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

[infiniteCR]

Its calibrated. When the wife notices, its an issue. Watch 9 hours of the hobbit trilogy and then pop that one in and you'll see that the colors of the skies and skins of people look horrible in comparison and nowhere near the same. We stopped the movie so I could look into the issue about 45 minutes in. The "issue" is bad enough that I am hoping my new theatrical edition that arrives on Friday fixes it back so we can resume the movie. As much as I pains me to lose out on the extra footage the extended edition provides, the colors being so far out of whack is unwatchable to me. Its not a slight change and I'm not sure I would even completely classify it as a tint.


If you go here. We spend 9 hours seeing the sky look normal like the picture here and then all of a sudden it goes greenish yellow and people start looking jaundiced. https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&...=48918&i=6&l=0


I would much rather have had a pleasant experience, than have to go searching the internet to figure out what's wrong, the issue needs no exaggeration, it is quite immediately striking.

[Vanguard]

Originally Posted by infiniteCR

Its calibrated. When the wife notices, its an issue. Watch 9 hours of the hobbit trilogy and then pop that one in and you'll see that the colors of the skies and skins of people look horrible in comparison and nowhere near the same. We stopped the movie so I could look into the issue about 45 minutes in. The "issue" is bad enough that I am hoping my new theatrical edition that arrives on Friday fixes it back so we can resume the movie. As much as I pains me to lose out on the extra footage the extended edition provides, the colors being so far out of whack is unwatchable to me. Its not a slight change and I'm not sure I would even completely classify it as a tint.


If you go here. We spend 9 hours seeing the sky look normal like the picture here and then all of a sudden it goes greenish yellow and people start looking jaundiced. https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&...=48918&i=6&l=0


I would much rather have had a pleasant experience, than have to go searching the internet to figure out what's wrong, the issue needs no exaggeration, it is quite immediately striking.

The DVD version of FOTR Extended Edition does not have the altered color grading. Granted, its only DVD, but it still looks pretty nice.

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by infiniteCR

Its calibrated. When the wife notices, its an issue. Watch 9 hours of the hobbit trilogy and then pop that one in and you'll see that the colors of the skies and skins of people look horrible in comparison and nowhere near the same. We stopped the movie so I could look into the issue about 45 minutes in. The "issue" is bad enough that I am hoping my new theatrical edition that arrives on Friday fixes it back so we can resume the movie. As much as I pains me to lose out on the extra footage the extended edition provides, the colors being so far out of whack is unwatchable to me. Its not a slight change and I'm not sure I would even completely classify it as a tint.


If you go here. We spend 9 hours seeing the sky look normal like the picture here and then all of a sudden it goes greenish yellow and people start looking jaundiced. https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&...=48918&i=6&l=0


I would much rather have had a pleasant experience, than have to go searching the internet to figure out what's wrong, the issue needs no exaggeration, it is quite immediately striking.

If you've watched the DVD of the Fellowship of the Ring: Extended as many times as I have, and then watch the Blu-Ray of the same, it doesn't become noticeable to me until the film introduces the Shire, and suddenly it looks like there are clouds over the Middle-Earth Sun. I can handle a small push or pull in the color grading, but the film looking dim is what bothered me. Two Towers and Return of the King are fine, it's Fellowship that has this issue.

[stvn1974]

Yep, the Shire now looks like it about to rain instead of being nice and sunny.

[steel_breeze]

Originally Posted by Ernest Rister

If you've watched the DVD of the Fellowship of the Ring: Extended as many times as I have, and then watch the Blu-Ray of the same, it doesn't become noticeable to me until the film introduces the Shire, and suddenly it looks like there are clouds over the Middle-Earth Sun. I can handle a small push or pull in the color grading, but the film looking dim is what bothered me. Two Towers and Return of the King are fine, it's Fellowship that has this issue.

