No problem. The real reason for all the confusion is that it's unclear how much of the issues trace back to the source and how much to Warner's transfer. We can try to assign numbers -- 90/10, 80/20, 70/30 -- but the unfortunate truth is that no one knows for sure (at least not anyone who has any clearcut evidence), and there's very few ways to confirm the facts and theories being bandied about. As such, a viewer's subjective opinion is even more subjective.
One of the things I enjoy about Criterion releases is that the studio is very, very transparent about the efforts and techniques they use when remastering or reissuing a title. Had Warner included a featurette or a printed insert about the effort that went into the transfers, or had enough foresight to see the wide array of opinions on the horizon, there would be much less confusion. That's not blaming Warner at all, or accusing them of some sort of negligence, but in an ideal world the facts would be more concrete and we wouldn't have to figure these things out on a message board
That being said, there are other issues at play. One's love of the film can induce defensive posturing, sensitivity to each issue is a major contributing factor, and post-review expectations left some thinking the transfer was much worse than it is. Perhaps I've done a poor job of conveying my opinions, or perhaps the fury surrounding the DNR debate has distracted people from other problems, but my low score came because I had so many issues with the transfer. Each issue is minor -- yes, even the DNR -- but each issue stacked atop another, slowly pushing my personal score down. So if you look at any one point, the reaction is, "what's the problem?" But when you add them all together, it starts to make more sense.
Finally, Jackson's involvement in the Blu-ray release and his rather ambiguous praise of it leaves a lot to be desired. But can you blame him? A filmmaker can approve and praise a transfer all he or she wants -- that doesn't mean they're actually pleased with the results (even if they know it's because they didn't have the resources or technology available to them at the time to make the film look exactly like they wanted it to). At the end of the day, sales line filmmaker pockets too, and they have a vested interest in promoting the quality of a release. Not saying Jackson is doing any such thing, but I personally take any vague comment from any filmmaker with a grain of salt. I love the man, don't get me wrong, but let's not forget this is the same savvy businessman who made New Line billions with a supposedly unfilmable fantasy epic
Ultimately, I still feel I was able to separate Jackson's intentions and the filmic softness of 'FotR' (a softness I was well acquainted with during its theatrical release) from the oddities that pop up in Warner's transfer. But that doesn't mean I'm right. If nothing else, I hope my review accurately reflects the appearance of the transfer. My goal was to evaluate it purely on its faithfulness to the source and, based on the evidence before me, I still think I did just that. Did I react to its issues more harshly than some? Obviously. Is that such a bad thing? I don't think so. Everyone pretty much agrees that there are at least some issues attributable to Warner's encode -- so it all comes down to how violently an individual viewer reacts to those issues. That being said, I happily changed my entire 'DaVinci Code' review after talking with a Sony source about a very similar issue, so I'm not above being wrong and correcting a review. However, I haven't had any such luck digging up any such source or concrete insider information in this case.
Ah well. The slew of positive and negative reviews are, in my mind, a very good thing. If nothing else, it's inspiring people to rent the discs and judge for themselves. Again, they look better than the DVDs, and better than anything else we'll see of 'LotR' for a few years. As many gripes as I have with 'FotR,' I'm still happy to have it on Blu-ray, especially when 50-60% of its scenes admittedly look quite good
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