Lord Of The Rings Extended Editions on Blu-Ray

TheIrishGrover

Amazon trailer so must be coming soon. As much as I liked the cinema versions I really preffered the EEs. For me, Boromir and Faramir and Denethor's deleted scene in TTT is probably my favourite added scene. Plus the commentaries are brilliant. (Esp Jackson, Boyans and Walsh one and Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan's one). Anyway, link to the trailer

http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/m3LI8C9D4PMBMT/ref=ent_fb_link

Galvasean

Also, The Return of the King isn't absolutely riddled with plotholes when you watch the extended edition.

Sad Professor

I love the EE of FOTR, but the other two films had some questionable scenes added back in. Jackson once talked about revisiting the films and fixing things up. Gollum in FOTR, etc. I hope he does it at some point, but it'll probably be after The Hobbit.

I would have really liked to see the Galadriel narrated epilogue from ROTK (which I assume was shot). Unfortunately Jackson was probably reluctant to put it in due to all the complaints about multiple endings.

TheIrishGrover

Sad Professor wrote: »

I love the EE of FOTR, but the other two films had some questionable scenes added back in. Jackson once talked about revisiting the films and fixing things up. Gollum in FOTR, etc. I hope he does it at some point, but it'll probably be after The Hobbit.

I would have really liked to see the Galadriel narrated epilogue from ROTK (which I assume was shot). Unfortunately Jackson was probably reluctant to put it in due to all the complaints about multiple endings.

Just as long as he doesn't go all Lucas on it. Don't want to see a whole Orc/Uruk-hai musical number

krudler

fcuking hell its easy to forget Fellowship came out 10 years ago this Christmas, can remember it like yesterday

irish_stevo815

10 Years.....WOW :eek:

Have all the Extended editions on DVD but would definately consider adding the Blu-Ray set to my collection, especially if there is some new material!

rednik

Bluray.com have just put this up. 9 dvds of special features in a limited deluxe box set. If they are going to release a blu ray box set well make it blu ray not just the feature films.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=5974

filmbuffboy

if you look at the review of the theatrical edition on blu ray on bluray.com you will see that the reviewer had some major issues with the picture quality of the release.

So a little bit of advice to those who buy blu rays for the superior picture quality..... wait for a review of this product from bluray.com before buying. you dont wanna spend a big wad of cash on somthing that has sub par hd quality. you want the real deal.

im hoping im being overly pessimistic and warner have treated this version with the hd release it deserves!!!

The Mad Hatter

Galvasean wrote: »

Also, The Return of the King isn't absolutely riddled with plotholes when you watch the extended edition.

Yes, and on Blu-ray it presumably won't be clumsily split across two discs with the cut in the middle of a scene.

Kess73

filmbuffboy wrote: »

if you look at the review of the theatrical edition on blu ray on bluray.com you will see that the reviewer had some major issues with the picture quality of the release.

So a little bit of advice to those who buy blu rays for the superior picture quality..... wait for a review of this product from bluray.com before buying. you dont wanna spend a big wad of cash on somthing that has sub par hd quality. you want the real deal.

im hoping im being overly pessimistic and warner have treated this version with the hd release it deserves!!!

True. There is a big difference in picture quality between the FOTR on and ROTK in the theatrical versions on blu ray.

Was given the trilogy on blu ray at Xmas, and I was quite underwhelmed at the quality of the first film, and whilst the second and third film looked good on blu ray, they did not look as good as they should have done. They were probaby 4/5 in terms of quality rather than the 5/5 one would expect from parts two and three. FOTR would be a 2.5 or 3 out of 5 in my eyes in terms of pic quality.

Voodu Child

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Yes, and on Blu-ray it presumably won't be clumsily split across two discs with the cut in the middle of a scene.

If they have any regard for PQ they'll split them across two discs.

More likely they'll put them on one BD-50. And because they're putting a documentary and a few commentaries on the same disc, ROTK will end up with about 20Mbps or less video bitrate. Don't expect any major upgrade in PQ compared to the so-so theatrical editions.

johnny_ultimate

Galvasean wrote: »

Also, The Return of the King isn't absolutely riddled with plotholes when you watch the extended edition.

