Ticket to 11.75 hour long Lord of the Rings trilogy movie marathon: $25
Large popcorn and large drink (free refills on both): $9.25
Value of candy confiscated by Candy Nazi: $2.00
Seeing the "I've-been-waiting-all-my-life-for-this-moment" movie with your best friend: Priceless

All I can say is: holy crap. That is, once I pry my eyelids open and pick my jaw up off of the floor. Even twelve hours later and my jaw is still being drug around on the floor wherever I go. Needless to say, it's been difficult talking to anyone today here at work. It's all I can do to NOT talk about the movies. Can I say it again? HOLY CRAP.

I can't even begin to put into words how impressed I was by all the movies, especially Return of the King (RotK). It was better than I expected. And I expected a lot. It lived up to all my anticipation and expectations and even more. If you can imagine how I felt in the moments leading up to the start of The Fellowship of the Ring when it opened, it felt like that moment multiplied a hundredfold. Out of the three (well, actually six) Lord of the Rings books, the ones containing Return of the King are probably my favorite. What I would give to be able to go see it again tonight. And tomorrow night. And the night after that. And the night after…

I did have a bit of trouble falling asleep The Night Before. With all the excitement and anticipation flowing through my veins, I was not at all sleepy. I ended up putting Air Force One in the VCR and laid on the couch until I eventually drifted off. I woke up around 9:30am and called Co-worker Buddy to see if he was up and about. Whereas I had just arisen, he had already had a busy morning running various errands. But the plan was for me to go over to his house to see Need for Speed: Underground and the RotK PC game and then head out for the theater around noon. I told him I needed to run by the grocery store real quick and then I would be right over.

After packing up the treats I had planned on smuggling into the theater, which consisted of 1 pack of gummy bears, Rice Krispy treats (4), Snickers bars (4) and Kit Kat bars (2), and Ensure drinks (3), I went by Kroger to pick up my last staple of movie going - a pack of Twizzlers. I headed over to Co-worker Buddy's house and we spent the night 45 minutes messing around on his computer. It was perfect that we left for the movie having just played the part of Aragorn and Gimli in the PC game.

We arrived at the theater at 12:30pm and left around 1:30am in the morning. However, we underestimated the number of sheer die-hard LotR Fan Boyz/Girlz(TM) as there was a huge line waiting outside the theater by the time we got there. An hour and fifteen minutes early. Co-worker Buddy was despondent as he had given up hope of getting any good seats. I was more optimistic seeing only about 50 people in line ahead of us. After we had been in line a little while, someone came out from the theater and told some friends of his ahead of us that he had saved seats for them, and that the entire center section had been filled up. :( Crap. We found out later that people had started lining up as early as 8am, and they had started letting people into the theater at 11:00am. Hope diminished for us.

The reason it was taking so long to enter the theater was that they were letting each moviegoer in one by one, and printing name stickers that you could put on the back of your seat, thereby reserving your seat while you left during intermissions. And they were doing a pretty thorough body search for weapons and contraband (i.e. candy).

By the time Co-worker Buddy and I reached Theater Security, we were nearly half frozen having waited out in the barely above freezing temps for almost 45 minutes. My hope for an Ideal Movie Watching Experience diminished further as the Candy Nazi found my gummi bears and KitKat bars. They went into this huge box containing other Confiscated Candy. "You can reclaim these at the end of the night," they told me as they waived me through. "Yeah, right," I thought. Like anyone is going to want to wait to get a few dollars worth of candy after a 12+ hour movie marathon. They may have found most of my candy, but I did manage smuggle in a huge pack of Twizzlers and a Rice Krispie treat. And Co-worker Buddy was successful in smuggling in some treats of his own.

We walked promptly to the theater and Co-worker Buddy was correct on his assessment. There really weren't any 'good' seats left. Especially for two seats together. We ended up splitting up and sitting apart to my dismay. I sat probably in the upper quarter of the theater, about a third from the left. Not terrible by any means. At least we didn't have to sit up front.

A quick run to the restroom and concession stand for a large free refillable butter-ladened popcorn and we were set. The moment was almost upon us. I observed several LotR Fan Boyz/Girlz(TM) dressed up in various Hobbit outfits and as Co-worker Buddy coined it, "Elf Wench" outfits. I noticed a few of them out smoking some ciggies during intermission. I don't know if it was just me, but I just thought that was quite humorous seeing a Hobbit smoking a cigarette.

