The "extended edition" should have been the primary release

Rating: 7/10 (17 December 2003)

In Tolkien's "The Hobbit", after Bilbo uses the ring to ditch Gollum and get out of the goblin caves, he tells Gandalf, Thorin, and the other dwarves that he escaped without mentioning the ring. Later, while helping them out of another bind, he reveals to the dwarves that he can use the ring to become invisible at will, and the dwarves force him to retell the escape story with the ring included. Like Thorin and company, I feel that Peter Jackson's first telling of the Two Towers left out far too much core material; in the extended, the character modifications make sense, and the events flow together better.
I wrote an earlier review expressing some mixed feelings about a few of the characters and plot elements after seeing the original, and took the opportunity to view the extended edition on screen Monday. It is superior in every way to the first release, moreso than the extended FotR was to the original. However, this is a disturbing trend. I would rather have seen *only* the extended edition rather than fart around with the inferior shortened product, but I suspect New Line is raking in the DVD profits with all these second releases.
What can I say? Many of the gripes I had with the film are fixed in the extended release. It was enjoyable, heart wrenching, humourous, terrifying, and awe-inspiring. Yet somehow, I feel cheated. No doubt the same thing will happen in RotK, and we'll all gladly pony up the cash for an extra DVD purchase and maybe extra movie tickets too.