I've been meaning to rewatch Two Towers and RotK actually (watched Fellowship relatively recently). I think I've seen the extended edition of TT, but I always thought RotK was too long in the first place. So... many... endings

Sad Professor

There's really only one ending, but Jackson screwed up the editing. Nearly everyone of the final scenes ends with a fade to black which audiences are hard-wired to associate with the movie being over. If he had replaced all the fade to blacks with dissolves, ran a consistent musical score through all the final scenes, and added a voice-over from Frodo or Galadriel, there wouldn't have been any complaints about multiple endings.

Johnny Bitte

Sad Professor wrote: »

There's really only one ending, but Jackson screwed up the editing. Nearly everyone of the final scenes ends with a fade to black which audiences are hard-wired to associate with the movie being over. If he had replaced all the fade to blacks with dissolves, ran a consistent musical score through all the final scenes, and added a voice-over from Frodo or Galadriel, there wouldn't have been any complaints about multiple endings.

Any chance he'll do this because everytime I get to the end the memory of half the cinema on their feet/Loudly complaining WTF/Just leaving springs up everytime

purple_hatstand

Sad Professor wrote: »

I love the EE of FOTR, but the other two films had some questionable scenes added back in. Jackson once talked about revisiting the films and fixing things up. Gollum in FOTR, etc. I hope he does it at some point, but it'll probably be after The Hobbit.

I would have really liked to see the Galadriel narrated epilogue from ROTK (which I assume was shot). Unfortunately Jackson was probably reluctant to put it in due to all the complaints about multiple endings.

I'm not sure anything like this exists.....?

filmbuffboy

Voodu Child wrote: »

If they have any regard for PQ they'll split them across two discs.

More likely they'll put them on one BD-50. And because they're putting a documentary and a few commentaries on the same disc, ROTK will end up with about 20Mbps or less video bitrate. Don't expect any major upgrade in PQ compared to the so-so theatrical editions.

Well if the picture quality hasnt improved I wont be buying them and Ill stick with my extended dvd box set. Im sick of studios trumping high definition, saying that its way better than dvd....and then releasing blu ray versions of films with sub par hd quality. Gladiator is another film that springs to mind where they were careless with the first print.

If a film company expects me to double dip on a release that I already own, then there had better b a substantial improvment on the blu ray release of the theatrical version.

Personally, I think anyone who forks over a big wad of cash for a film that hasnt been given the proper HD treatment is a fool, particularly so if they already own the dvd.

After buying the Gladiator blu ray blindly I learned my lesson and now always wait for a picture quality review on bluray.com:cool:

Sad Professor

purple_hatstand wrote: »

I'm not sure anything like this exists.....?

Maybe so. But on the commentary track for FOTR one of them said that Galadriel would have the last line in the third film. Given that Sam has the last line in the book and there's not much room for a voice-over at that moment, I always assumed this meant a epilogue. How substantial this was and how much of it was shot, I don't know.

The prologue was created in editing and was originally supposed to be told by Gandalf during a later scene, so it's possible this idea of an epilogue was something they came up with afterwards but never got around to shooting it.

Antar Bolaeisk

Sad Professor wrote: »

There's really only one ending, but Jackson screwed up the editing. Nearly everyone of the final scenes ends with a fade to black which audiences are hard-wired to associate with the movie being over. If he had replaced all the fade to blacks with dissolves, ran a consistent musical score through all the final scenes, and added a voice-over from Frodo or Galadriel, there wouldn't have been any complaints about multiple endings.

I can only presume he did it on purpose to highlight the multiple endings bringing each part of the journey to a close. It's not his fault that most of the audience were stupid/impatient and couldn't wait for the credits to roll.

Everytime I hear someone complain about the ending of Return of the King I slap them and ask them what did they expect, a two minute wrap up to a nine hour epic?

