And here you thought the 161 minutes of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug was a little on the needlessly excessive side. Now, you would be absolutely right. However, that will not stop Peter Jackson. A new extended edition will be hitting digital formats next month, and they will be bringing along 25 additional minutes.
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For those counting, that's 186 minutes of second act, or 3 hours, 6 minutes of neither beginning nor end. The official The Hobbit Facebook page posted the Extended Edition trailer and while I jest at the bloatedness of the new trilogy, even I am powerless against this. More Middle-earth adventure? Shut up and take my money.
Several new scenes are teased, including an encounter between Gandalf and what I can only imagine is Thrain, Thorin's father and the one who gave Gandalf the map and key to Erebor; additional Lake Town scenes and, of course, more battles. So god damn many battles.
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The set also includes nine additional hours of behind the scenes footage. As much as I deride the length of these films, while still enjoying them, I cannot help but love the hours and hours of making-of footage these films produce. They're like a master class on film production, finely detailing every bit of minutiae. That everyone is also having a grand old time makes it all that more watchable.
The footage is gathered into the Appendices IX and X (this being the fifth Middle Earth film) and covers "pre-production in the various departments of the film in the months leading up to the start of principal photography, training, the work done on set and in the world of its digital effects."
The 3 disc Blu-Ray will be released November 4, and you can order it here for $33.19 . The digital HD version will be released on October 21.
Watch the full extended edition trailer below. The final chapter in the trilogy, The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies, invades theaters on December 17.