Seeing as how it was taking longer than usual to get everyone into the theater (having to do the seat tags and body cavity searches), the FotR didn't start promptly at 1:45pm, but closer to 2:10pm. But when it did start, boy did it start. No consumer-sucking ads. Not even the glimpse of a movie trailer. It launched directly with the Rave Motion Pictures trailer followed by the New Line Cinemas and Wingnut Films credits. And we were off.

The first two films were awesome as I expected. But it was especially good seeing the extended editions for the first time in the theater. During intermissions, Co-worker buddy and I journeyed out to his minivan and consumed some Subway sandwiches we had brought with us. One bonus was that they had pizza for each trilogy movie goer at the first intermission but I didn't feel like eating pizza nor waiting in huge lines for it. Plus I was going to be damned if was going to pay $5 for a stinking hot dog. I did break down and bought a large free refillable Coke at the first intermission, I admit. I figured if I was going to be in the theater for half a day, that would be worth it.

After watching the first two movies which provided a great lead up to RotK, I was finally ready to see the culmination of five years of work. Just before the start of RotK, one of the staff got everyone to quiet down and told us they had an announcement. They thanked us for coming out for the special feature and told us that as a token of their appreciation, New Line Cinema had a special unique collectible frame with 3 film pieces cut from each one of the 3 movies for each trilogy goer that we would receive as we left the theater. *woot* That led to a huge roar of cheers and applause. How cool was THAT???

I thought that the movie rocked in every way. My hat is off to Peter Jackson. Even though parts of the story deviate from the books and certain parts were omitted, I thought he did a very admirable job in bringing the story to a movie. When I first heard that they were making LotR, I was hoping it wouldn't be another cheesy sword-and-sorcery flick. And Peter Jackson brought it off in every aspect.

***Warning! Danger Will Robinson! Spoilers below!***

I can't say enough about RotK - it was a masterpiece. Sure there were little things that bothered me, but I couldn't have been any happier. I can't tell you how long I have waited for the Eowyn-Witch King scene - that was probably my most highly anticipated scene of all three movies. And I also thought PJ did a great job switching back & forth between 3 different storylines. I imagine that presented a big challenge trying to keep the movie flowing and giving adequate coverage to everything that had to occur.

I hope to see more in the Extended Edition DVD with Faramir/Eowyn, the sons of Elrond, and adding the watchers at the tower where Frodo was captured, and the Houses of Healing with Eowyn, Merry, and Faramir. I think that would have been hard to pull off in the theatrical version, but I can see those being put into the EE.

The seats we got weren't the greatest (as we underestimated the time when we should have gotten there) but that will be remedied with the next viewing of RotK.

Overheard as we were filing out of the theater:
Young college co-ed #1: "OMG, Legolas was so hot. Especially when he slid off of the oliphaunt. That was such a turn on." *giggle*

Young college co-ed #2: "Yeah, he is definitely lust-able material." *giggle*

Auuugggghh. I did NOT need to hear that.

I thought the 'final' ending was perfect - after all, that *is* how the books end IIRC.

Battle of the Pelennor Fields: Holy freaking shit. Amazing amazing stuff.

Some of my favorite scenes: The mustering of Rohan, Eowyn vs. Witch-king, Gandalf as a whirling dervish in Minas Tirith, Frodo/Sam/Gollum at the Crack of Doom, Grom, Large trolls in armor attacking Minas Tirith, Siege engines at Minas tirith.

Now after waiting for this movie for 5 years now (ever since I found out about the possibility of it being filmed), I have nothing left to look forward to. Except the DVD that is. There can be no other movies like it. Evar.

I was thinking maybe it would be cool if PJ made a special "fans" edition of RotK which included the Scouring of the Shire? Or include it as an alternate ending on the DVD? I would have loved to see the hobbits kick some "man-flesh" when they return to the Shire.

Final thoughts? Best movie(s) EVAR. Hands down. Nothing else even comes close. What an epic tale filled with great acting, great cinematography, great storyline, and deep messages. What else can one ask for?

Now to see when I can go see it with my Jen. :D