Granted the visual cues were there but were people really that impatient to leave the cinema that they jumped to leave at the first sign of it ending (although I suppose after nearly three and a half hours there were a lot of people dying for the loo).

purple_hatstand

There should have been an Epilogue. It would have provided a nicely-symmetrical book-end for the final instalment and, more importantly, it would have vastly improved the pacing of the ending of the trilogy. It could have begun after the Eagle rescue and shown a compilation of short clips of reunions, coronations and farewells. It could even have been used to allude to the Scouring Of The Shire (an omission which seriously irks me to this day).

I recently re-watched all 3 EE's over a weeekend and the most striking aspect is how unwieldy and over-indulgent ROTK is.

johnny_ultimate

Antar Bolaeisk wrote: »

Everytime I hear someone complain about the ending of Return of the King I slap them and ask them what did they expect, a two minute wrap up to a nine hour epic?

Granted the visual cues were there but were people really that impatient to leave the cinema that they jumped to leave at the first sign of it ending (although I suppose after nearly three and a half hours there were a lot of people dying for the loo).

Why would you want to slap someone for criticising a major structural and pacing flaw of an otherwise fantastic achievement? I couldn't wait to see RotK as a teenager, and was super excited when I got into a press screening. But the ending was crushing - forty five minutes or so of circle jerking and back-slappery. At least the book had the Scourge of the Shire to break it up, but in the film it's just an endless succession of increasingly redundant and repetitive send-offs.

No doubting it was a monumental achievement - both the film and the narrative itself - but such a major problem was a disappointing end to a wonderful experience, and ultimately what was left in my mind as I left the cinema.

Sad Professor

Antar Bolaeisk wrote: »

Everytime I hear someone complain about the ending of Return of the King I slap them and ask them what did they expect, a two minute wrap up to a nine hour epic?

I agree, but film audiences are used to quick resolutions. And when they see scenes of the characters all standing around smiling, they just think "oh happy ever after" and get ready to go. I think Jackson could have done more to emphasis Frodo's sacrifice during the early post-Doom scenes so that the audience had a better idea that the story wasn't over yet.

purple_hatstand wrote: »

I recently re-watched all 3 EE's over a weeekend and the most striking aspect is how unwieldy and over-indulgent ROTK is.

There's too much going on in it. The decision to shift Shelob and the Voice of Saruman into ROTK robbed TTT of a proper ending and made ROTK rushed. Instead of fleshing out TTT (which really didn't need it), they should have fleshed out Frodo and Sam's journey through Mordor, particularly Sam's efforts to rescue Frodo.

Even though it wouldn't have been true to the book, I would have liked to have seen more conflict between Frodo and Sam over the ring as well. It would have added to the tension and given them more to play with in ROTK. Although Tolkienites would probably burn me at the stake for suggesting that Sam should be anything but pure hearted.

johnny_ultimate

Sad Professor wrote: »

I agree, but film audiences are used to quick resolutions. And when they see scenes of the characters all standing around smiling, they just think "oh happy ever after" and get ready to go. I think Jackson could have done more to emphasis Frodo's sacrifice during the early post-Doom scenes so that the audience had a better idea that the story wasn't over yet.

In my eyes it isn't down to attention span issues or prior expectations that make it so unwieldy (although admittedly I haven't seen the film since the cinema, hence it being on my rewatch list!) - in fact, the audience would actively be awaiting a satisfactory conclusion having got that far. It's that it makes the "happily ever after" point again, and again, and then again. It was almost condescending in delivery - it was well established that everyone lived happily ever after, but they kept rubbing it in, for me stressing a point I was confident I understood far earlier in the lengthy concluding hour. It made for a rather lobsided, one-sided conclusion IMO.

