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The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Part 1) Extended Edition Full-length Reaction (Patreon)

Published:
2026-08-10 13:00:08
Edited:
2026-08-10 15:27:04
Imported:
2026-09
Tags:

Content

💍🔥🌋 "Certainty of death. Small chance of success. What are we waiting for?"

Join us for the full, uncut watch-along exclusively for our amazing Patrons — thank you for supporting Totally Whatever!

Please be aware that our reaction video is synchronized with the extended edition. Part 1 ends approximately at the 2hr 7min mark - during the siege of Minas Tirith when the enemy wheels out the massive battering ram, Grond, to breach the outer gate.(hbo).

Due to copyright restrictions, this is a watch-along format, which requires you to have your own copy of the content to sync with us!

All LOTR Full-length Watchalongs: https://www.patreon.com/collection/2195977

YT LINK

Files

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Part 1) Extended Edition Full-length Reaction

💍🔥🌋 "Certainty of death. Small chance of success. What are we waiting for?" Join us for the full, uncut watch-along exclusively for our amazing Patrons — thank you for supporting Totally Whatever! Please be aware that our reaction video is synchronized with the extended edition. Part 1 ends approximately at the 2hr 7min mark - during the siege of Minas Tirith when the enemy wheels out the massive battering ram, Grond, to breach the outer gate.(hbo). Due to copyright restrictions, this is a watch-along format, which requires you to have your own copy of the content to sync with us! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/totallywhatevermedia Custom Reaction Videos: https://www.reactr.tv/totallywhatever Business inquiries are accepted at: info@totallywhatever.com Mail accepted here: Totally Whatever c/o Nanette PO BOX 372 Damariscotta, ME 04543 *Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED. All rights belong to their respective owners.

Comments

AdrianF

Let's go! Also, the volume seems a bit lower than normal. It's not catastrophic, but it is noticeable I think.

Joe W

At long last... Now for some more long thoughts! Right, so as I have said before - this is the greatest trilogy ever made - Period. 🙂 But as a book fan... my nerd brain has to go through a few things... The film starts in a completely different place from where the actual Return of the King volume begins. In the book, The Two Towers finishes with Frodo and Sam already deep into the Cirith Ungol business: they’ve gone through Shelob’s lair, the spider has stung Frodo, Sam’s taken the Ring thinking his mate’s dead, and then the orcs cart Frodo off to the tower. That’s the cliff-hanger that ends the second book. The third book opens with Gandalf and Pippin racing to Minas Tirith while Frodo is already a prisoner. Peter Jackson shifted the whole Shelob sequence—and Sam’s desperate rescue of Frodo from the orcs in Cirith Ungol—into the start of the third film so that Frodo and Sam would still have a proper arc left to play out. He also moved the little flashback of how Sméagol became Gollum right to the opening of the movie, even though in the books that story is told much earlier. The idea was to keep the two hobbits’ journey feeling continuous and give the final film enough meat, rather than having them just wander across Mordor after the big spider fight. Once the film gets going, a fair few other bits from the later parts of The Two Towers book get folded in as well. The confrontation with Saruman at Isengard, where Gandalf breaks his staff, is only in the extended edition of Return of the King; in the theatrical cut it’s basically skipped. In the book, that whole scene happens right after Helm’s Deep, still in the second volume. As for what’s left out entirely between the film’s beginning and its end, the biggest absence by a mile is the Scouring of the Shire. In the book, after the Ring’s gone and the big war is over, Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin finally get home only to find the place has been turned into a grim, industrial mess. Saruman—calling himself Sharkey—has taken over with a bunch of ruffians, chopping down trees, putting up ugly sheds, and bossing the hobbits about with a load of petty rules. The four of them have to raise the Shire, fight a proper little battle, and drive the lot out. Saruman ends up stabbed by Wormtongue on the doorstep of Bag End, and Wormtongue gets shot by hobbit arrows. It’s not just a coda; it’s the moment where the hobbits prove they’ve grown up and can sort their own home out without wizards or kings. Jackson cut the whole thing because he felt it would be anti-climactic after Mount Doom and would make the already long ending even longer. In the extended film, they at least give Saruman a death at Isengard, but the Shire itself stays untouched and peaceful when the hobbits return. There are smaller things too. In the book, the Army of the Dead only helps Aragorn seize the Corsair ships; they never charge across the Pelennor Fields sweeping everything away as they do in the film. Aragorn arrives with living men from the southern fiefs instead. The Houses of Healing get more space in the book, with Aragorn properly tending to Éowyn, Faramir and Merry. Characters like Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth, who plays a solid part in the defence of Minas Tirith and the politics afterwards, simply aren’t there. And the journey home is much longer and more measured, with Théoden’s funeral, visits to Rivendell and Bree, and a proper sense of the world settling again. Now, this is my personal worst change in the whole adaptation: the way they handled Denethor. In the book he’s a proud, stern, deeply intelligent man—the Steward of Gondor who’s been fighting a long, thankless war against Mordor for years. He’s not a villain; he’s a tragic figure, scarred by grief over Boromir’s death and worn down by the constant pressure of the palantír, which Sauron uses to feed him half-truths and despair. He still does his duty as best he can, lighting the beacons himself and sending the Red Arrow to Rohan, and he’s worthy enough that Pippin gladly offers him his service. He’s harsh with Faramir, yes, but it’s the bitterness of a father who loved his elder son more and can’t see past that. In the film they turn him into this half-mad, sneering antagonist who refuses to light the beacons, treats Faramir with open contempt from the start, and seems almost eager to see Gondor fall so long as he can wallow in his misery. It strips away the nobility and the genuine tragedy, making him little more than a cartoonish obstacle. His fate is altered as well. In both versions, he tries to burn himself and the wounded Faramir on a pyre in the tombs, but in the book Gandalf and Pippin arrive in time to save Faramir; Denethor, clutching the palantír, deliberately sets himself alight and dies in the flames, a final act of defiant despair. The film has him running out of the pyre while still on fire and plummeting from the high cliff, which feels more like a dramatic stunt than the quiet, horrifying self-immolation Tolkien wrote. For me, that whole shift from complex, broken steward to moustache-twirling madman is the change that jars the most. So basically the film takes the end of The Two Towers book, shoves it into the start of Return of the King, trims a lot of the quieter aftermath, drops the Scouring completely, and rewrites Denethor into something far less interesting, all so the story can finish on the Grey Havens without another battle. As a book reader, I do detest a few of those specific changes—Denethor especially—but the film is still fantastic, and it does a brilliant job of keeping the spirit of Tolkien’s story alive. It works wonderfully as cinema in its own right, and even with the differences, if you pick up the book you’ll find a whole extra layer to the tale that never made it to the screen.

