archet

I pulled out my extended versions of the LOTR trilogy a while ago, and this weekend decided to just get over myself and watch them. It's an rather grey, overcast day, the leaves are falling again on the breeze outside the window and the temperature is almost cool enough to throw open the doors and windows, a welcome change! Feels like the perfect day for Middle Earth. Just now realizing that I never even opened ROTK, it's still in the plastic! So I've never seen actually seen the full extended version of ROTK; I only saw it in theaters. We'll see how it goes, but I've already teared up when Bilbo hugged Gandalf in the Shire (RIP dear, dear Mr. Holm) and we know it's only downhill from there!

Obviously, FOTR is visually so, so beautiful. I can feel the love that was poured into it; it has everything, the remarkable cast, the music, the exquisite detail. Rarely have I been so transported to another 'world' by a movie; seeing Return of the Jedi in the theater was when I was a kid was the most comparable.

And Sean Bean as Boromir is so, so gorgeous, it makes the heart ache. It's been said before, and better, but Boromir got such a raw deal, faced with impossible situation, impossible pressures.

And just because I only recently learned this: I've always noticed the feather-like design on Bormoir's vambraces and the clasps of his cloak but I didn't know that this is the (seabird) mark of the Númenor, and it appears in nearly all the uniforms of Gondor, and again in the winged crown Aragorn eventually wears. I wish I'd saved the link where this was mentioned but of course I can't find it now. Doh!

Sean Bean still give me a shiver when Boromir says: Gondor has no king, Gondor needs no king. Ah! I'll never finish this if I don't stop rewinding/re-watching all the Boromir parts, ha!