I feel strongly about it because at the time it was a true disappointment. While I don't respect Jackson quite so much after The Lovely Bones (which was beyond a dud) at the time he could do no wrong in my eyes - having made two three hour plus epics that felt like half that length they were so engaging (as well as his terrific fun earlier films). I'm not doubting it needed a suitably epic, complex ending. It's epic alright, but the latter is what's missing. The conclusion as it stands - however true to the book it may have been - was so absurdly self-indulgent and poorly paced that it was a genuinely fatal mistake IMO. I look back at FotR and TT with great fondness, but RotK's legacy was always somewhat tarnished. It isn't a result of impatience, I just thought it was dull, repetitive film-making.

david75

If you think about it, the fade outs at the end are a good way of bringing all the characters arcs to a close and they tie up lots of loose ends. I agree about TTT needing to be fleshed out, but the timeline Jackson follows in the film with his editing is actually the timeline from Tolkien himself. You couldn't film it as it is in the book, what would you say after the chase for the Hobbits..'now back to Sam and Frodo, 3 months ago' or whatever? it wouldn't work.

If he is considering a re-edit I wish he'd cut out the completely unneccessary fall Aragorn takes in TTT. it's pointless and holds the story up.

TTT definitely feels like the runt of the three.

Sad Professor

Yeah, I agree about Aragon's fall in TTT. The trilogy had far too many fake-death scenes and that was definitely one too many as it was so bloody obvious that he wasn't dead.

But re: the timeline, I don't think Jackson was too concerned about the chronology of events in the book. The main reason that so much material from TTT got put into ROTK was because Jackson was originally commissioned by Miramax to make two films which involved merging most of the events of FOTR and TTT into a single film. This was when they decided to integrate Shelob into the events of ROTK, then called "The War of the Ring" which would have been the second film.

Then when New Line took over and decided to make three films, they had to very quickly separate that first script into two films and spent most of their time working on FOTR, as that was the first film and the one that they felt needed the most work. They hadn't enough time to work on TTT and were afraid to take Shelob out of ROTK in case there wouldn't be enough Frodo/Sam material left. This is why TTT is the runt of the trilogy.

rednik

If the transfers are done properly I have no problem if they are on single 50gb discs. The picure quality should be excellent. Take the Apocalypse Now release, both the TE and Redux are on a single 50gb disc and the transfer is excellent for both editions. Together these two add up to almost six hours so they should have no problem putting the EE versions on one disc.

Voodu Child

rednik wrote: »

If the transfers are done properly I have no problem if they are on single 50gb discs. The picure quality should be excellent. Take the Apocalypse Now release, both the TE and Redux are on a single 50gb disc and the transfer is excellent for both editions. Together these two add up to almost six hours so they should have no problem putting the EE versions on one disc.

Apocalypse Now has two versions via seamless branching. There isn't actually 6hrs of footage on one disc.

Kess73

Voodu Child wrote: »

Apocalypse Now has two versions via seamless branching. There isn't actually 6hrs of footage on one disc.

Still should be no problem to put each of the extended editions on one disk each though, and put the extras on seperate disks.


Got the Dirty Dozen on blu ray lately, and it has the full length version of the film, plenty of extras which include two new docs on the film and the entire second film, and all on the one disk. Giving it a total of 363 minutes of footage on one disk, slightly over six hours.

Voodu Child

Kess73 wrote: »

Got the Dirty Dozen on blu ray lately, and it has the full length version of the film, plenty of extras which include two new docs on the film and the entire second film, and all on the one disk. Giving it a total of 363 minutes of footage on one disk, slightly over six hours.

The Dirty Dozen extras are all standard-definition.

Kess73

Voodu Child wrote: »

The Dirty Dozen extras are all standard-definition.

Have only watched the main feature on it so far, so had not checked what the rest was shown in.


But there are films over the 200 minute mark already out on blu ray and on one disk. So I fail to see why the extended versions could not each be shown on one disk if the extras were kept on seperate disks.

Voodu Child

Kess73 wrote: »

But there are films over the 200 minute mark already out on blu ray and on one disk. So I fail to see why the extended versions could not each be shown on one disk if the extras were kept on seperate disks.

Its not that it can't be put on one disc, its whether it should.

I explained it already. Encode ROTK (251min) to about 45GB with a ~4000kbps audio track and you'll have about 20Mbps for video.

Some movies can look great at that kind of bitrate, but we already know that the Theatrical Editions had a similar bitrate and didn't look great. They DNR'd the heck out of them to help with compression.

