Extended 'Two Towers' deepens the fellowship
By Terry Lawson
Knight Ridder News Service
Talk about being torn: The film lover in me wants to wait until "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" is re-released in theaters next month to see the extended version on the big screen. The DVD fan (and reviewer) can't wait.
All I can say after watching "The Two Towers: Special DVD Extended Version" (New Line) is that the extra 43 minutes re-edited into the epic enrich the second chapter of the trilogy, deepening the characters and the relationships — most specifically that between Aragorn and his father.
The additional scenes, which director Peter Jackson discusses in an incisive commentary that fans will eat up, also add dramatic balance to the film's momentum. Where the original version charged to its climax, this one allows the characters, and the audience, time for contemplation.
As with the first extended edition, this one devotes the first two discs to the film, which again has been painstakingly transferred, leaving it rich in glorious detail. The other two discs are given to hours of extras, with menus allowing you to navigate as if you were traversing the realms of Middle-Earth. The designers of this set deserve whatever DVD accolades are awarded.
Disc 3 contains features about how author J.R.R. Tolkien created Middle-Earth and how it was re-created for film; and production features on the creation of Treebeard, the Ents and other characters, and the one you will almost certainly want to watch first — the making of Gollum, from conception to conclusion, including footage of actor Andy Serkis that was used to animate the character we see on screen.
Disc 4 explores production design, the visual effects and the music with detailed looks at how the battle of Helm's Deep and the flooding of Isengard were accomplished. I could watch this stuff all day, and this set, beautifully designed with a gorgeous new illustration gracing the back cover, makes that possible.
Meanwhile, it's a banner week for music fans: At the toppermost of the poppermost is "Concert for George" (WEA), a two-disc set that brings what was one of the best tribute concerts in history into your home.
Disc 2 contains the film that was seen in theaters, documenting the 2001 charity concert organized by Eric Clapton in tribute to his friend George Harrison and featuring performances by artists who had a personal connection to him: Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, Bill Preston and, of course, Beatles comrades Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney. Even the members of the stellar backup band are all former Harrison associates.
Rehearsal footage and interviews are interspersed between the songs and sometimes during them.
Disc 1 is the complete two-hour, 40-minute concert, including the only non-Harrison music, a composition written by a frail-looking Ravi Shankar and performed by an ensemble led by his daughter Anoushka, and a rendition of "The Lumberjack Song" by the surviving members of Monty Python, augmented by Tom Hanks in the chorus.
There's not a single unnoteworthy performance, and the rendition of "Something" — which begins with McCartney on 'ukulele then segues into the "Abbey Road" arrangement — is a stunner, as is McCartney's version of "All Things Must Pass," an ironic and touching choice, considering the Beatles rejected that masterpiece for the band's worst album, "Let It Be."
Harrison is joined on DVD shelves today by another old partner via "Lennon Legend" (EMI), a two-disc collection of 20 John Lennon solo songs illustrated on video and remixed into a subtle 5.1 Surround sound.
Some of the videos have been seen on a previous, out-of-print VHS collection (although in some cases, in different form), but many were created for this set, available in both the usual DVD snap-case and a CD-style jewel-box.
The highlight is a new video for "Mind Games" which follows Lennon and Yoko Ono, the executive producer of the set, strolling in Central Park and catching the reactions of people understandably surprised to see him walking on the footpaths instead of on the water.
New collages have been created for "Working Class Hero" and "(Just Like) Starting Over" in the style of "Free As a Bird" from "The Beatles Anthology," the latter being especially moving.
Ono directed an unsettling new video for "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" made up of news footage of starving children, refugees and other war victims — including those in Iraq — and ending with Mohandas Gandhi's observation that "an eye for an eye will make us all blind."
The best of the extras is the little-seen Lennon performance from "A Salute to Sir Grade" in which his band, A.N. Other, performs in masks.
Charges can be made that the set over-sentimentalizes the man, but overall it's impressive.
