The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy (Extended Edition) (2001-2003)

[mitch22]

I watched the theatricals last weekend and just bought the extended edition today. Fellowship looks sooooo much better. The colors are definitely different but they aren't bothersome imo. As well......... THE SNOW IS NOT GREEN

[nightcrawler]

Originally Posted by Lope de Aguirre

Can someone please make a screenshot of Lothlorien of the EE Blu?

Even better would be TE + EE screen grabs of Lothlorien.

Pleeeaaasssseeeeee no more screenshot comparisons!

[spf781]

Watched FOTR last night and thought it looked fine. A little dark here and there, but overall I thought the picture looked pretty damn nice.

Forgot how loud those movies were...

[NYorker]

Originally Posted by threefiftyrocket

Miramax wanted PJ to condense them into 1 film and they would have said yes... 1 movie... for Lord of the Rings...

And then, if I'm not mistaken, when PJ made his presentation to New Line, he suggested 2 films and they said, "well, why not 3?"

[death_from_above]

As well......... THE SNOW IS NOT GREEN

Well it sure as hell aint white!

[El_Jay]

Originally Posted by JLTucker

I don't mind it. I just think the old colors look better and I have changed my mind on the consistency issue. Going from Fellowship to Towers and seeing better coloring is a letdown.

I'm right there with you.

I've gone through many stages with this release.

Before I purchased it I read horror stories. Once I got it home I felt relief because it was in no way as bad as I feared. After watching it, I was happy with the extra detail and the color, when it was correct, looked great. Then I popped in The Two Towers and started really watching it, and it slowly dawned on me that this whole picture just looked better to me. I still don't think FOTR is unwatchable or even bad (I'd give it an 8/10, likely a 9.5/10 sans the tint), but I would prefer it if the tint were removed and it was consistent with the other releases.

Kudos for being able to change your point of view. In an argument that gets as heated as this one, it's an accomplishment to admit that.



Now, the books vs movies argument. Personally I have no trouble separating the books from the movies. This might be because I didn't read LOTR until after I'd seen them in theatres (I tried to cram and read FOTR the week before it came out in cinemas but I was 18 and too busy partying for books at that time in my life :P), but I've always viewed them as two separate things. Sometimes a book, scene-for-scene, just wouldn't work as a movie. I don't mind what they have cut or changed because I think it makes a stronger movie in the end, and that's what the flicks are trying to do. We're lucky they were as faithful as they were. People that hate changes on principle are not being reasonable. Also, how do we know that all the changes we didn't like came from Boyens? She is the easy target because she spoke up on the appendices, but are we now just blaming every change we didn't like on her?

GRRM's "A Song of Ice and Fire" is far more dear to me than the books of Lord of the Rings, and I have thoroughly enjoyed HBO's first season. Was it 100% faithful and accurate in every way to the books? Absolutely not... but that hasn't affected my enjoyment one iota. Walking Dead has deviated from the source material and will further deviate in coming seasons. Am I mad? Nope, not at all.

Shows and movies are just different mediums telling versions of your favorite stories. IMO if you want "the original", just read the book again. Even HBO can't capture everything that ASOIAF is, but it's not like they can take the books away from me. I will always have those.

[radagast]

Originally Posted by Nicolas554

Personally i like the mythos in the LOTR and i'd like more reference to it. And I don't belive in god at all in real life. For me god is just an invention of men, it's something that doesn't and can't exist

Funny, I don't see how it could be possible that God does not exist. To each his own. I don't want to break any rules here by discussing religion. There have been enough suspensions and bannings from this thread.

[Torgon]

Finally got my copy in from Borders. Can't wait to watch them. I may have to do a 'marathon' this weekend and watch all three .

[HD Goofnut]

Originally Posted by Torgon

Finally got my copy in from Borders. Can't wait to watch them. I may have to do a 'marathon' this weekend and watch all three .

I did that last weekend and have had LOTR on my mind all week.

[kurtlingle]

Funny thing here I wanted to mention.

I decided to wait until Nov to get the EE's (hopefully) much cheaper (since I've already bought LOTR's 3x already!).

So I popped in FOTR TE (blu-ray) last night, and all I see is GREEN. I notice how green the grass is, how green Frodo's cloak is, etc. Every little thing that is green is popping out at me.