Its not impossible that it'd look great on a single disc, but considering the amount of times some people have bought and re-bought the trilogy, personally i'd be happier if they split it across two and really went to town on the PQ. High-bitrate, no DNR, no excuses. I don't watch movies from discs so its a trivial matter for me to rip two discs and join them together into a single file.

Phony Scott

Full specs here

Entertainment Video have announced the UK Blu-ray Disc release of The Lord of the Rings Motion Picture Trilogy: Extended Edition on 28th June 2011. A 15-disc collection, the UK RRP is TBC but just like the US set from Warner you get all three of Peter Jackson’s films in their extended editions complete with more than 26 hours of extras.

Features are essentially identical to the US set (the only bullet point that appears to be missing is the ‘BD-Live Enabled’ feature), so if you read our news story for that then what follows may look familiar…

Due to the length of the extended editions each film is presented across 2 Blu-ray Discs (to “present each film in the highest possible picture quality”). The set features English 6.1 DTS-HD MA audio and a new transfer of The Fellowship of the Ring which was remastered from the original 2k digital files. Extras include the rare behind-the-scenes documentaries created by Costa Botes that were first seen on the 2006 Limited Edition DVD releases of the films, along with the acclaimed special features by Michael Pellerin from the original extended cut releases.

The set will be packaged in multi-disc elite packaging inside a premium rigid slipcase.

Below is a full breakdown of each disc in the set…

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Disc 1 (Blu-ray)

• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Feature Extended Edition Part 1
• The Lord of the Rings: War in the North – The Untold Story Trailer
• Commentary with Director & Writers
• Commentary with Design Team
• Commentary with Production and Post Production
• Commentary with Cast

Disc 2 (Blu-ray)

• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Feature Extended Edition Part 2
• Commentary with Director & Writers
• Commentary with Design Team
• Commentary with Production and Post Production
• Commentary with Cast

Disc 3 (DVD)

• The Appendices Part 1 From Book to Vision
• Peter Jackson Introduction
• JRR Tolkien: Creator of Middle-earth
• From Book To Script
• Visualizing the Story
• Designing and Building Middle-earth
• Middle-earth Atlas Interactive
• New Zealand and Middle-earth Interactive

Disc 4 (DVD)

• The Appendices Part Two From Vision to Reality
• Elijah Wood Introduction
• Filming The Fellowship of the Ring
• Visual Effects
• Post Production: Putting It All Together
• Digital Grading
• Sound and Music
• The Road Goes Ever On…

Disc 5 (DVD)

• Behind-the-Scenes Documentary Created by Filmmaker Costa Botes during filming of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Disc 6 (Blu-ray)

• The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Feature Extended Edition Part 1
• The Lord of the Rings: War in the North – The Untold Story Trailer
• Commentary with Director & Writers
• Commentary with Design Team
• Commentary with Production and Post Production
• Commentary with Cast

Disc 7 (Blu-ray)

• The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Feature Extended Edition Part 2
• Commentary with Director & Writers
• Commentary with Design Team
• Commentary with Production and Post Production
• Commentary with Cast

Disc 8 (DVD)

• The Appendices Part 3: The Journey Continues
• Peter Jackson Introduction
• JRR Tolkien: Origin of Middle-earth
• From Book to Script: Finding the Story
• Designing and Building Middle-earth
• Gollum
• Middle-earth Atlas Interactive
• New Zealand as Middle-earth

Disc 9 (DVD)

• The Appendices Part 4: The Battle for Middle-earth
• Elijah Wood Introduction
• Filming The Two Towers
• Visual Effects
• Editorial: Refining the Story
• Music and Sound
• The Battle for Helm's Deep is Over…

Disc 10 (DVD)

• Behind-the-Scenes Documentary Created by Filmmaker Costa Botes during filming of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Disc 11 (Blu-ray)

• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Feature Extended Edition Part 1
• The Lord of the Rings: War in the North – The Untold Story Trailer
• Commentary with Director & Writers
• Commentary with Design Team
• Commentary with Production and Post Production
• Commentary with Cast

Disc 12 (Blu-ray)

• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Feature Extended Edition Part 2
• Commentary with Director & Writers
• Commentary with Design Team
• Commentary with Production and Post Production
• Commentary with Cast

Disc 13 (DVD)

• The Appendices Part 5: The War of the Ring
• Peter Jackson Introduction
• JRR Tolkien: The Legacy of Middle-earth
• From Book to Script
• Designing and Building Middle-earth
• Home of the Horse Lords
• Middle-earth Atlas
• New Zealand as Middle-earth

Disc 14 (DVD)

• The Appendices Part 6: The Passing of an Age
• Introduction
• Filming The Return of the King
• Visual Effects
• Post-Production: Journey’s End
• The Passing of an Age
• Cameron Duncan: The Inspiration for Into the West

Disc 15 (DVD)

• Behind-the-Scenes Documentary Created by Filmmaker Costa Botes during filming of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Phony Scott

I'll definately buy these for the first two brilliant films, the third one for me is a good film, but nowhere near as good as the first two. After I saw Shelob cocoon Frodo, I noticed myself giggling at how silly Frodo looked, then the film became increasingly overblown to say the least.

Ronanc1

Salivation..

krudler

15 discs?!?!

pity they couldnt fit the whole movie on one disc though

johnny_ultimate

Fifteen is indeed mental, but then I guess it was 12 to begin with. Nice to see they're not skimping on visual quality, but unless they're giving the extras a high def makeover too it seems excessive!

Aha just saw the extras are DVD discs. Makes sense then.

Phony Scott

15 discs is a huge amount and obviously will inflate the price. I don't really have issues with fitting the films over two discs (until someone points out that it really can be fittted onto one disc), but fitting the extras onto DVD bugs me.

Bluray is about 50 gb in size whereas DVD is about 8gb max. Why not fit all the extras onto a single blu-ray disc. I'd happily see them compressed to drag down the price.

iMax

Absolutely no reason they couldn't put the movies onto one disk each, for this reason I'm happy with the theatrical releases.

krudler

Its 60 quid on zavvi.com,thats not too bad, give it 2 months and it'll be less than 45, will just wait.

Voodu Child

Good to hear they had the sense to split the movies across two discs. Here's hoping for high-bitrate encodes with none of the DNR that ruined the Theatrical Blurays.

All those DVDs are ridiculous though. The extras are SD so if they re-encoded in AVC they'd fit everything on one BD. I assume they were just too cheap to re-encode and re-author them.

Kess73

My interest in the package has almost gone. Bad enough the films are split over two discs, but a lot of the US sites are reporting that it is the same picture quality set up ( The Fellowship being very average in terms of pq) that is on the theatrical versions on blu ray.

And the extras on dvd? I already have that with my extended versions on dvd.


So if it turns out to be the same picture quality split over two discs with the same quality extras as the DVD version from a few years back, then it is nothing more than a con job to cash in on a poor product.

Shame as the extended versions of the films deserved better.

BopNiblets

ARRGH! That always annoyed me that I had to change disc halfway through the extended DVDs!
Not again, that's a deal breaker for me, any word of a digital copy?
Might just download a bluray rip of them, can't be fecked with upgrading.

jaykhunter

I can't believe that the extended editions are across two blu-ray discs! Just because Blu-Rays can house 50GB! Well i guess i'd rather have them in the best picture quality available and honestly I'd just watch half a film per night......but that's my choice!

Lazy, lazy having separate DVD discs for the extras. Now surely they could've been transferred in SD all onto one Blu-Ray disc? For shame!

How long are those "outsider" documentaries, do they really need 3 DVD discs? Surely they could fit on ONE Blu-Ray disc as well? WTF -- obviously anyone buying the BD version has a BD player.....

15 discs is too much. It should be 8. 9 at most.

Kess73

jaykhunter wrote: »

I can't believe that the extended editions are across two blu-ray discs! Just because Blu-Rays can house 50GB! Well i guess i'd rather have them in the best picture quality available and honestly I'd just watch half a film per night......but that's my choice!

Lazy, lazy having separate DVD discs for the extras. Now surely they could've been transferred in SD all onto one Blu-Ray disc? For shame!

