The Trilogy Meter

Last week, found myself in close proximity to a huge paperbag that contained all The Complete Extended Edition DVDs of The Lord of the Rings. The discs are in these nice book-looking cases, in maroon, deep green and blue. If it were gold or yellow then it would have looked like a sablay. Hehehe. Each volume had maybe 4 discs in it. The film on 2 discs, with commentaries, then 2 more discs of features alone. N, who lent her the DVDs, said that the 3 movies amount to 10 hours, with the features, it's 24 hours all in all.

Guess what we've been watching since then.

Finished The Two Towers last night and so far it's been an enjoyable ride. Then I came across Dan Meth's Trilogy Meter, where he measures how most movies which come in threes (Spider-Man, Jurassic Park, Rambo). Interestingly enough, most of the movies were uneven. It's surprising that some movies have more interesting sequels than the first (Superman, Alien), and usually, the third one is never really the best of the series.

So movies which come in threes (or more) are uneven. Hah.

But the biggest surprise: The Lord of the Rings may be the only trilogy so far which can boast of an even hand in terms of storytelling. Of course it helps that the material is already there. J. R. R. Tolkien himself didn't even think of it as a trilogy--he meant it to be one big book. But the practicality of publishing turned it into a series. In the DVD feature, Tolkien hated the title the publisher gave the last volume, The Return of the King, because it told the reader everything that'll happen in the book.

Yet anyhow, it's the solid narrative that supported the film. But that wouldn't even happen without the writers and the director who shaped that really heavy doorstop of a book into the movie that we now know. So for that, Peter Jackson takes the cake for some pretty awesome movie time. Otherwise, save us from all the Underworld pre-, sequels.