Fond memories

[Elianna]

I remember the first time I saw FotR with my brothers and mommy. We're all credit watchers, and I gave a start at seeing John Rhys-Davies' name. I'm a fan of Indy, that's all I had seen him to be in before. I was like "John Rhys-Davies?! He was in this? Who was he?" My bro Jesse answered, like it was obvious to all "Gimli." It took me until Parth Galen the next time seeing it to recognize him and his voice. Then we were talking about the movie outside the theatre by a cardboard cut-out thingy of the movie poster college, and Jesse brought up, I forget how, that Hugo Weaving, better known to me as Agent Smith was Elrond. And so I finally understood my sub-conscious repulsion to him being Elrond. (I'm okay with this now.)

I saw TTT the second time with my friends Adam and Josh. I realized then that my relationship with Adam wouldn't work out, because he was confused/surprised that I cried when Haldir died. (Actually it was later that we broke up, but it makes a cool/funny story...)

While watching RotK, I could only barely contain my shouts of glee when Gandalf whacks Denethor up side the head. I'm so surprised that no one else cheered. My mom and I did get everyone to cheer when Éowyn choppped off the Fell Beast's head. And it wasn't until my third time seeing it that I remembered to bring tissues. I cried so much in RotK. My friends and I were talking about it later and Kendal mentioned that she was ashamed that she almost cried once, when Faramir left Minas Tirith I think. I smiled at that, and Kendal thought I was laughing at her. "No," I explained, "I'm smiling because for me, from 'You wish now that our places had been exchanged, that I had died and Boromir had lived' to the end, my face was wet from tears."

Such happy memories...

[Sapphire_Flame]

The first time I saw Fellowship in theaters was about three days after the movie came out. I had only read as far as the West-gate of Moria, and so everything after that in the film had me absolutely on the edge of my seat. And when Merry and Pippin were taken by the Uruk-hai at the end... Panic. Complete and total panic. I catapulted out to our car and flipped ahead into Towers just to find out what happened to my hobbits!

My resounding memories from seeing Towers on opening day are my dad and I sitting in the theater waiting for the film to start and reading aloud from The Silmarillion, and afterwards, me standing up and yelling at the screen because Shelob wasn't in the movie.

For RotK, my dad took my brother, myself, and two of my friends to see it on opening day. My brother and I were hobbits, one of my friends was an elf, my other friend was a Nazgul, and my dad wore his kilt. It was really really cold that day, so of course Dad wasn't too happy, but there was also about six or seven inches of snow everywhere. My poor bare feet almost froze! During the film, when Shelob is sneaking up on Frodo, my Nazgul friend started humming the theme from Jaws. Most lofty.

Abedithon le,

~*~Aranel~*~

[Feared Half-Elf]

The whole experience was sooo cool. We couldn't get tickets for the midnight showing, and we could only get tickets for January. It almost killed me!

But it was so fun collecting strange looks when me and my friend were dressed as elves. We even had these plastic bows, and when I dropped an arrow this twelve year old came up and gave it back. He was trying so hard not to laugh! And the woman we were sat by gave us such a disgusting look! Great fun!

[The Only Real Estel]

Believe it or not, one of my fondest memories was looking forward to FotR for 2 years, actually, one of the fondest memories would be always having a LotR movie to look forward to for 5 years.

Another good memory was sitting in the theater until the end of the credits & seeing all the drawings of the cast done by John Howe & Allan Lee (I'm guessing it was them at least ) for the first time.

Maybe my fondest moment was watching RotK for the first time, when I realized it was quite possibly the last time in quite awhile I'd see an LotR movie without knowing what was going to happen. I enjoyed RotK some much that time, it was just awesome .

[Arwen Evenstar]

I have so many fond memories. I think one of the best was going to RotK opening day with one of my closest friends. She dressed as Rosie and I wearing my Strider shirt and One Ring. Holding RotK in my hands for the first time last Tuesday was one of the happiest days of my life. I`m sooo sad that it`s over now! Oh well, there`s still the RotK extended and The Hobbit (hopefully).

[Gorwingel]

Oh one of my most fondest memorys has to be when I first heard they were coming out with a LOTR film while reading an issue of Entertainment Weekly that I had gotten free at a hotel while on a cross-country vacation. Now at the time I had only read Fellowship and had been completely confused (very long story) by the storyline, so I had not read any of the others, and at the time I remember reading the article and saying to myself that maybe I should go and see that film because maybe it will help me to finally understand the story. Months and months passed until it got to be around Christmas and I remember my mother asking me if I would like to go and see LOTR, but everytime she asked I would say "later". Then my sister saw it and told me that I should see it, so I finally went to the theater. During that first viewing I was completely blown away by how good it was, and I was instantly turned into a fan. I went on to eventually see Fellowship 7 times in theaters.

But my most fondest memories are sometimes the smallest little thing that I found so cool. Like when I finished the reading the trilogy, and found myself so angry at the outcome, or that one night that I decided to type in "Lord of the Rings" into Google, or when I visited New York City in November of 2002, and saw the TTT poster of Frodo on one of the Bus Shelters (we don't have bus shelters in Olympia, Washington and they wouldn't have had that in Seattle so I just thought I was so lucky to be there at that time), or when I met Ian McKellen (and I was so nervious, I didn't say anything because he was the first major actor I had ever met in my life), and then when I saw Sean Astin, and then when I saw him and then got to meet him again! (because you realize you are lucky when you get to see them once, but then when you see them again you are just spoiled). I am just amazed at how that one viewing changed my life. It has taken me to so many places, and I have gotten to meet and see people that I never, ever in my wildest dreams thought I would actually get to see in real life. It has made me think, it had encouraged me to keep that thing called imagination around for a little longer, and of course this has come at such a time of change in my life (Sophmore to Senior years of High School) it is just so amazing.

I think though that what I will miss the most is all the excitement around the release, that just added on to the regular excitement of the holidays. I will miss the ads on TV, the magazine covers, the interviews, the free giveouts of the bookmarks at my school, and just all that antcipation. That midnight showing of ROTK was most definitely the most exciting experience at a theater I have ever had. I remember the Football players from my school starting to yell out "Rudy!" when Sam starts carrying Frodo up the hill, and the huge applause that came out when Aragorn gave Arwen that smooch and also just that general strangeness of realizing that even though it was a school night, and even though I would be going to school the next day. I would most defintely not be going to sleep at my regular time.

This is making me so sad
Next year at Christmas will just not be the same

[Mad Baggins]

I remember walking through the mall on December 17, unable to go to RotK, and seeing two young ladies dressed in hobbit gear. I nearly ran up to them and asked how the movie was.

Another was the last time I saw RotK in theaters. That was in February. When the title appeared on the screen, random people began clapping (of course, I joined in). Then, at the end, the same people started to clap and holler; I started applauding and yelling too. Ah, fond memories. I only wish it would happen again.