Weird, huh. I guess reading 250 pages of "green" dialog has also affected me (again - I am watching the TE blu-ray of FOTR).

lol

[WorkShed]

Originally Posted by kurtlingle

Funny thing here I wanted to mention.

I decided to wait until Nov to get the EE's (hopefully) much cheaper (since I've already bought LOTR's 3x already!).

So I popped in FOTR TE (blu-ray) last night, and all I see is GREEN. I notice how green the grass is, how green Frodo's cloak is, etc. Every little thing that is green is popping out at me.

Weird, huh. I guess reading 250 pages of "green" dialog has also affected me (again - I am watching the TE blu-ray of FOTR).

lol

When Frodo, Sam, Gollum, and the Gondor soldiers arrive in Osgilliath at the end of Two Towers, the scene takes place in early morning hours. There's a huge lime green tint placed on that one scene. Totally intentional and has always been there.

But I did think of all the Fellowship controversy when it popped up!

[Ken Brown]

Originally Posted by Troy73

There's nothing wrong with changing your opinion. I can't even remember how many movies I initially liked only to find myself unimpressed on later viewings. That's just the human animal. What I will say to you all is please read back over the past few pages. This thread has become amazing since the tint debate stopped. There's a wealth of information here about the characters and motivations and revisions of the original source material.I'm enthralled page after page in it's discussion and that's the direction we need to continue in. All of you and myself have had our say and it's time to move on. Peace.

I don't think the tint debate ever stopped. If you look back over the last dozen pages, it's still there and I'm sure it will surge from time to time. I just think people, on the whole, stopped arguing so vehemently about it. Again, once you eliminate the arguing, the screenshot comparisons and tint discussions are actually a very small portion of the thread; it always would have been. (Well, minus the two weeks surrounding the release )

Anyway, not to belabor the point, but I'm sure tint discussion will continue until Jackson addresses it. So when the discussion does appear, simply continue to post about the books or films or whatever you'd rather talk about. I think everyone will be pleasantly surprised about how well things run if we all simply focus on the topics that interest us and skip past the posts that don't

(Keep in mind, you have a literal "ignore" option when viewing threads. If someone is always posting things you don't want to see, officially "ignore" that member and you'll filter their posts out of your thread experience. Click on the member's username --> click on View Public Profile --> click on User Lists on their public profile (beneath their member name) --> click on Add to Ignore List. Easy and efficient!)

[Eismagier]

Originally Posted by Ken Brown

simply continue to post about the books or films or whatever you'd rather talk about.

My first copies of the books had acid green covers!

*ducks*

[ST2012]

Picked these up last night and I found the video quality of FotR to be a lot more pleasant (to my eyes at least) then the theatrical release. I haven't started TTT yet but I understand that, like the theatrical versions, Fellowship is not quite up to par visually with the other two. I haven't followed the transfers very closely on either the theatrical or extended editions so I apologize if this was discussed already but why does FotR consistently seem to get short-strawed in this regard?

[El_Jay]

Originally Posted by ST2012

Picked these up last night and I found the video quality of FotR to be a lot more pleasant (to my eyes at least) then the theatrical release. I haven't started TTT yet but I understand that, like the theatrical versions, Fellowship is not quite up to par visually with the other two. I haven't followed the transfers very closely on either the theatrical or extended editions so I apologize if this was discussed already but why does FotR consistently seem to get short-strawed in this regard?

Actually, aside from the tint issue that has been discussed here as nauseam, I think FOTR looks better than the other two in this set. It was remastered and the detail is really apparent.

Initially, though, I think shooting much of FOTR they were figuring things out, and something like 30% of it hadn't been digitally color-graded until well after the theatrical release.

I suspect you'll notice more natural colors in TTT, but also some bloom when things are bright and some softer images from time to time.

[WorkShed]

Originally Posted by El_Jay

Actually, aside from the tint issue that has been discussed here as nauseam, I think FOTR looks better than the other two in this set. It was remastered and the detail is really apparent.

Initially, though, I think shooting much of FOTR they were figuring things out, and something like 30% of it hadn't been digitally color-graded until well after the theatrical release.

I suspect you'll notice more natural colors in TTT, but also some bloom when things are bright and some softer images from time to time.

Also, while in the DI process (correct me if I'm wrong) they added a soft focus filter to make everything a little more fantastical and ethereal. They abandoned the idea in TTT and ROTK, but it stayed in FOTR.

