DVD: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King – Special Extended Edition

Fresh from the victory at Helm's Deep, the armies of Middle Earth go to the aid of Gondor to defeat the armies of Sauron. Meanwhile, Sam, Frodo and the treacherous Gollum continue their perilous journey to Mount Doom...


Return of the King continues the good storytelling, epic scale and technical expertise of the previous movies to conjure up a rich world, and it's easy to see why it scooped 11 Oscars. Eager fans may have already bought the DVD of the theatrical cut, but as The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers proved, the extended edition is well worth the wait. For starters, it's brimming with additional scenes, made up of 50 minutes of never-before-seen footage. This is spread throughout the disc in extended footage for existing scenes, as well as some superb additional sections.

The extra footage takes the overall running time up to a massive 250 minutes, which is a feat in one sitting. It's not filler, though, as the bonus material adds a vital depth to the characters. Scenes such as the extended victory party for the battle at Helm's Deep provide a welcome break before battle must commence again. Peripheral characters such as Faramir and Saruman, both cruelly overlooked in the cinema version, also get more of a look in. The Mouth of Sauron, whose part was cut completely, is added back in, which will please fans of the original Tolkien novel.

The first two discs contain the movie and commentaries, including one by the director Peter Jackson and writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens; one by the design team; one by the extensive production/post production team; and one by all the main members of the cast. The other two appendices discs are bursting with extra features, including a mass of documentaries covering the creation of the movie from script to design, costume, creatures and effects. These are usually engrossing affairs – it's amazing to see how much effort goes into making webs for Shelob's lair, for example – and the cast and crew are clearly used to talking about their roles by this stage.

The extra that shows why Peter Jackson was the right man for the job is the Abandoned Concept: Aragorn Battles Sauron. Hand-drawn storyboard stills, unfinished CGI and voices pretending to be the actors show Aragorn battling the physical form of Sauron last seen at the start of the first movie. Fans of the books know that Sauron was never more than an evil presence, and this Hollywood ending would have been a disaster following a (fairly) faithful adaptation.

Fans have come to expect a lot from previous extended editions and this version doesn’t disappoint. A must-have addition to the collection of any fantasy fan.

Buy The Lord of the Rings – Return of the King from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com