Mark M

I picked a good day to be off work!

ash

I agree the changing of Denethor is my least favorite part. I also think something is missing by having the army of the dead swoop over the battlefield instead of the men of Gondor coming to their countrymen's aid. I also wish we would've seen the different forces that come to aid Gondor from the different regions because Minis Tirith wasn't just left to fend for themselves. Still my favorite movies of all time but I wish we got to see some of those moments as well as the ones you mentioned. Also Faramirs character is quite different in the books which I missed.

Joe W

Absolutely, obviously Jackson was limited due to time and budget, plus the studio wanted it shorter. This is where a TV series would have been better to do it all, these days I don't trust anyone to do that... Look at The Rings of Power, eesh.

Mark M

I noticed the volume being lower on a few reactions recently. I turned down the volume on my TV to offset.

Chris Clarke

One of the bonuses of the extended Return of The King is the number of cameos by members of the crew. Most of them are on the corsair ship, but composer Howard Shore is shown laughing with others in the drinking game scene. Speaking of which, Gimli's line "Here's to dwarves that go swimming with little hairy women" was an improvised paraphrase of a line from Jaws: Peter Jackson was oblivious to the reference so it made it into the cut!

AdrianF

This ends at end of disc one, start of disc two like the previous ones.

AdrianF

I've been a bit slack and only really watched Fawlty Towers the last couple of weeks. It seemed OK on that? I was gonna watch this in my little cine room but it's not possible. It's manageable on TV but still a bit low I thought. Anyway, on to the second part!!

i Vincero

yay here we go.. going back to middle earth again.. ;)

FranciscoGios

Sméagol is not from the Shire; Sméagol is what they called in the books a Stoor Hobbit they are called River-folk, they are more heavier, broader and are good with being close to water.

Harvey Lee

Here we are near the end of one of the all time great film trilogies Just what I needed to start my week off . Cheers to you lovely TW ladies .😄🩶♥️

Phil Stubblefield

I'll start by concurring with Joe W: the greatest film trilogy ever made! Period. 😁 Câr: "Everybody needs a Sam!" That's what Tolkien thought, too! In a later interview, he opined that Sam is the real hero of the story, always the selfless servant doing whatever it takes to help Frodo and the quest succeed. Lord Denethor, Steward of Gondor: Worst. Father. Ever! As others have pointed out, his character in the film is somewhat of a departure from how he was portrayed in the book, but his eventual mental state is not inconsistent. There was another palantír (seeing stone) in Minas Tirith, just like the one at Isengard that Saruman had used. Denethor used his stone to try to determine the enemy's plans, but through it, Sauron slowly manipulated Denethor into depression and eventual despair. One of my favorite moments in this half occurs between Elrond and Aragorn after the sword has been reforged: Elrond: "Put aside the Ranger. Become who you were born to be!" Chills! Part 2 on the way...

Simon King

Epic trilogy and a treat to share, thank you 🙏

Totally Whatever

What an interesting backstory for Denethor, I can't imagine how hard it is to decide what to keep in and what to change from books to screenplays. It would have been nice to see him shift over time a bit!

Totally Whatever

Ah, thanks, we didn't know there were different types of Hobbits!

Totally Whatever

Let me know if this is still an issue. I need to figure out why the volume is so much lower recently.