Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: THE LORD OF THE RINGS ON BLU RAY

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Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 04-05-2010, 07:47 PM:

The complete LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy will be coming out tomorrow on Blu Ray and I will be picking up a copy. A lot of fans were hoping it was going to be the extended cut but I had heard Peter Jackson has plans to include a lot of extra stuff that was not included in the DVD editions of the complete film and will release a mega edition when he is good and ready. I am very happy with my DVD sets of the extended version of all three films and have no intention of getting the Blu Ray set of the extended versions when it is released because the theatrical box set in the format is good enough.

There have been some grumbling about the picture quality of THE LORD OF THE RINGS movies on Blu-Ray. As far as I am concerned, as long as the picture quality is better than the DVD-I will be happy because the DVD picture quality is already superb.

-Claude

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 04-05-2010, 08:10 PM:

I won't be getting any editions of this. The movies never did anything for me. I just don't "get it". It seems far more nerd-tastic than even Star Wars/Trek. The story was supposed to be epic/profound/entertaining/etc, but I found none of these qualities anywhere. The deal was broken when the trees started to talk... and walk. Sure, the voices sounded awesome, but good sound alone does not make a good movie. Also, the CGI creature annoyed me to no end. Gollum or whatever... I just wanted him to die right away, he did not add any enjoyment.

Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 04-05-2010, 08:45 PM:

Yeah, I don't get it either. I realize it has its fans, but I walked out of the only one I went to (The Two Towers).

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-05-2010, 08:51 PM:

I liked the LOTR trilogy, but I'll only buy the theatrical cut package on Blu-ray if it is deeply discounted. Warner Home Video seems to have been up to its usual crap, at least with regard of the first chapter of the trilogy.

There is a lot of controversy regarding the image quality on The Fellowship of the Ring, but some of the flaws may lie in the original source material. So even with a "corrected" video master in the eventual extended cut release the first movie in the trilogy may have video quality significantly under "reference quality" standards. We'll see.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 04-05-2010, 09:39 PM:

Bobby,

I seem to recall Amazon had the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy originally priced at about $65.00 but dropped it to $59.99, the amount both Best Buy and Target is charging for the set this week.

If I was able to get the five disc special edition of BLADE RUNNER in Blu-Ray for $12.95 at Costco two weeks ago, anything is possible with the LOTR trilogy if the set does not sell well during it's initial release. There might be a possibility one might be able to get the set for $30.00 or less in a couple of months but there is no guarantee of that ever happening. That is the reason to buy it now at the lowest price is the thing to do. It seem Best Buy & Target has the lowest prices so far. Not sure about Walmart but I think their prices will be about the same as the other two stores. If it is more, they will price match with the other two stores. If it is less, the other two stores should be able to match Walmart price.

-Claude

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-06-2010, 12:50 AM:

Ah, I'm going to wait.

I'm waiting on the two Toy Story movies on Blu-ray to arrive in the mail. Then I have to consider other discs being released in April (or already available).

Collateral is a pretty good movie, although I still think Michael Mann should have left the "video look" of the electronic cameras intact on this one. I think that movie would have been better if it all looked like video. With "digital cinema" so-called "filmmakers" have the ability to deliver movies that either look like film or video. So why not play with both looks? Why continue with the pretentious bullshit?

Apollo 13 is coming out on Blu-ray this month, complete with a DTS-HD Master Audio track AND pretty much all the extras from the DD-only DVD. I'm not sure, but I think there's supposed to be a couple new extras included as well.

Saving Private Ryan is coming out on Blu-ray in a few weeks. I really hope Paramount did a great job with this one.

Minority Report is another Spielberg title coming out on Blu-ray that may be worth owning. The cover art on the disc totally sucks ass though. Ugh. Lowest common denominator VHS-style marketing. HATE IT. Blu-ray deserves something more tasteful looking.

Tombstone is also coming out on Blu-ray in April. That one is a guilty pleasure, in part for Val Kilmer's performance as Doc Holiday. Hope Disney did a good job with the video transfer.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 04-06-2010, 01:28 AM:

Bobby, I haven't seen Collateral, but what are you talking about? I assume some of the shots are supposed to be from surveillance cameras? If so, then the frame rate could change to 60fps during those things and back to 24fps for the "movie" footage. I saw a TV show do this when I was a kid, but it was for a news camera. I thought it was crazy and couldn't figure out why the news footage looked so much different than the rest of it, but I was just a dumb kid and not yet a real, legitimate human being. Actually, kids are legitimate humans, just not teenagers.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 04-06-2010, 04:06 AM:

I have both TOY STORY movies in Blu Ray and they are both excellent. Both image and sound quality are top notch.

-Claude

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-06-2010, 10:08 AM:

quote: Joe Redifer
Bobby, I haven't seen Collateral, but what are you talking about? I assume some of the shots are supposed to be from surveillance cameras?

Most of Collateral was shot with HD-quality video cameras and then put through the usual "let's try to make it look like film" post processing techniques. The movie still obviously looks like it was shot on video, but with the gamma range of the original video footage crushed into murky crapdom with all the "film look" filtering.

