The Hobbit Trilogy 4K UHD Extended & Theatrical (2012-2014)

[Rizor]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I thought the first one did a terrific job of keeping to the tone and spirit of the book, even adhering to the plot to a certain degree, as it was always meant to. It's the next two where they really derailed from the source text, taking in the new stuff, Appendices etc.

It's similar to the LOTR trilogy to me. Fellowship is perfect. Then Two Towers and Return of the King have a lot of that "we'll find the story in post" type of feel. The Hobbit movies just take that to the next level since they had to squeeze another movie out of it and PJ let loose with the CGI. I think Unexpected Journey is great. Maybe 30 min too long and I dislike the ending, but it's the most human of the three.

[iaragorn1]

Originally Posted by GenPion

Awesome announcement!

I hope this is with the HFR presentation (even though it would be 60 FPS). Never got to see it this way for myself when these played in theaters.

I was able to catch a HFR screening and I liked it. Hope it's an option.

[TravisTylerBlack]

HDR grading could/should provide Jackson a great opportunity to refine the look of these films and hopefully dial things back to look a little less processed.

I saw all three opening night at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood with the high frame rate and to me it looked like someone had set the smooth motion to high on a giant TV. Absolutely did not care for it at all but all of the 3D showings were in 48fps in Los Angeles.

[B-52 Bass]

So AWESOME news, about Damn time. Next year before Easter release hoping. Two boxsets with Ext version included.

[Mierzwiak]

Originally Posted by TravisTylerBlack

HDR grading could/should provide Jackson a great opportunity to refine the look of these films and hopefully dial things back to look a little less processed.

I'm okay with the look of first two Hobbit films (even though they look too glossy and digital conpared to LOTR Trilogy) but the third one is visually horrible (and it's a crappy movie), I doubt HDR can help here.

[Brian81]

Originally Posted by DJR662

I'll never understand why people would want films to look like anything else but film. To each his own ofcourse, but not me.

And I don't care these were originally done in HFR.

24p or no sale.

Jackson shot these for 48fps 3D. Like it or not, that is intent.


That said, I saw them and it felt weird. It "felt" like the film was playing faster than normal but it really wasn't. It took a while to adjust to the HFR.

[Jasper Freddo Frog]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Because nobody's TVs could play them.

Pal TVs could put them at 50hz.

[Synchg]

whats pissing me off is that there is no 48fps footage online. how harmless would it be for the studio to release a clip just so we can experience it in some manner. is it to be buried in history as a one time experience reserved only for the original theatrical run? how fookin annoying.
converted footage on youtube does not count

[LegacyCosts]

The high frame rate was a cool experience in theatre, was like watching a multimillion dollar play. It looked goofy but interesting and life like.

[Fang Zei]

Originally Posted by Synchg

whats pissing me off is that there is no 48fps footage online. how harmless would it be for the studio to release a clip just so we can experience it in some manner. is it to be buried in history as a one time experience reserved only for the original theatrical run? how fookin annoying.
converted footage on youtube does not count

Because the entire point of shooting in 48p 3D was to reduce the strobing effect of 24p 3D. In 2D the conventional framerate isn’t a problem, so they probably didn’t want to draw anyone’s attention to it and kept it strictly for the stereo version, and only a few theaters here and there at that.

I think even Billy Lynn played in HFR 2D in a couple theaters, so Ang Lee must’ve considered it just another part of the storytelling and not intrinsically tied to seeing it in 3D the way Jackson did on The Hobbit.

[GloveSlap]

I thought the HFR was interesting as a theater going experience so the option at home would be nice. The movies were very disappointing though. Never saw the extended cuts. I'm curious,but afraid of them. The theatricals were so bloated as-is.

[spider-neil]

Originally Posted by GloveSlap

I thought the HFR was interesting as a theater going experience so the option at home would be nice. The movies were very disappointing though. Never saw the extended cuts. I'm curious,but afraid of them. The theatricals were so bloated as-is.

I'm getting the Extended Cut for the bonus material rather than the movies themselves, which I really didn't enjoy.

[rexcrk]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I like these films a hell of a lot. People go on and on and on about it only being one book spread into three but clearly they've never read the LOTR Appendices, as some of the major events in there (which are also referenced during the main LOTR text itself) have been expounded upon in the Hobbitses and they make for a wonderful complement to the LOTR movies proper. Heck, even when it was just two H films the plan was always to have the first be the main Hobbit adaptation and the second be more of a bridge to LOTR, and over the three films that's precisely what happened. Maybe GDT would've gone in different directions, but with Jackson back directing it it was always going to tie in quite explicitly with his LOTR films.

Yes, there's a lot of contraction, omission and outright invention on behalf of the filmmakers in the Hobbitses but, again, if you actually read LOTR you'll find much the same thing going on with those beloved movies vs the books (funnily enough I'm halfway through a re-read at the moment, being midway into Two Towers). So while people kvetch about all the changes it's not so much the notion of change itself that's the issue otherwise that would be rank hypocrisy, but more the nature of the specific changes themselves. Tauriel was always going to be muy controversial but when they had to pull back on Arwen being a warrior Elf in LOTR (they decided that Liv Tyler just wasn't pulling it off well enough, amongst other things) that unfinished business manifested in the form of Tauriel.

This right here is what I am constantly trying to explain to people, but most of the time all they do is stick their fingers in their ears and never listen.

One argument I’ll give them is that, yeah, there was a lot of CGI used, but you know what? There were also still a ton of props, costumes, locations, miniatures, etc. AND most of the CG was motion capture anyway, so you still get a genuine human performance. It’s lot like the LotR trilogy didn’t have its fair share of dodgy CGI.

