[Azaelia of Willowbottom]

Tough choice. All three have their merits. Fellowship of the Ring is unique in that its tone is noticeably lighter than the tone in either of the two later movies. It's not all fun and games, but over all, it's a much happier, relaxed movie. I like it a lot for just that reason. That's not to say I don't like intensity (the complete opposite is true, but sometimes, it can get relentless, and it's nice to take a break). I think that in Fellowship, the characters were all much truer to their book selves, another merit. I don't necessarily mind that they change a little, but it's just another nice thing about FOTR. The material added in the EE just serves to make it a better, stronger, more complete movie.

The Two Towers, while still an excellent movie, is perhaps the weakest of the three, if you look at it with the eye of a movie critic. It's bound to be like that, though, since it's the middle piece of the trilogy. It has no definition in terms of beginning and end, unfortunately. They did the best they could with it, and the emotional arc follows a good path. But I feel like after seeing the EE, both versions could have been stronger. The scenes with Boromir, Faramir, and Denethor were critical to the plot and to audiences' understanding of Faramir and his changed motives, but were left out of the theatrical edition. And there was a lot of fluff that could have been left out of the TTTEE...they effectively messed up the emotional arc of the story (at least, for me) by lengthening battles and adding things in after Sam's monologue instead of letting the movie end the way it did in the theaters. Not to mention, there were a couple distinctly terrible scenes, particularly the infamous "nervous system" courtesy of Gimli. In fact, now that I mention it, I think much of the problem with TTT is the change in character for Gimli. In Fellowship, he was the gruff, serious dwarf we all know and love...but by TTT, he had completely lost that role, and was instead made into comic relief. It's just one character out of several, but the change is remarkably significant to my enjoyment of the movie overall.

Now that's not to say I don't like TTT, because I do...It's still a very good movie, and it has a lot of emotional worth.

Return of the King EE is the only extended edition that I have never seen, mainly because of my feelings about the TTT EE. I didn't want to risk the disappointment in what was an excellent theatrical release (and after reading about some of the scenes here, I think I made the right choice). The comment I made before about relentless intensity really applies here. That's not a bad thing at all...ROTK is an excellent movie, both cinematically and from the point of view of someone with real interest in LOTR. It is intense--it doesn't really let you recover much in between big emotional scenes, particularly as the end approaches. It is my favorite of the three, though I watch Fellowship more frequently.