Given the raw. pseudo-reality show feel of the movie, I think Collateral would have been helped if the native video look had been left intact. The movie would have had an more immediate, real look to it. But I guess the "filmmakers" were too afraid it would look like a TV show.

Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 04-06-2010, 10:42 AM:

My copy of the Lord of the Rings on Blu-ray should be arriving any time today. I've had it on order since April 16th of 2009! [Smile]

I, too, have seen the gripes about the picture quality, with screenshot comparisons galore between the DVD, Blu-ray, and HD broadcasts that have been done. It's possible that the reported issues will be problematic, but I've been waiting far too long for these to be released, and we'll be waiting a good long time for any future releases of these movies on Blu-ray, that $60 for three movies is not too much to pay. This series ranks right up there with the best movie series ever in my book, so I have no problem paying for the ability to have them in my library.

As far as pricing goes, I doubt that we're going to see major discounting going on with this title. The $60 intro pricing this week is probably going to be the best we'll see until at least the holidays, but who knows? If sales aren't good enough for the studio, maybe they'll drop the price after a few months, but I doubt it. Boxed sets of A-list titles rarely get discounted that heavily, but we have seen it with the Die Hard trilogy and others from time to time. Even if they were to cut the price in half by the end of the year, I will have had the ability to enjoy them the entire time for a measly $30 more. I'll take that trade-off for these movies.

My second grade teacher read The Hobbit to us and from that time, I was hooked on the storyline. When I was 9, I checked out The Lord of the Rings from the library (hardcovers, complete with the pull-out maps). Before the movies came out, I paid the high prices for the Easton Press Editions of the four books (complete with pull-out maps, of course).

When the movies came out, I saw them in the theaters, both the original cuts and the extended cuts. I own the DVD special editions of the theatrical cuts, and the gift set editions of the extended cuts (complete with WETA-designed "sculptures").

So yes, I'm a fan.

However, I do not go around dressed in dwarf clothing and speaking dwarf language, nor do I go to Hobbit conventions or any other such things. I'm a Star Wars fan, but I've never built my own light saber or dressed up like a stormtrooper either.

The extended editions will eventually be released, and I will buy them when they are available. But for now, I will be very happy to finally have the theatrical cuts in my possession in the highest quality that I'm able to enjoy.

It's unfortunate that Amazon does not clear the reviews that are commenting on the lack of the extended cuts, but their review system has always been quite flawed when it comes to movies. Way too many comments about the movie and not about the quality of the particular release in terms of picture quality, sound quality, extras, etc.

Where is that UPS guy??

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-06-2010, 12:01 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
I'm waiting on the two Toy Story movies on Blu-ray to arrive in the mail.

The mailman delivered the movies this morning. A few hours from now I'll be putting them into the PS3. Gotta remember to visit that Disney Movie Rewards website to enter a rewards code for a free movie ticket to Toy Story 3.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 04-06-2010, 12:49 PM:

I'm surprised that there are supposedly image-quality issues with Fellowship. In its 35mm form, I thought that it looked noticeably sharper than the later parts.

Anyway, I enjoyed the LOTR films, and believe that they are among the best releases of the decade. I don't know how they would hold up on a TV screen, but they might be OK on a good HD projection setup.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-06-2010, 02:09 PM:

Apparently The Fellowship of the Ring didn't have a 2K digital intermediate used for its entire length. The next two movies in the trilogy did (scans at 2K and 2K DI).

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 04-06-2010, 07:41 PM:

I picked up my copy of THE LORD OF THE RINGS from Best Buy this morning.Because I had a $5.00 Reward Zone credit coupon, the set cost me about 57.00 with tax. When I studied the content of the collection, all three movies has the same 6.1 DTS track that was featured on the extended version of the three movies on DVD. The original theatrical versions only had a 5.1 Dolby track on DVD. The discs are housed in two standard Blu-Ray cases. The first case has three Blu-Ray discs each with it's complete movie along with the trailers for the movie and LOTR video games. In addition to the three Bds, the case also has three DVDs containing all of the extra features for each of the three movies in the trilogy. The 2nd case has three Digital Copy DVDs with the download codes for each of the movies

-Claude.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-06-2010, 10:57 PM:

According to Blu-ray.com the new LOTR theatrical cut Blu-ray discs have DTS-HD Master Audio (with DTS-ES 5.1 matrixed extended surround). That's a step up from the lossy-only audio on the previous DVD editions, even though the extended cut DVDs featured DTS-ES Discrete 6.1 audio.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 04-06-2010, 11:52 PM:

So is the DTSHDMA 5.1 or 6.1?

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 04-07-2010, 04:47 AM:

I watched bits and pieces of all three LORD OF THE RINGS movies tonight on Blu-Ray and unlike those who had said the BD picture quality was lacking, I am afraid I will have to differ with them. I thought the images was excellent especially the the 3rd part , THE RETURN OF THE KING. Before playing the Blu=ray, I watched fifteen minutes of each of the three movies on DVD and watched them again on Blu Ray and the Blu-Ray is beautiful.

Yes Joe, The DTS Master Audio tracks on all three films is 6.1 as I had stated in my previous post. I know this to be a fact because that is what it says on the box and the enclosed literature. The sound is awesome and so much better than the DVD.

-Claude