Dude, where's the 'Lord Of The Rings' ending?

Posted Friday, December 12, 2003 at 9:00 AM Central

by John Couture

Next Wednesday, the concluding chapter of The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, The Return Of The King, debuts in theaters. "Lucky" fans will spend all of December 17th in a darkened theater watching the extended version of the first two films back-to-back before the world-wide premier of the last film.

And after 11+ hours of cinematic glory, the die-hard fans may be hardpressed to leave given that the trilogy has 12 different endings. Fret not Tolkeinites, this isn't some shameless ploy by New Line ala Clue to make you come back and see the movie again and again until you see all 12 endings. Every copy of the film contains all 12 endings in succession which may account for the fact that this installment, at three hours and 20 minutes, is the longest of the bunch.

And just think, next year at this time, there will be an even longer extended version of The Return Of The King that will probably approach four hours in length. So much for last minute Christmas shopping.