Yes, the low "white point" on FELLOWSHIP Extended is the worst. I "re-calibrate" my projector just to watch that movie: I increase Overall Contrast (the whites) by 9, decrease Green Contrast by 3, increase Blue Contrast by 3 (which throws some additional magenta in there, to further battle the green) and it all ends up looking pretty great for every single scene.... until the end credits, when the global "green error" suddenly pops OFF a few cards in, and the remainder of credits suddenly skew magenta.

EDIT: It helps to have a wave form monitor built into the projector; I was able to find the brightest moment of FELLOWSHIP and specifically raise the white point from about 70 IRE up to about 90 IRE, so it stays "legal" but looks much brighter 'n' better.

[stvn1974]

I might watch the DVD of Fellowship extended tonight just to see how it looks upscaled.

[steel_breeze]

Originally Posted by stvn1974

I might watch the DVD of Fellowship extended tonight just to see how it looks upscaled.

You can go to capsaholic and compare. Depending on the size of your screen... whew, it's rough. I can't do DVDs anymore on my 92-inch projection screen. Happily, I can make the BD of FELLOWSHIP Extended look just about perfect through re-grading (see post above).

[frogmort]

Originally Posted by frogmort

I miss the color and the brightness much more than the shade.

Yep, what all of you guys are saying is what I was trying to say last night in the post I quoted here. I was just too drunk to articulate it properly.

It's not so much the consistent green tint that really bothers me, it's just that it looks so dim and dull looking now. The entire movie just seems more overcast, but the Shire scenes suffer the most. It used to be so golden and warm and inviting. Now it looks like it's about to rain.

[rexcrk]

I still say the weirdest part about the green tint is that it’s a “blanket” tint. I could understand if they wanted to touch up a few shots here and there, but the whole thing?

And then any of the footage from Fellowship of the Ring used in the other movies doesn’t have the green tint. If it was intentional, surely it would have been applied to the others as well?

It would be nice if Peter Jackson or somebody was at least honest with us about this.

[Arawn]

It's so we can tell they're in the Matrix.

[frogmort]

Originally Posted by rexcrk

I still say the weirdest part about the green tint is that it’s a “blanket” tint. I could understand if they wanted to touch up a few shots here and there, but the whole thing?

And then any of the footage from Fellowship of the Ring used in the other movies doesn’t have the green tint. If it was intentional, surely it would have been applied to the others as well?

It would be nice if Peter Jackson or somebody was at least honest with us about this.

I have absolutely nothing to back this up with, but I think that when they went back and regraded/remastered this, somebody possibly screwed up somewhere along in the processing and it wasn't discovered until too late and they just didn't want to have to deal with a recall, or it also might've been a byproduct of the regrading/remastering that just wasn't corrected for.

[Adam_WM]

This may have been mentioned earlier in the thread, but when I interviewed Michael Pellerin (who did all the Appendices on the discs), I followed up with him to ask about the Fellowship color timing. He said:

When The Lord of the Rings was prepared for Blu-Ray, the work was done to the existing HD masters, created when the films came out in 2001, 2002 and 2003. As you know, during that time period, HD was not a consumer format yet, and was only a protection format for archiving the films.

When it came time to master the films for Blu-Ray (in 2008 and 2010 for the theatrical editions and extended editions, respectively), the decision was made to clean up the existing HD masters, instead of doing a complete HD remaster from scratch from the original film and digital elements. So the latitude of what could be done to the picture was not as dynamic as what can be achieved in a complete remaster from original elements. But the Blu-Rays were achieved to the best quality possible, given their source material.

This remaster of the existing HD masters was personally reviewed and approved by the films colourist, Peter Doyle and director of photography, Andrew Lesnie. So what the public saw on the BDs was blessed by the two people most hands-on responsible for the cinematographic image of the original films.

WHV is very considerate and inclusive of collaborating with filmmakers on their mastering process and approving the final masters. They even consulted me on the image quality of the Appendices docs initially when we contemplated up-rezzing them to HD or not, and approving all of the final discs and image quality of The Hobbit Appendices.

After the Blu-Rays came out, Wingnut films and Peter Jackson were made aware of the concerns about the films having to much cyan in the color timing of some of the sequences.

