cut when I first saw it at the cinemas in 2003.

It was good to see scenes in the ‘LOTR’ films never originally shown at the cinemas from 2001 to 2003 on the big screen recently. I enjoyed the Boromir flashback scene in ‘Two Towers’ as well as the Voice of Saruman and the Mouth of Sauron scenes in ‘ROTK’ when watching them at the cinema.

It’s very easy to argue that the ending of ‘ROTK’ is very long and drawn-out, but over the years, I’ve grown to like that ending to ‘LOTR’ more and more. It didn’t bother me that the ending was too long when I first saw ‘ROTK’ in 2003. It still doesn’t bother me when seeing the film in its extended form.

I’m pleased that my parents and I saw ‘The Lord of the Rings’ film trilogy recently on the big screen. These films are timeless classics and I still regard them highly. When they’re being re-released for a limited time at Showcase Cinema in Nantgarw near Cardiff, you know that they continue to be loved. 🙂

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now!

Tim 🙂