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

[Mr. Movie Fan]

Originally Posted by Kinetic_Blue

What is different between the DVD Extended Version and the BluRay Extended Version?
The BluRay Extended is 20 minutes LONGER than the DVD Extended....

I also want to know why.

[frogmort]

Originally Posted by Kinetic_Blue

What is different between the DVD Extended Version and the BluRay Extended Version?
The BluRay Extended is 20 minutes LONGER than the DVD Extended....

They are the same length. There is about 20 minutes of fan club member credits at the end of both. That's right, 20 minutes of looking at 1,000s of peoples names. It may have not been included in the run time of the DVD version, but they are the same length.

[Gold Ranger]

Both The Two Towers and Return of the King are 12 Minutes longer as well, it is just more fan credits?

[frogmort]

Originally Posted by Kinetic_Blue

Both The Two Towers and Return of the King are 12 Minutes longer as well, it is just more fan credits?

Yes, they are the exact same movies. I have seen the EE DVDs an obscene amount of times, and I have watched the EE BDs a couple of times. They have been remastered, but the movies themselves are exactly the same.

[Grand Bob]

Originally Posted by DIGITALBATH

Hello everyone! I was thinking about reading all of the books before the Hobbit comes out. I gather that the best order is the Simillarion, Hobit, LOTR trilogy and lastly unfinished tales. Is there any works I am missing and can anyone comment on The Simillarion, and Unfinished Tales? Thanks.

That is the correct sequence, although most of Unfinished Tales is supporting material that is not essential from the historical aspect of the saga. However, Unfinished Tales has a related prequel story to The Hobbit called "The Quest for Erebor", which is told by Gandalf after the events of The Lord of the Rings. If you are especially interested in the Hobbit and happen to purchase The Annotated Hobbit (annotated by Tolkien historian Douglas A. Anderson), "The Quest for Erebor" is also included as an appendix. Many people find The Silmarillion to be a difficult read because of the large number of unfamiliar names, places, and dense, Biblical-style language that Tolkien uses, especially in the first part of the book. An auxilary book that is an extremely useful companion for Silmarillion - as well as The Hobbit, and Lord of the Rings in particular - is Karen Wynn Fonstad's Atlas of Middle Earth. I always use this atlas to enhance my readings of these books.

[Gold Ranger]

Originally Posted by frogmort

Yes, they are the exact same movies. I have seen the EE DVDs an obscene amount of times, and I have watched the EE BDs a couple of times. They have been remastered, but the movies themselves are exactly the same.

Ok, thanks for the info.... i got my hopes up for Tom Bombidil.....

[Resettito]

Originally Posted by THX-1138

I rented the trilogy when the theatrical versions were released, and boy, did it look dated, but honestly, the VFX of LOTR were dated from the get go.
Weta did a good job on KK though (mostly).
It's about the movies anyway, and the PT is going to hold up nicely on Blu-ray.

Are you guys going to invite friends over to watch the Saga on Blu-ray?

You speak nonsense, after having watched all making ofs on LOTR, I can safely say that it was state of the art at the time, watched all the extended editions in BR and it still looks fantastic, with of course some shots in Fellowship where you can see more clearly that the characters are CGI on a CGI background, but it's not shocking.

Obviously, as the Weta guys explained in the making of of each movie, they got better and better with each film, but it was absolute state of the art, I maintain that.

WETA is without a doubt on par with ILM as the best SFX company in business, it might even be better considering the titan work that they did with the Na'Vi and everything in Avatar, and also all the CGI apes in Rise of the planet of the apes that's coming out in August, and it looks stunning.

[karlosfunkster]

The only truly bad part of the movie is the CGI with the cave troll when Legolas and the hobbits are on the CGI Cave Troll (which in itself is fine, just the elves and hobbits).

[Goldengirl]

I enjoy looking at the fan club credits. Not only is my name there, many of the movies' stars and others involved in the making of the film, but as a long-time TORn denizen, I know far more message board members named there than I would be proud to admit to.

[Brodo Faggins]

Originally Posted by Goldengirl

I enjoy looking at the fan club credits. Not only is my name there, many of the movies' stars and others involved in the making of the film, but as a long-time TORn denizen, I know far more message board members named there than I would be proud to admit to.

I cant even begin to tell you how jealous I am about that. I am considering legally changing my name to one on the list and pretending its me.

[radagast]

Originally Posted by THX-1138

I rented the trilogy when the theatrical versions were released, and boy, did it look dated, but honestly, the VFX of LOTR were dated from the get go.
Weta did a good job on KK though (mostly).
It's about the movies anyway, and the PT is going to hold up nicely on Blu-ray.

Can you give some examples of where the CGI looks dated please?

[radagast]

Originally Posted by DIGITALBATH

Hello everyone! I was thinking about reading all of the books before the Hobbit comes out. I gather that the best order is the Simillarion, Hobit, LOTR trilogy and lastly unfinished tales. Is there any works I am missing and can anyone comment on The Simillarion, and Unfinished Tales? Thanks.

