My family owns the extended editions of the Lord of the Rings movies, which, with the exception of Return of the King, we enjoy more than the theatrical releases. The week before Thanksgiving and through the Thanksgiving school break we finally watched all three WITH the children. My youngest is 7 going on 8 and until recently we thought it might be a bit too intense. 

They really enjoyed it. My favorite part, though, took place in the moments after King Theoden’s death. The screenplay tweaked the already powerful final moments of King Theoden so that the dialogue was even sharper than the book — and it was acted superbly. Once again I was teary eyed as Theoden spoke his last. Then the camera panned over the carnage that was the battle site, and we saw dead men and horses and orcs and the massive oliphaunts sprawled across the immense field, twisted horribly as far as the eye could see. My lttle girl piped up brightly: “It’s going to take a LONG time to clean up THAT mess.”

I laughed so hard it hurt.

Howard