Lord of the Winds?

Before it falls too far into the past and the details are as such less fresh in my mind, I wanted to write something in these pages regarding The Lord of the Rings experience from this summer and how I was almost completely blown away, literally.

For the roll out of the Blue Ray extended editions of the Lord of the Rings movies, the powers that be decided to run the extended editions of the movies on the big screens at select AMC Theaters.  One such location was on the Streets of Woodfield, down the road some distance from my home in Mount Prospect, IL.  They ran the three films, one each, on three consecutive Tuesdays in June, and only one showing for each at 7pm.  Peter Jackson's (exclusive) introduction for the Fellowship of the Rings included a mention of the Blue Ray editions but he was quick to point out that while he would appreciate any purchases of it, the best way to see the films was on the big screen and of the extended editions.  For Return of the King, enjoyed mentioning that seeing six thousand Riders of Rohan, if the full number only briefly, was going to be one of the big treats, and it was.  In fact, I think the Battle of Pelennor Fields was about the greatest film footage I have ever witnessed, particularly this time around.  Awesome is the only word!

I was in attendance for the Fellowship of the Rings and Return of the King but was thwarted in my efforts to see The Two Towers due to a tornado.  It happened to hit during the time I would have been in watching the film, and I would have been many more miles away from where it hit if I had gone, but the weather leading up to it convinced me not to go.  There was a great deal of storm damage, particularly near the post office, and mostly in the form of broken trees. Some ten thousand plus residents were left without power and even three days later half were still waiting for service.  A few years ago we had a big storm, though no tornado, blow through that knocked out our building but we were spared this go around.  That time, we didn't have restoration of service for five days.  I had fortunately not been shopping for food for a few weeks so very little was lost.  They also upgraded much of the infrastructure at that time or this year might have been far worse.

All in all, the other two movies were well worth watching on the big screen and I hope they do something similar during the lead up to the release of the Hobbit move(s).