There are geeks, and then there are geeks. The geeks at "Trilogy Tuesday," the marathon showing of all three Lord of the Rings films back-to-back-to-back (with extra footage added to the first two), were geeks of the highest order. The day before The Return of the King officially opened, 100 cineplexes around the country held special screenings, sold out months in advance. Tickets for the local version at Regal Cinemas in Green Valley Ranch Station were up for over 100 bucks on eBay, though bids were scarce.
I managed to get myself in just under the wire. Luckily, I didn't have to sit in the front row; I ended up in the second row, instead. At least I had it all to myself, and with each film lasting over three hours, I was going to need to be comfortable. While waiting to be escorted in, I heard someone ask his friend about "lower lumbar support." Surprisingly few people were dressed up. Only a handful of women had long, flowing dresses and elf ears, and I didn't see any men dressed up at all. Well, one guy had a Gandalf-style, long, white beard, but that was probably just a coincidence.
Before the show, an armored pair had given some sort of fighting demonstration, but I missed it while I waited in the lobby. Someone sitting behind me wore a T-shirt on which she had printed "I'm With Frodo," and another person's shirt detailed all of Frodo's tribulations and ended with "And all I got was this lousy T-shirt."
The first film passed relatively quickly, and it'd been so long since I'd seen it that I couldn't tell what footage was new. Thankfully there was a nearly 40-minute break before The Two Towers, so everyone had time to head up to the overpriced food court. I saw two elf princesses eating pizza. Back in the theater, an usher admonished people for quoting lines right before they were said in the movie.
This time I noticed the extra footage, and it added quite a bit to the story, fleshing out secondary characters like Faramir and Eowyn. During my 7:30 p.m. bathroom break, I saw people already lined up for the midnight show of The Return of the King. By the end of Two Towers, I was really feeling the fatigue, and glad I had seen King at a critics' screening the week before, since this was not the best way to first see it .
The cheering during King was relentless. I tried to note each time the audience burst into applause, but gave up after 15. Near the end, I realized that with no one else in my row, I could have just put up the armrests and laid down, which I then proceeded to do. Still, the near-constant applause kept me awake, and when I staggered out at 1:20 a.m., bleary-eyed, eight bathroom breaks and almost 12 hours after showing up, it was with a curious kind of satisfaction. I had gone toe-to-toe with the geeks, and I had survived.