Originally Posted by faerieoftheforest

I read the silmarillian after I read the hobbit and the lord of the rings. I found it quite hard to get into but then a year later I gave it another go and I absolutely loved it. I think it's very different to the hobbit and the lord of the rings. It doesn't seem to flow like those do but then Tolkien didn't finish it, his son compiled it from his notes which is probably why.

The unfinished tales I thoroughly enjoyed as well, as it tells the stories that are mentioned or hinted at in the books like in the hobbit, on the journey to the lonely mountain, gandalf keeps wondering off. The unfinished tales tells you what he was doing. There are loads of stuff in there. The only bit I found a bit boring was about how the rohirrim came to but other than that they are both really enjoyable.

Also check out "the children of hurin" it's set at the same time as the silmarillion but goes into a little bit more detail about turin's tale which is one of my favourite bits in the silmarrillion.

Anyone interested in reading the books should join us in the group Grand Bob started. It's one of tghe "social groups" on this forum. At times we will read the same book together and discuss it. Whenever any questions come up, our resident Tolkien Scholar, Grand Bob usually has the answers.

We also have another thread where we discuss the books vs. the movies.

[Fors*]

Originally Posted by raygendreau

I believe I found what you were referring to. It is the 'middle earth atlas'

The feature is in the appendices for each of the movies: FOTR , Appendicies Pt 1, index 3 of 9; TTT, App. Pt 3, index 2 of 11; ROTK App. Pt 5, index 3 of 14.

The feature shows the locations visited by, on ROTK for example:
1.Frodo and Sam 2.Merry 3. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli 4.Gandalf and Pippin.

You can view each of the places visited by the 4 groups on the map of middle earth, and select each of the locations, sequentially to see a vignette. Well worth watching, in my opinion.

That must be it....thank raygendreau!

[HD Goofnut]

Originally Posted by radagast

Can you give some examples of where the CGI looks dated please?

I can give you some examples of extremely dated CGI in the trilogy:

The shot of Legolas flipping onto the horse in TT.
Legolas climbing and dismounting the elephant in ROTK.
The elephants in general in both TT and ROTK.
Gollum.
The entire spider sequence.
The Ringwraith's dragons.
Cave trolls.

There's a lot more. Do you want me to go on?

[lkmg]

Originally Posted by HD Goofnut

I can give you some examples of extremely dated CGI in the trilogy:

The shot of Legolas flipping onto the horse in TT.
Legolas climbing and dismounting the elephant in ROTK.
The elephants in general in both TT and ROTK.
Gollum.
The entire spider sequence.
The Ringwraith's dragons.
Cave trolls.

There's a lot more. Do you want me to go on?

Can you give some examples of where the CGI looks NON-dated please?

[threefiftyrocket]

Originally Posted by Brodo Faggins

I cant even begin to tell you how jealous I am about that. I am considering legally changing my name to one on the list and pretending its me.

What'd be really interesting is if you changed it to Elijah Wood... that would be classic!

[HD Goofnut]

Originally Posted by lkmg

Can you give some examples of where the CGI looks NON-dated please?

The Balrog.
The composite shots that have Hobbits and humans in the same shots.
Sweeping aerials of Minas Tirith, Helm's Deep, and Edoras.
The Ents.

[radagast]

Originally Posted by HD Goofnut

I can give you some examples of extremely dated CGI in the trilogy:

The shot of Legolas flipping onto the horse in TT.
Legolas climbing and dismounting the elephant in ROTK.
The elephants in general in both TT and ROTK.
Gollum.
The entire spider sequence.
The Ringwraith's dragons.
Cave trolls.

There's a lot more. Do you want me to go on?

Sure. But I don't agree with some of your choices, to be honest. EXTREMELY dated? That may be going too far. I think there's a difference between dated CGI and choices in how it was used. For instance, Gollum was done extremely well. Yet that was done at the same time the other items. So it sounds like you are not excited with how they applied the CGI, not the quality of the technology itself.

They could use the latest CGI technology and make it look like it came from an Amiga 1000.

[HD Goofnut]

Originally Posted by radagast

Sure. But I don't agree with some of your choices, to be honest. EXTREMELY dated? I think there's a difference between dated CGI and choices in how it was used. For instance, Gollum was done extremely well. Yet that was done at the same time the other items. So it sounds like you are not excited with how they applied the CGI, not the quality of the technology itself.

Gollum looked good in 1999-2000 when they created him, but by today's standards he looks extremely fake. The biggest giveaway is the cartoon-like shininess. It's the same story with the elephants and cave trolls too. The Wachowski's had the same issues creating CGI Smiths in the two Matrix sequels.

[Agent Bond]

lol @ complaints of the graphics looked dated. People, Fellowship of The Ring is almost a 10 year old film now!