How long are those "outsider" documentaries, do they really need 3 DVD discs? Surely they could fit on ONE Blu-Ray disc as well? WTF -- obviously anyone buying the BD version has a BD player.....

15 discs is too much. It should be 8. 9 at most.

If the US sites are correct, then it is the same picture quality as the theatrical versions on blu ray. Which if true means none of the three films will have jaw dropping picture quality and that the first film will look as avaerage as it does on the theatrical blu ray release.

I have rarely been as underwhelmed by a blu ray release of a huge film as I was with the theatrical version of the trilogy. If it turns of to be the same transfer, then I won't be wasting my money on a modern film that looks worse on blu ray than films from decades earlier.

I have the likes of The Bridge Over The River Kwai (US Import) from 1957 on blu ray, and the picture quality on it blows that of The Fellowship Of The Ring on blu ray out of the water.

There is something badly wrong if a 54 year old film can look so much better than a modern film that had massive money pumped into it.

Voodu Child

Kess73 wrote: »

If the US sites are correct, then it is the same picture quality as the theatrical versions on blu ray. Which if true means none of the three films will have jaw dropping picture quality and that the first film will look as avaerage as it does on the theatrical blu ray release.

I have rarely been as underwhelmed by a blu ray release of a huge film as I was with the theatrical version of the trilogy. If it turns of to be the same transfer, then I won't be wasting my money on a modern film that looks worse on blu ray than films from decades earlier.

I have the likes of The Bridge Over The River Kwai (US Import) from 1957 on blu ray, and the picture quality on it blows that of The Fellowship Of The Ring on blu ray out of the water.

There is something badly wrong if a 54 year old film can look so much better than a modern film that had massive money pumped into it.

If it is split across two discs they can increase the video bitrate. In general all three movies will benefit from higher bitrates, especially if you are watching on a larger screen.

Fellowship was the worst of the trilogy, primarily due to source quality and heavy-handed DNR. They are using a better source this time around, so that takes care of the first problem. And higher video bitrate will lessen the need for DNR. (plus they are aware of the criticism regarding the DNR on the first release anyway).

Overall I would expect Fellowship to look significantly better (than the first Blu-Ray release). And the other two to look slightly better.

LOTR are never going to be reference quality discs due to the way the movie was shot. They used a 2k DI, which means they shot the film and scanned at 2k before doing all the editing, grading, effects etc. 2k is basically the same as 1080p.

It might seem okay to have a source that is the same resolution as Bluray, but actually when making a Bluray it is desirable to have a source that is higher in resolution than your final product - that's why most old movies are scanned at 4k nowadays, 8k has been used for some titles and will probably be the norm in several years time. LOTR can never give up more resolution than 2k.

jaykhunter

Voodu Child wrote: »

Overall I would expect Fellowship to look significantly better (than the first Blu-Ray release). And the other two to look slightly better.

LOTR are never going to be reference quality discs due to the way the movie was shot. They used a 2k DI, which means they shot the film and scanned at 2k before doing all the editing, grading, effects etc. 2k is basically the same as 1080p.

It might seem okay to have a source that is the same resolution as Bluray, but actually when making a Bluray it is desirable to have a source that is higher in resolution than your final product - that's why most old movies are scanned at 4k nowadays, 8k has been used for some titles and will probably be the norm in several years time. LOTR can never give up more resolution than 2k.

Thanks for the info! I don't understand though, surely old films would be initially edited in much-lower-than-2k? or because it's analogue-edited the prints are the same as they've ever been; but LOTR was scanned/edited in 2k?

G-Money

I have to admit I'm not particularly knowledgeable when it comes to bit-rates and how films are encoded for picture and audio quality. However I would be disappointed to buy a Blu-ray film and not see much of an improvement over standard DVD. It's happened to me a couple of times where I've bought something on Blu-ray and I haven't been particularly impressed with the picture quality.

