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

[brainofj72]

There’s a huge difference between “the soap opera look” achieved via horrific TV processing and native HFR, IMO. Though with this being shot in 48fps which isn’t in the UHD disc spec, isn’t it impossible to present it in native HFR?

[motorheadache95]

I'm content with my 3D copies, as I think the films were well-shot in 3D, but I personally hated the HFR. I specifically went out to see the other 2 films in good old-fashioned 2D 24 fps. I didn't personally think it looked much better than turning on smooth-motion on the TV.

Still, if they can pull it off on the disc, I'd support the option for everyone who liked it. Maybe they can run it 60fps and have Jackson and Co. make adjustments to get it to work.

[Darthbooth1978]

Happy for those who’ll want these, but I was never taken with the Hobbit so just LOTR for me. Great announcement though!

[Filmmaker]

All three were filmed native 3D so I'm already set with what I need for this trilogy. THE LORD OF THE RINGS on the other hand...

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by zw94

Why can't they just put the 48fps versions on the disc?

Literally not part of the UHD Blu-ray spec, and many TVs won't support a 48Hz input anyway. Monitors yes, regular TVs not always.

Originally Posted by brainofj72

There’s a huge difference between “the soap opera look” achieved via horrific TV processing and native HFR, IMO. Though with this being shot in 48fps which isn’t in the UHD disc spec, isn’t it impossible to present it in native HFR?

There are lots of methods that they could use to bodge it e.g. repeat every 4th frame to make it up to 60p; speed it up by 4% to 50p (though compatibility in non-PAL countries could be dicey as although 50Hz is in the UHD spec it's NOT mandatory for manufacturers to support outside of PAL regions); employ the same sort of motion processing algos that they used to create the 24p version whereby they didn't just drop every other frame, they actually interpolated new frames from the 48 to make it look more like conventional 24.

Similar kinda deal for the 60 and 24 versions of Billy Lynn's and Gemini Man, they interpolated those versions from the 120p original. I'm talking about adding frames for the Hobbitses to make 60 from 48 rather than reducing them but you get the idea, in theory it could work but the problem is that it's likely to be expensive to apply professionally to 10 hours of content.

[Nothing371]

Originally Posted by rexcrk

Got about three and half minutes in before the eye-rolling and groaning.

I stand by what I always say- if the Hobbit trilogy had come out right after Lord of the Rings in ‘04, ‘05, and ‘06, we’d be hearing about how great “the six Middle-earth movies are!”

Nearly every single complaint I hear about The Hobbit can be applied to LotR, but people don’t seem to care about that because..? I really don’t know.

I blame nostalgia and the overall more jadedness of society that happened in those nine years between Return of the King and An Unexpected Journey.

The Lord of the Rings was a trilogy of three books. There was a lot of content to spread out of three movies. The Hobbit was one book. So people who read it often feel like the 9 hours of movies drags and drags. I liked 'The Hobbit' but for example I couldn't believe how long it took us to get through the scene in Bilbo's home.

[MovieMatt83]

Day 1 purchase for me. I think this series gets hated on simply because it is directly compared to Lord of the Rings. Yes, it over uses CGI over practical costumes/effects. No, it shouldn't have been split into 3 films. But the direction is great, Martin Freeman is great, Ian McKellen is great, and I love how it directly ties into LOTR. Additionally, as a fantasy series, it is miles ahead of 95% of other fantasy films. If nothing else, I'll buy it to support Warner Brothers for releasing more and more of their film catalog onto 4K UHD.

[infiniteCR]

The 3D is already done so well that I doubt I'll ever pick these up.

[Chaz05]

Originally Posted by Vangeli

This three part Hobbit retrospective (that was originally meant to be two parts, irony!) is pretty great. Was nominated for a Hugo award IIRC.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=uTRUQ-RKfUs

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ElPJr_tKkO4

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Qi7t_g5QObs

Ugh I love her so much!

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by MovieMatt83

Day 1 purchase for me. I think this series gets hated on simply because it is directly compared to Lord of the Rings. Yes, it over uses CGI over practical costumes/effects. No, it shouldn't have been split into 3 films. But the direction is great, Martin Freeman is great, Ian McKellen is great, and I love how it directly ties into LOTR. Additionally, as a fantasy series, it is miles ahead of 95% of other fantasy films. If nothing else, I'll buy it to support Warner Brothers for releasing more and more of their film catalog onto 4K UHD.

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.

[Evanos]

Love 'em, despite the flaws. Hopefully they'll be HFR.

[lgans316]

Hoping they don't split the feature film into 2 discs. One BD-100 should suffice

[tcripe]

Yikes. CGI is going to look so bad. Hopefully I'm wrong.

[LoSouL]

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.

If people can turn 10 page short stories into 90 minute movies and do their own thing, they can certainly turn a single novel into an epic trilogy. There's some adaptations where I'll say I like the original thing better, but can still appreciate whatever was done with it. It doesn't have to be a binary love-hate thing.

The HFR debate and the contention of doing another trilogy unfairly mired these movies in negativity imo. That and strong reliance on CG still wasn't as accepted as it is today. Even now, I had to assure a friend of mine that Dark Crystal was still at least 50/50 practical effects and puppetry... only for him to tell me how much of an Infinity Saga fan he is in another conversation.

[GenPion]

Originally Posted by amoergosum

Please nooooo!...I HIGHLY dislike the soap opera look.

I do too but native high frame rate would not be the same thing.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by LoSouL

If people can turn 10 page short stories into 90 minute movies and do their own thing, they can certainly turn a single novel into an epic trilogy. There's some adaptations where I'll say I like the original thing better, but can still appreciate whatever was done with it. It doesn't have to be a binary love-hate thing.

The HFR debate and the contention of doing another trilogy unfairly mired these movies in negativity imo. That and strong reliance on CG still wasn't as accepted as it is today. Even now, I had to assure a friend of mine that Dark Crystal was still at least 50/50 practical effects and puppetry... only for him to tell me how much of an Infinity Saga fan he is in another conversation.

Agreed, it's one of those times when the bad press still seems to colour people's opinions of it to this day. Not that it hurt them at the box office mind you, all three totalling just under three billions of dollars, so people didn't just turn out and then drift away, they kept turning up from one movie to the next. I know I did

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Vangeli

The UHD spec doesn’t support it so it wouldn’t be native. I’d rather have 24p than a 2:3 50/60p whatever that is.

Honestly, I'd be fine with a sped-up 50p version with pitch corrected audio.

[GenPion]

Originally Posted by Filmmaker

All three were filmed native 3D so I'm already set with what I need for this trilogy. THE LORD OF THE RINGS on the other hand...

The 3D discs will still be my go-to favorites for The Hobbit trilogy but I am glad to add the 4K discs to my collection as well (and compare).

Maybe for the 4K discs of these films they can have 60fps discs and standard 24fps discs. I know Billy Lynn has the 60fps presentation so there’s at least some possibility The Hobbit will get a similar treatment.

Having said that, as I said earlier, I missed the HFR presentations of these (as they were not playing locally) when The Hobbit trilogy was released theatrically so I’m really just curious to finally see these HFR versions for myself after reading so much about them.

[Deathbymonkeys]

Originally Posted by spider-neil

The Hobbit was near 9 hours long and the only times I was even remotely engaged was;
1. When Bilbo meets Gollum.
2. When Bilbo meets Smaug.

Two scenes in NINE hours.

Good for you. I am engaged every second of them. Go be trendy somewhere else.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Honestly, I'd be fine with a sped-up 50p version with pitch corrected audio.

Eww! Get out of here with that.