Lord of the Rings Extended Edition Marathon

I was excited for this day. A few weeks back when the tickets for The Hobbit went on sale they announced that they were going do have a one day marathon where they would screen all three Lord of the Rings Extended Edition movies back to back to back. Well being the huge fan that I am I jumped at the opportunity to get tickets. I put a call out there in the social network world asking if anyone wanted to join me. I mean I would have gone alone if needed. No one responded and I wanted to get the tickets quickly to get good seats. So I purchased two and figured I'd find someone in the next few weeks to join me.

I asked my bestie Josh who is more of a Tolkien fan them me (I know it's hard to believe). But he had work and was already requesting time off the following week so he didn't think he could get the time off. I then asked another bestie of mine Robert and after a few minutes to consider what he was agreeing to, he said yes.

So today Robert and I met up at The Arclight Sherman Oaks at 9:30am. When we got there we found a table where employees explained to us what was about to happen. We had 20 minute breaks between each movie. We would get popcorn and soda free all day and they had box lunches that we could order if we wanted to. We immediately took advantage of the free popcorn and soda. Got into the theater and found our perfect seats.. We sat there and chatted at what we were able to do watching other folks come in with pillows, sheets and such to get comfy. At 10am an employee came in and once again went over what was to happen, the run time of each movie (which everyone laughed) and when each movie would be starting. The lights dimmed and the The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition began.

228 minutes later ( 3 hour 48 minutes) Fellowship was over and we were 1/3 through our day. We got up and headed to concession, which was a madhouse. We waited in line our entire 20 minute break. We got the the front with only a few minutes to spare and planned on getting some hot dogs for lunch but they were out (very poor planning). So instead we got some apple smoked sausage baguettes things which were just like hot dogs only spicier. Of course we refilled out popcorn and soda and headed back into the theater. Since it was such a mess outside they extended the break another 10 minutes before starting the next installment The Two Towers.

235 minutes later ( 3 hours 55 minutes) Two Towers was complete and we were now 2/3's of the way through our marathon. My right knee was starting to act up so I walked around a bit. The concessions weren't as bad this time around but we had misunderstood about the box lunches, you had to order them before the intermission so they were ready at the intermission, so our dinner plans fell through and we resorted to more popcorn and some candy for dinner. Headed back into the theater for our final installment of Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. This one was special as it had a Hobbit preview as well as an introduction by Peter Jackson. I think this is the print they used when the Return of the King played in the theater for a day to promote the Blu ray release.

263 minutes later ( 4 hours 23 minutes) Return of the King was finished thus concluding our Lord of the Rings Extended Edition movie marathon.

I had done this marathon in a theater before when Return of the King was first released, they did Fellowship EE and Two Towers EE and then premiered Return of the King. This was at the Cinerama Dome and the seats were horrible uncomfortable. The Arclight has much better seats. But this was my first time seeing the Extended Edition of Return of the Ring in the theater.

The audience was perfect, they cheered, boo'd and clapped during the movies. It was a room full of Lord of the Rings diehard fans and it couldn't get any better then that. These people payed $30 a ticket to sit in a dark room for over 11 hours and watch one of the best movie trilogies of all time.

Robert was amazed at what he actually just did. I'm glad I got to experience this with one of my best friends. It truly is a rare occasion (this actually being the first time ever) where you can watch all three Extended Edition movies back to back to back on the big screen. I'm so happy I did it.


Afterwards we headed back to Robert's place, picked up some much needed food from Taco Bell and crashed at his place for a half hour or so before heading back to my place as we had planned to spend the entire day tomorrow watching Holiday movies and hanging out.