This Day in Geek History: The Fellowship of the Ring is released

Having been dubbed a history maven and all around queen of useless knowledge, I thought I would start discussing some awesome geek history tidbits. Today, I thought I would start with a favorite of mine, the release of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

Buzz is surround the release of Peter Jackson's "Hobbit" adaptation. I've heard that the trailer for "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" is attached to both Sherlock Holmes and the Adventures of Tintin. I read, however, that here in Lexington the trailer didn't appear. Curses!

Anyway, about LoTR: FotR. The film, the first of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, premiered in the United States on December 19, 2011, nine days after the UK release. The film went on to earn 870 million dollars worldwide and was the second highest grossing film of 2001, behind Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. 2001 was a big year for first in series movies.

A ring which was thought to have been lost for centuries has been found, and the bearer is a young Hobbit named Frodo. It is up to him to destroy the ring so that it may not return to the hands of its master, the evil Sauron. We meet Frodo, Legolas, and their merry band of adventurers, including Merry and Pippin, et al. (Oh and everyone's favorite Lord of Winterfell, I mean Boromir.) Over mountains, through forgotten woods, and by blood sweat and tears, the Fellowship works to complete their epic quest.

Who is your favorite character from the Lord of the Rings series?

Lord of the Rings Director's Cuts Coming to Theaters

I'm a fan of The Lord of the Rings. The series was originally released when I was in high school and my mom and I saw all three films together. The cake for my 17th birthday was even Lord of the Rings themed. Excitement is building for The Hobbit movie and I'm getting ready to read The Hobbit as part of the Geek Girls Book Club. Definitely a Tolkien fan. When I read @amy_geek's tweet earlier that the LotR Extended Editions were going to get a theatrical release this year, I was stoked! Then, I did some research on TheOneRing.net and it looks like there's not a chance of the movies coming to my area.

Over three weekends beginning June 28, 2011, AMC Theatres will show Director's Cuts of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and the Return of the King, respectively. This will help build excitement for the Blu-ray release of the same films this year. There isn't a lot of information about this theatrical event yet, but TheOneRing.net will be providing more information as it is available. Currently, there's just a shell of an event listing for the movie events. Sadly, however, it looks like the closest AMC Theater to Lexington, where I live, is Newport. That's so far away the Find a Theater tool won't even bring up the listing. Sad times.

It looks like AMC is bringing back a lot of movies for "one night only." What are your thoughts about these special movie events? Are they a great way to build hype about Blu-ray releases? Do they allow a new generation to experience a movie on the big screen?