I've owned the special edition and extended cuts of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy for some time now. While I've watched the movies already, I had never jumped into the special features until last week. Let me tell you, the special features of those movies are top notch, and are sometimes just as thrilling as the movies they're attached to.

After watching the features about what it took to make those movies, I have never been more convinced that it’s a small miracle that those movies came out as good as they did. After seeing each of the movies in the theaters, I knew that something special was at hand, but I never knew just how special these movies were until I heard about what it took to make them.

It seems that every single person involved in the movie was the exact person who needed to be involved in the movie. They picked the right director, screenwriters, actors, special effects crews, make-up artists, stunt people, etc. Not only did they pick the people best suited for the job, they picked people who had a vested personal interest in seeing one of their favorite stories brought to the big screen.

Here are some things that stuck out to me as I watched:

The script was about as tight and concise as Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson, and Philippa Boyens could have possibly made it. They basically took one of the largest books ever written, and cut it down piece by piece, sometimes re-writing parts of the script on the day that scene was to be shot, until they came up with the final version that made it to the screen. Like all movies, if you don’t have a good script, you’re going to fall hard. But what made them good screenwriters on this project, was that they were Lord of the Rings geeks themselves, so they were able to put down on paper everything they’d want to see as fans.

Peter Jackson, being the head geek that he is, really did a marvelous job at handling the massive work load that filming three, three+-hour movies at one time. The documentaries attached to the dvd’s chronicled how Peter Jackson would have to go from filming one scene for “The Return of the King”, to filming a scene for “The Fellowship of the Ring.” While he tried to film as much stuff sequentially as he could, that he had to film certain scenes before other scenes demonstrates perfectly that he had a definite vision for what he wanted these movies to be, and he filmed it accordingly. If someone of lesser vision tried to film this massive project out of sequence, it really could have ended up a big mess.

New Zealand is the perfect middle earth. New Zealand almost has this otherworldly quality to it, that I’m surprise more people don’t film there.

Gollum/Smeagol was perhaps the greatest acting job on the movie. I hold to my belief that Andy Serkis should have been nominated for an Academy Award for his role in the movies. He successfully created two very distinct characters in the movie, sometimes having to switch between the two in a manner of seconds. Some people will say that he shouldn’t have been nominated because of all the extra work that went into making his movie. All I have to say to that is watch the dvd’s. Basically everything he acted out, ended up on Gollum/Smeagol’s face. He was brilliant in the movie.

Viggo Mortensen is a bad ass. Watch the dvd features and tell me otherwise.

The music was brilliant. Who would have thought that a former musician for Saturday Night Live could have written such a gorgeous symphonic work. My particular favorite music cue was the one played while they’re lighting all of the fire beacons in Gondor. It’s very goose-bump inducing music. Once again, they chose the right person for the job.

From the looks of the dvd features, Peter Jackson really knows how to make the working environment conducive to making good movies. I have a feeling that he is much like Lucas was back when Lucas made the first SW movies. Peter Jackson would take input from other people and sometimes have his own ideas shot down by those he was working with. When you allow for creative interpretation from everyone around you, you get the original SW movies and the LOTR movies. When you surround yourself with yes-men, you get the prequels. For the record, I love the prequels, but I readily admit they could have been better.

I’ve done all the gushing I can for one day. If you have any thoughts you’d like to add, you know the drill. ;-)