[Resettito]

Originally Posted by TravisTylerBlack

HDR grading could/should provide Jackson a great opportunity to refine the look of these films and hopefully dial things back to look a little less processed.

I saw all three opening night at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood with the high frame rate and to me it looked like someone had set the smooth motion to high on a giant TV. Absolutely did not care for it at all but all of the 3D showings were in 48fps in Los Angeles.

That's not going to magically change, you either get used to HFR or you don't really.

[spider-neil]

Originally Posted by rexcrk

This right here is what I am constantly trying to explain to people, but most of the time all they do is stick their fingers in their ears and never listen.

One argument I’ll give them is that, yeah, there was a lot of CGI used, but you know what? There were also still a ton of props, costumes, locations, miniatures, etc. AND most of the CG was motion capture anyway, so you still get a genuine human performance. It’s lot like the LotR trilogy didn’t have its fair share of dodgy CGI.

They can turn one book into 50 movies for all I care as long as I'm engaged. All I know is, for the most part, watching The Hobbit I was bored out of my mind and the few times I was engaged is when Gollum and Smaug were on screen.

I've actually bought the movies because the Lord of the Rings franchise releases the most comprehensive bonus features ever and also because there are several scenes in isolation that I like and I can skip to those scenes.
I liken it to skipping to the warehouse fight in Batman vs. Superman, not the best movie in the world but it has stand out sequences.

[TravisTylerBlack]

Originally Posted by Resettito

That's not going to magically change, you either get used to HFR or you don't really.

I didn’t mean to infer that it would. And actually, were these films released on UHD exclusively in the HFR format it would be a hard pass for me.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Fang Zei

Because the entire point of shooting in 48p 3D was to reduce the strobing effect of 24p 3D. In 2D the conventional framerate isn’t a problem, so they probably didn’t want to draw anyone’s attention to it and kept it strictly for the stereo version, and only a few theaters here and there at that.

I think even Billy Lynn played in HFR 2D in a couple theaters, so Ang Lee must’ve considered it just another part of the storytelling and not intrinsically tied to seeing it in 3D the way Jackson did on The Hobbit.

I don't think it did. 4K120 3D, yes, but I never heard of any 4K120 2D showings at all, unless their dual-projection setup was on the fritz. And the regular DCP was strictly 2K24, Sony abandoned a 2K60 DCP when theatres kept choking on the test DCP they sent out. (Seems to be less of a problem with Gemini Man though.)

But, to engage your wider point, we got a 4K60 2D version of Billy Lynn's on UHD so yeah, Ang really does consider it to be part of the aesthetic, part of the visual language of the film that he made. It's unfair though to state on Jackson's behalf that he was only in it for the lack of strobing as there was no means to get a home HFR version out to consumers at that time, we don't know what his intentions were (and are, when it comes to the UHDs).

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Rizor

It's similar to the LOTR trilogy to me. Fellowship is perfect. Then Two Towers and Return of the King have a lot of that "we'll find the story in post" type of feel. The Hobbit movies just take that to the next level since they had to squeeze another movie out of it and PJ let loose with the CGI. I think Unexpected Journey is great. Maybe 30 min too long and I dislike the ending, but it's the most human of the three.

Yep, as much as people kvetch about the Hobbitses not being fit to lick the bootheels of the originals they're incredibly similar in terms of how they were put together. The first movie in each trilogy is easily the best of the respective three and after that it tends to unravel, I mean we can point to them making two H movies into three on the fly but just look at how different the two versions of Two Towers are, as well as them not being able to find a place for Saruman's death until the ROTK EE; the middle movie in both trilogies seems to suffer from that creative malaise. Middle movies tend to do that anyway to be fair but in Jackson's hands especially they can end up in a right muddle, with the third movie seeming more focused only because it has a definable 'end' that can be worked towards.

Originally Posted by rexcrk

This right here is what I am constantly trying to explain to people, but most of the time all they do is stick their fingers in their ears and never listen.

One argument I’ll give them is that, yeah, there was a lot of CGI used, but you know what? There were also still a ton of props, costumes, locations, miniatures, etc. AND most of the CG was motion capture anyway, so you still get a genuine human performance. It’s lot like the LotR trilogy didn’t have its fair share of dodgy CGI.

That's the old argument used to defend the CG in the SW prequels but it misses the point: it's not so much that "even the previous movies had dodgy VFX!" but more the overweening reliance on CG in general that pisses people off.

The H films did still have plenty of practical features but AFAIK used no miniatures at all (or very very few) and when combined with the digital HFR capture that has no pretence of looking like film (Hi DJR662!) then yeah, I can see why there's a sense of disconnect there for some folks. Attacking the CG becomes a crutch for not liking what is a very "digital" looking production in every sense.

Me, I loved it though. I thought the mocapped Orcs were fantastic.

[frozenhamster]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I don't think it did. 4K120 3D, yes, but I never heard of any 4K120 2D showings at all, unless their dual-projection setup was on the fritz. And the regular DCP was strictly 2K24, Sony abandoned a 2K60 DCP when theatres kept choking on the test DCP they sent out. (Seems to be less of a problem with Gemini Man though.)

But, to engage your wider point, we got a 4K60 2D version of Billy Lynn's on UHD so yeah, Ang really does consider it to be part of the aesthetic, part of the visual language of the film that he made. It's unfair though to state on Jackson's behalf that he was only in it for the lack of strobing as there was no means to get a home HFR version out to consumers at that time, we don't know what his intentions were (and are, when it comes to the UHDs).

Billy Lynn played in Toronto in HFR on only one screen, in 2K 60fps.

[Geoff D]

Thanks. They created a 60p version during post-production so it makes sense it got a bespoke showing somewhere (I was thinking strictly of 120 above), the main DCP was definitely 2K24 only though.