Lord of the Rings Extended Edition TikTok memes are amazing and blowing up

The Fellowship of the Ring On December 18, 2001 the movie was released in theatres. Fans who loved the movie might not know that there was an even bigger anniversary. It happened on Nov. 12, 2002. The special extended edition DVD set The Fellowship of the Ring: The Fellowship of the Ring was available in stores at that time.

The Lord of the Rings films’ 20th anniversary is in 2021. We couldn’t have imagined exploring the entire trilogy in one story. We’ll be going back to the movies every Wednesday for the rest of the year. This will allow us to examine how the films remain timeless as classics. This year is Polygon’s Year of the Ring.

Followed By Two Towers The Return of the King box sets, the Lord of the Rings trilogy’s catalog of extra content mirrored the films themselves; a massive effort by hundreds of creatives, finally getting the thorough documentation they deserved. This final count included 43 documentaries, 9 image galleries, 12 commentary tracks and dozens of original maps. Additionally, each Extended Edition of the films had 30-50 minutes worth of extra footage.

That was 20 years ago, but the story of the making of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy is still being told. Sketches, memes and viral audio clips on TikTok reference material you wouldn’t find if your spent hours poring through every armor schematic and cast interview available on Special Edition discs. Right down to “Do you wear wigs?” memes on your FYP. And as prolific creators of TolkienTok — that is, the Tolkien-loving TikTok community — tell Polygon, the audience’s relationship to the Extended Edition DVDs is changing the way the Tolkien fandom communicates.

TikTok is able to provide ultra-specific content as long as they work according to plan. Ironically, community-based targeting may sometimes prove to be very isolating. What appears to be trending audio may actually just be 20 videos that TikTok has hand-delivered to you and only you, pushing you ever deeper into the hole in the social media mountainside that’s just your size.

But “Lord of the Rings Watch Party Hotline,” a video by Don Marshall (aka “Obscure LotR Facts Guy”) is a bonafide Tiktok success, in and outside of TolkienTok. Marshall is a friendly representative of a collect call service that provides LOTR super-fans a place where they can share interesting facts about the movies to him rather than to their unaware normie friends.

Marshall recalls originally writing the bit with a specific scene in mind: the classic “Did you know?” fun fact from Two Towers, which includes actual footage of Viggo Mortensen breaking two toes after kicking a helmet in acting out Aragorn’s grief. Impulse to announce “Viggo actually broke his toes there” is well-memed within the fandom, to the point where Marshall actually re-wrote the original idea to make it not so specifically about Mortensen’s injury. This ultimately made the video much more shareable — some duets made with it have racked up views in the millions. This video quickly became an online nerd escape valve, thanks to the participation of countless enthusiasts who cited different films facts.

“I think my family and I spent collectively more time watching the behind-the-scenes of those movies than any other medium of entertainment in the 2000s,” Marshall recalls. He notes that the Extended Editions in a way perfectly suit TikTok’s quick-bite-info/storytelling sensibilities: “So many people look at things like the costumes, and say ‘they’re so intricate,’ but half of the things you don’t even see.” You don’t need to be an exIsting fan to be interested in intimate details.

“The best thing I think about TikTok is how universal something can be, even if it is so specific.”

Famous video featuring Dominic Monaghan mocking Elijah Wood on the Press Tour The Return of the KingIt is a joke that film lovers love, and can be found only on an Extended DVD set. But when “Do you wear wigs?” was uploaded to TikTok for modern fans to enjoy, the audio morphed into a meme format, used generally as shorthand for “Do you ___?” “No I do not.” (Or just cosplayers showing off their wigs.) This resulted in 3000+ videos with millions of views.

TikTok is about building communities with people, not only views. User Knewbettadobetta, a Tolkien mega-fan, joined TikTok just as something to do, and was surprised that he couldn’t find many Lord of the Rings creators at first. It took creating his own Tolkien content to teach the algorithm to take him to TolkienTok: “I was looking for [Tolkien fans], and it didn’t put me on to the algorithm; but once I started talking about it, and people started talking about it to me, and they were sharing my stuff with the people in TolkienTok, then boom, I got locked in.”

Knewbettadobetta’s TikTok draws significantly on book lore, and he sees his content as a gateway for film fans to come into the fold of the Tolkien fandom. He specifically recalls how even the smallest bits of Extended Edition content can reveal a creator’s devotion to being book-accurate, including minute moments found only if you have the subtitles on.

In September, TikTok user @Cavatica discovered something interesting watching The Fellowship of the Ring with the subtitles on: “They’re going over Caradhras, and you see Saruman reciting spells to create the storm, and Gandalf is trying to counter the spell. [The subtitles say that] Gandalf is speaking Sindarin, and you see Saruman is speaking Quenya.” Knewbettadobetta wasted no time in duetting with his own theories. “That’s huge — they don’t say they’re just *speaking Elvish*….Saruman is high and snooty and is trying to speak the language of the more powerful elves, while Gandalf is more the everyman, speaking the language of the people. Stuff like that is amazing.”

Image by New Line Cinema

TolkienTok users have changed in how they consume content over time. There are some TolkienTok creators who help other TolkienTok fans to see their own work. WizardWayKris is a TolkienTok creator who uses the pronouns she and they. She focuses mainly on Elvish and Elves. Extended Edition content gives them the chance to express their passion for the language and the lore of Tolkien.

“Art is created by those who consume it; we as the consumers bring our own lens. When we experience fandom and canon, we pull things out that may not have been important to other people,” WizardWayKris told Polygon, noting in particular a scene from the Fellowship Extended Edition commentaries. Sir Ian McKellan relates the story of how he emphasized to Elijah Wood and Sean Astin that Tolkien’s inclusion of Sam holding Frodo’s hand while bedridden was very important to certain gay readers, and that it was vital to make sure that moment was seen onscreen. As a nonbinary trans creator, WizardWayKris says that “me even existing as a creator in this space helps open it up to those people who would say ‘this is all just subtext, no one is actually saying these things’.” To many, subtext is increasingly text in the modern Tolkien fandom.

An element of Extended Edition TikTok that can’t be ignored is the myriad of videos that are just ripped uploads of the documentaries themselves. And while it may not be in keeping with the standards of copyright law, it can’t be ignored that for many young, non-DVD-player owning fans, TikTok may be the only place they would ever see this content.

Image by New Line Cinema

Although the Extended Editions were hailed as gospel, it has proved fatal for the bonus features industry. All-access passes viewers received to view the production of today’s blockbuster seem doomed to fade away. Extended Editions might be affected by the digital archiving crisis unless Peter Jackson and Weta Workshops make a streaming cash in.

Don Marshall, for his part, told Polygon that he plans to start a Snyderverse-style grassroots campaign to obtain an extended version of Extended Editions. It remains to be determined if this section of TikTok will expand or continue as an hyper-specific internet blip.

But either way, TolkienTok gives users a validating feeling that only the best kind of nerd spaces provide — that the knowledge that is important to you, no matter how niche, is valuable and relatable to someone. TikTok may make it easier than ever to locate that person.