First of all I was impressed by the sheer attention to detail and care that's gone into the visual presentation of the set. If you've ever seen any old leather bound books with gold leaf you'll be able to envisage what I mean they've tried to make it look like a book and used a rich red-brown leather effect colour with all the writing picked out in gold. Normally I get rid of the cases and just put the contents in a wallet to save space, but this one will be staying as it is. This theme is continued in the folding insert, with 4 discs, 2 for the film and commentaries and 2 for the appendices. There's a nice booklet which shows all the scenes, clearly marking which are extended or additional, with little pull-out 'maps' of the appendices. The booklet itself has been produced well with what appears to be aged paper and little drawings that refer to Rohan art concepts. If you take out the discs you can see that concept art has been used under the plastic cases and each of the discs are themselves decorated with concept art. Inside there is a map of middle earth and a wonderful drawing of meeting the White Wizard in Fangorn Forest.

Is there anyone who doesn't know what the film is about? It's based on Tolkien's second book in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and is a reasonably faithful adaptation given some differences for dramatic licence, although I have to admit that it's so long since I read the books that it's difficult for me to pinpoint where the differences are, however in many respects there's not much of a story to this particular film as such, rather it's the story of a journey and a battle. The film is a lot darker than the Fellowship and this can be seen in the cinematography, a lot of the scenes appear to be almost black and white with dramatic muted grey tones particularly in battle scenes and most of Frodo and Sam's journey.

Discs 1 and 2 contain the film itself and commentaries. I was a bit surprised and disappointed that the film was split over two discs but then I realised that the reason for this is that they have four separate commentaries to go with the film and obviouslt they only wanted to lay down the film track once. The commentaries are by director Peter Jackson and the writers, the cast, the production and the design teams. Through these you can see the creative effort that's gone into the film and the reasons behind some of the artistic decisions that have been made.

I didn't count how long each documentary was but I'd estimate that they have to be about 40-45 minutes each, so that's a lot of additional material. It's interesting to see how the story has been put together using a mixture of real film and CGI images, and the detail that's gone into making the models and costumes. As you watch films although you may realise that they're using special effects and prosthetics it's not until you actually see the details in these documentaries that you realise all the effort that has gone into them and discomfort the actors / stunt men have had to go through.