For all of you lucky enough to already own the Extended Edition of "An Unexpected Journey": What did you think of the documentaries? Were they good/disappointing/better than for LotR/not worth your money? Did you have any favorite parts?

I really liked how they visited each location used in the movie and gave a peek into all the processes that had been running in the background to create that specific location. My personal favorite is probably Goblin Town, with the animatronic Gobline masks! They looked awesome, but I felt so sorry for the stuntguys who had to wear them under those hot studio lights. Good call to use CGI instead!

And I was also impressed by the lightning they created for the scene in the mountains, using only TL-lights on a specific pattern. I just love bits about technology and make-up, but it was also nice to see how well everyone got along and how proud they felt about being involved in the project

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I haven't seen it..

Is it somewhere in youtube..?

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What if?

I loved the behind the scenes stuff! I really couldn't narrow it down to my favorite things because I loved all of it so much! I love getting to see the relationships between the actors and what they had to go through every day to just be performance ready. I think the coolest thing that I knew about but was awesome to see was the way they up-scaled pieces of the dwarves (hands, heads, etc) to make them look proportionally right.

The behind the scenes are my favorite parts of these movies, so I'm excited to get two more films worth!

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Are those also in the "production diaries"? 'Cause I've seen something like that in those vids..

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The Production diaries are kind of like mini-episodes of behind the scenes stuff that is on the EE special features. Each one PJ does is like... 10-15 minutes? The Special features are hours of in depth into costuming, set design, production, sound, editing, and anything else you can think of.

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What do you think about the extended-ness of the EE documentaries?
If I compare the behind the scenes materials for LotR with those filmed for the Hobbit, it seems like there are waaaaay more documentaries on the LotR Extended Editions than on the Hobbit EE. Don't get me wrong; I still love the things they show on the Hobbit EE, but I guess I just expected.. more?

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I loved the Hobbit Extras but I love the LotR ones more.

I think it does seem like there's more for LotR because the features covered different aspects of Film making, like there were the films about Tolkien's work, adapting, sound editing, special effects, music etc etc etc. It was like every different department got their chance to shine.

Whereas with the Hobbit- I'm guessing because there was a much shorter pre-production period there wasn't a lot of focus on the creative process. I liked that there was more time dedicated to the experience of filming, and I felt I got a better sense of how the film was made and the actors experiences. But saying that I still would have loved to see more of the design and concept process, and to hear more from Howard Shore about his music. I think because they've released the Special Edition Soudtracks and Hobbit Chronicles Books, which go into far more detail than the Art of LotR did they've skimped on those areas in the DVD. It's a good money making ploy, but I'm greedy I want more of everything!!!

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I also think that there was more material in LotR because it was the first time ANYONE was doing some of the stuff they were doing--like the CGI for Gollum (Weta pretty much invented the current tech that everyone else uses), the Big-atures (which was necessary because digital environments couldn't be that detailed), as well as just the task of adapting something as epic and timeless at LotR to film (which everyone said was impossible...). And a lot of the stuff covered in LotR is irrelevent now because of the increase in technology, computers, and wireless communication.

Hobbit builds on those technologies, but now it's just kind of "old hat" how every little detail is done. So it is more focused on the actors/relationships than the conceptual stuff.
Lembas-I do agree the books go into more detail about the art and conceptualizing, but I wish they could put those details into the behinds the scenes as well!

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