Lord Of The Rings fever is dormant in our blood and has AWAKENED.

This past weekend, we had a chance to watch all three LORD OF THE RINGS extended editions in a theater, back to back to back, at the historic Aero Theater in Santa Monica, CA. It’s been awhile since we’ve seen them and this blogger has never partaken in the extended editions of the films before. There is so much more nuance and character in these versions, that it was like watching them for the first time. Twelve hours flew by like the Great Eagles into the siege of Gondor! Each film, nearing the four hour mark with a food truck outside the theater, nearly the entire audience stayed the entire time. They cheered the appearances of the main heroes and actually HISSED at the appearances of such treacherous villains such as Wormtongue. This audience was primed and their excitement fueled everyone else’s. Classic moments were punctuated by hoots and hollers and sad moments were so quiet that you could hear a pin drop with the occasional soft sobs. Everyone was so engrossed the entire time, except for the girl who played candy crush in the 4th row for nearly 3 HOURS during THE TWO TOWERS. One of my favorite audience moments is when the hipster guy in front of me who was sitting alone and had been pretty silent for nearly ten hours screamed “YES!!!!” when Eowyn dropped some science on the Witch King with a “I am no man” right before she stabbed him in the FACE. I loved him for that. We all rubbed our eyes in the light of the pale moon as we emerged well past one in the morning. Our blood boiling and simmering like the firey lavas of Mount Doom. So moved from this experience that the residual feelings lasted well into the next day as I debated watching the entire HOBBIT trilogy that day. I couldn’t put those blu-ray’s in the player fast enough. Even after nine hours of that, I was still feeling as though my heart was full but still yearning for Middle-Earth. After a quick trip to Game Stop, some LORD OF THE RINGS video games are now left to satiate our Ring fever. We’ll let you know when we calm down a bit.