[ST2012]

Originally Posted by El_Jay

Actually, aside from the tint issue that has been discussed here as nauseam, I think FOTR looks better than the other two in this set. It was remastered and the detail is really apparent.

Initially, though, I think shooting much of FOTR they were figuring things out, and something like 30% of it hadn't been digitally color-graded until well after the theatrical release.

I suspect you'll notice more natural colors in TTT, but also some bloom when things are bright and some softer images from time to time.

That's good to hear, Fellowship has always been my favorite of the trilogy. Shame to hear about some soft images in the others but I suspect the extra content will make up for any issues I might notice. I never did see the EE's on DVD so this release is my first time with them. I loved the extra content in Fellowship!

[El_Jay]

Originally Posted by ST2012

That's good to hear, Fellowship has always been my favorite of the trilogy. Shame to hear about some soft images in the others but I suspect the extra content will make up for any issues I might notice. I never did see the EE's on DVD so this release is my first time with them. I loved the extra content in Fellowship!

I don't think you'll be disappointed by either TTT or ROTK. Even at their worst they are a substantial upgrade from the DVD. The sound is incredible and the movies themselves are so well done that it's hard to notice if the occasional shot isn't as crisp as other shots. It's really only there if you're looking for it.

FOTR is only mildly questionable because of the green tint and even then it's still very excellent. I'd give the whole set a 9.0 for PQ, and it would be 9.5 without the green tint.

I think you'll be blown away by the additional footage, as well. It's not like some movies that just throw scenes in there out of context to lengthen it, it really, really expands the story in meaningful ways and gives you a lot more to work with.

The book purists have their issues with it, but I love literally every additional scene. There is now a lot more humor in The Two Towers, and a lot more backstory in Return of the King. I think my favorite addition are the scenes involving Boromir, Faramir and Denethor.

[BleedingEdge]

HeKS,

I'm posting this here in case you cannot log in for some reason (ahem ).
Sorry it took so long. I was out for 3 days.

Some things to note when looking at these analyses:
1. The small size will cause a loss in fine details and may effect certain color channels more than others, depending on the compressor.
2. The compression will result in missing data that will appear as horizontal black lines and some cragginess along those lines.
3. The black text overlays will effect the image in some way, mostly at the bottom end in the shadow range. I'm glad you switch to black instead of white because that would show up at the top end, which we are most concerned with.

Of course these things aren't critical to the analysis of the overall color, but are important to note for honesty and posterity's sake.

Theatrical Edition:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64762175@N07/5912418050/

Extended Edition:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64762175@N07/5911858833/

Re-broken EE:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64762175@N07/5911858911/

Fixed:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64762175@N07/5911858979/

Looking at these, I'd say you did a fine job of making the footage look more "natural" (funny how I've started looking at histograms to see if I have the kind of image I like over the years). Unfortunately, trying to fix something like the clipping out of 2 stops of dynamic range of one color is about like painting the side of a barn to paint the nail heads, if you catch my meaning. It doesn't mean that your work is worthless. It just means that I understand the limitations you are working with.

Of course, if you were absolutely obsessed with retaining the original color grading while inheriting the new detail, you could always use "Ye-Olde-Fashioned Method":
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64762175@N07/5912520000/

Naturally, I aways encourage people to experiment with this kind of thing. Sometimes the most fascinating things come from those who just want to make their favorite things just a little better.

[kingkong650]

A lot of those that like the constant green tint on the fotr extended edition blu-ray have been saying how much they prefer the colours of Rivendell on the extended edition blu-ray over the colours of Rivendell on the theatrical edition blu-ray.

With that in mind, I thought that it'd be interesting to leave the DNRed theatrical edition blu-ray now to one side, seeing as we've established that the picture quality of the extended edition blu-ray is much better, and look at how Rivendell on the extended edition would look without the green tint and whether it looks better or not.

Here are comparisons between the official extended edition blu-ray (top screencap) and the same screencaps with exactly the same filter as my previous comparisons applied to remove the constant green tint that runs throughout the whole of the fotr extended edition blu-ray (bottom screencap). Apologies once again for the size of these.

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What is the general consensus on these? Do people prefer the greenish look of Rivendell on the official fotr extended edition blu-ray or do they prefer Rivendell with the green tint removed, making it look more similar to the theatrical edition, albeit much more toned down? I personally think it looks much better with the green tint removed.