Most likely I will wait until this is released and see what the verdict is on PQ etc before deciding whether to buy. I already have the theatrical and extended editions on normal DVD so triple dipping is perhaps a bit much

Kess73

Voodu Child wrote: »

If it is split across two discs they can increase the video bitrate. In general all three movies will benefit from higher bitrates, especially if you are watching on a larger screen.

Fellowship was the worst of the trilogy, primarily due to source quality and heavy-handed DNR. They are using a better source this time around, so that takes care of the first problem. And higher video bitrate will lessen the need for DNR. (plus they are aware of the criticism regarding the DNR on the first release anyway).

Overall I would expect Fellowship to look significantly better (than the first Blu-Ray release). And the other two to look slightly better.

LOTR are never going to be reference quality discs due to the way the movie was shot. They used a 2k DI, which means they shot the film and scanned at 2k before doing all the editing, grading, effects etc. 2k is basically the same as 1080p.

It might seem okay to have a source that is the same resolution as Bluray, but actually when making a Bluray it is desirable to have a source that is higher in resolution than your final product - that's why most old movies are scanned at 4k nowadays, 8k has been used for some titles and will probably be the norm in several years time. LOTR can never give up more resolution than 2k.

I know that they could increase the bitrate if they split it between two discs, but what I was saying is that the reports on US sites are saying that this is not the case and that they are expecting the exact same transfer at the same bitrate as the theatrical versions.

If they do this then the Fellowship will look the exact same as it does now on blu ray which is pretty much sub standard.

Voodu Child

jaykhunter wrote: »

Thanks for the info! I don't understand though, surely old films would be initially edited in much-lower-than-2k? or because it's analogue-edited the prints are the same as they've ever been; but LOTR was scanned/edited in 2k?

Old films were edited on film itself. Film doesnt have a resolution per se but most film stock certainly has more detail than a 2k scan can achieve.

Whereas with LOTR, they shot on film and then immediately scanned at 2k. All the editing, colour grading, effects compositing etc, it was all done in a computer at 2k. So if you're making a Bluray, you go back to the finished 2k master, that's as good as you can do.

The only way they could get more detail out of it was if they went back and re-scanned the original negatives at 4k, and then they'd have to re-edit the movie, re-do the effects, re-grade everything. It would cost a fortune.

G-Money wrote: »

However I would be disappointed to buy a Blu-ray film and not see much of an improvement over standard DVD.

It'll certainly be miles better than DVD. Even the Theatrical releases were miles better than the DVD despite the criticism.

Ronanc1

But didn't the link say that the fellowship was going to be remastered so were not getting the same quality as the first fellowship bluray ?

Voodu Child

Ronanc1 wrote: »

But didn't the link say that the fellowship was going to be remastered so were not getting the same quality as the first fellowship bluray ?

Yes, Fellowship should be noticeably better because they are using a better source, that's what I said above :pac:
They used a film print as a source instead of a 2k master for the Fellowship Theatrical Bluray.

Butch Cassidy

Voodu Child wrote: »

All those DVDs are ridiculous though. The extras are SD so if they re-encoded in AVC they'd fit everything on one BD. I assume they were just too cheap to re-encode and re-author them.

It looks like they're so cheap they're just going to be packaging the blu-ray with the same DVD discs currently in production for the extended DVDs. Considering the cost of producing a DVD is so low and LOTR has well recouped their investment the DVD extras discs are essentially a giveaway.


There's a documentary that was included in the "Limited Edition" DVDs that had both versions on the one disc. This might be of interest to some people who didn't buy those DVDs.

Kess73 wrote: »

I have the likes of The Bridge Over The River Kwai (US Import) from 1957 on blu ray, and the picture quality on it blows that of The Fellowship Of The Ring on blu ray out of the water.

There is something badly wrong if a 54 year old film can look so much better than a modern film that had massive money pumped into it.

Bridge Over the River Kwai wasn't digitally graded - ye know how each film has a type of hue? - nor does it have a mammoth amount of visual effects shots.

As Voodoo has pointed out films with extensive CGI would need to have had their prints scanned at a high resolution, 8k as he says will become the norm.

Slightly related, the original Tron movie was part shot on 70mm which is double than normal. This was to allow for the visual effects.