I imagine, if WHV is going to remaster the films for 4K (if they haven’t done so already) they will have no choice but to go back to original elements to do a proper restoration for the higher resolution format. And I am sure if this comes to pass, Wingnut and Peter Jackson will be given the opportunity to review the new masters, so the public will see exactly what was intended in terms of the image and audio of the films.

[levcore]

Originally Posted by infiniteCR

Watch 9 hours of the hobbit trilogy and then pop that one in and you'll see that the colors of the skies and skins of people look horrible in comparison and nowhere near the same.

There's nothing natural looking about a lot of the grading in The Hobbit movies, particularly the second and mostly the third one. Battle of Five Armies has very aggressive and unnatural colour grading. I agree that Fellowship looks very different from how it used to but I can't believe that going from Battle of Five Armies to Fellowship threw you off as BOTF has the most artificial and distracting colour grading out of all of the Middle Earth movies IMO.

[Vashetti]

Originally Posted by levcore

There's nothing natural looking about a lot of the grading in The Hobbit movies, particularly the second and mostly the third one. Battle of Five Armies has very aggressive and unnatural colour grading. I agree that Fellowship looks very different from how it used to but I can't believe that going from Battle of Five Armies to Fellowship threw you off as BOTF has the most artificial and distracting colour grading out of all of the Middle Earth movies IMO.

Exactly, this is where my confusion above stemmed from.

I enjoy the Hobbit movies, but BOTFA is so artificial looking that it looks like a (very high quality) videogame cutscene.

[TpFox]

Wow, finally got the extended edition and watched all 3 this week after not having seen them since I saw them in theater. Watching The Hobbit in 3D extended for the first time a week ago with my gf made me really want to get these. She loves the hobbit as a book and loved the trilogy. She saw them in theater and I never did. She really enjoyed the 3D and the extended cuts of the film, she said the pacing and the inclusions of certain scenes made it a lot better and I was pleasantly surprised because I actually ended up enjoying these more than I thought due to previous criticism to the trilogy. (I can see the point of the films being bloated but they feel more fun and cheery than lotr which can sometimes be too mopey. Funny enough she also hated the concept of 3D movies before until The Hobbit trilogy and seeing Doctor Strange 3D)


However I do have to say these LOTR movies CGI do not hold up well at all, its so bad in certain points where I feel I'm watching a green screen youtube video. Some moments are just laughable, but besides that I really enjoyed these movies especially after not seeing them for so long, it felt fresh. The orcs were amazingly done in this trilogy, even though the CGI ones in Hobbit aren't bad but I do prefer the original ones. It's also funny that people want to rip on The Hobbit because some scenes just look like "good video game graphics". Honestly I'd rather have "good video game graphics" to laughable youtube quality CGI that we got in some instances of this LOTR trilogy. There were so many that it took me out of the movie where as The Hobbit never did that. One scene comes to mind towards the end of Return of the King where Frodo runs to enter Mount Doom. I swear the CGI on that was so bad and painfully fake that it felt like I was watching a youtube video where I expected Frodo to start running infinitely and doing the shooting stars meme. I literally just laughed at that scene and honestly when your girlfriend that isn't a video enthusiast complains about the crappy cgi in certain scenes then you definitely know it hasn't held up well. See where Frodo enters at the beginning of this clip:

LOTR The Return of the King - The Crack of Doom - YouTube

Even though some of the CGI does not hold up as well in today's world, I still think these are good films but a tad overrated for their score.

[Vashetti]

^ I'm really not seeing the bad CGI there at all

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by Vashetti

^ I'm really not seeing the bad CGI there at all

I'm with you. I guess I'm missing something.

[drush9999]

The CGI in The Lord of the Rings is still nop-notch IMO

[djerdap]

Originally Posted by Vashetti

^ I'm really not seeing the bad CGI there at all

Agreed.

[levcore]

Yeah i can't see anything wrong with the CG in that scene. I don't even know what "you tube quality" cgi is to be honest.