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

[lgans316]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I watched Kong again recently and enjoyed the presentation in spite of its many many faults (might even do a re-review in defence of it) but the Hobbitses UHDs go too far.

I am surprised you have a soft spot for KK but to each their own.

[Lord Method Man]

Someday I'll be able to sit though PJ's King Kong without falling asleep.

[Gold Ranger]

So the Hobbit movies are a mess on both 4k and Remastered, how do the original BDs look

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Lord Method Man

Someday I'll be able to sit though PJ's King Kong without falling asleep.

It did take me three nights to get through it, not gonna lie. The extended version is only 12 minutes longer (I think) but it drags it out terribly.

[bga84]

Originally Posted by Gold Ranger

So the Hobbit movies are a mess on both 4k and Remastered, how do the original BDs look

Battle of the Five armies is a mess no matter what release you watch. I'm finding the remastered Blu-ray of Unexpected Journey to be the better version of that film - it actually still has sensor noise/"grain" and doesn't have the clear over-sharpening. The original BD looks rather dull in comparison.

Same seems to be true of DoS though I've not seen as much of that yet.

[suspiciouscoffee]

Wonder if we can ever expect these Remastered BDs in the States?

[zzap64]

Originally Posted by suspiciouscoffee

Wonder if we can ever expect these Remastered BDs in the States?

I would say unlikely. Just get the UK set, it's nicely packaged, not expensive and region free anyway.

[Steel76]

Wow...did they hire people from the Sharknado movies, to do the CGI?
Just look how "well" the characters blend into the background

https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?a=1&x...9&l=0&i=2&go=1

[levcore]

There are loads of amazing CG shots in these movies, the level of vfx work is astounding and of a very high quality but every big movie has a lot of rushed or unfinished shots, it's just the nature of it.

[andreasy969]

Originally Posted by levcore

There are loads of amazing CG shots in these movies, the level of vfx work is astounding and of a very high quality but every big movie has a lot of rushed or unfinished shots, it's just the nature of it.

It also did all blend in pretty well, before they changed it: https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&...198607&i=2&l=0

[zzap64]

Originally Posted by Steel76

Wow...did they hire people from the Sharknado movies, to do the CGI?
Just look how "well" the characters blend into the background

Originally Posted by levcore

There are loads of amazing CG shots in these movies, the level of vfx work is astounding and of a very high quality but every big movie has a lot of rushed or unfinished shots, it's just the nature of it.

I agree, and not to diminish the excellent work done on many of the CGI shots, but there are many that are poorly done, and simply overused. The Hobbit movies uses a lot of CGI in places that would have been practical effects or live action in the Lord of the Rings movies.

Here's another example:

https://imgur.com/xjI3fr2

[bga84]

Originally Posted by zzap64

I agree, and not to diminish the excellent work done on many of the CGI shots, but there are many that are poorly done, and simply overused. The Hobbit movies uses a lot of CGI in places that would have been practical effects or live action in the Lord of the Rings movies.

Here's another example:

https://imgur.com/xjI3fr2

That kinda demonstrates the "over baked" look that I have an issue with for The Hobbit trilogy as a whole, but that really gets turned up to 11 in the third film. It looks like the groundwork is of a decent quality, but everything has just been processed to within an inch of its life and sharpened. Had it been finished to look a little more natural I'm sure everything would have blended together much more nicely.

[Steel76]

Originally Posted by zzap64

The Hobbit movies uses a lot of CGI in places that would have been practical effects or live action in the Lord of the Rings movies.

Yeah, just like Lucas Star Wars prequels, Jackson went overboard with CGI.
Hated how bad the CGI Orcs looked, compared to the LOTR films, which used actors in makeup. The Hobbit films just feels rushed and cheap in comparison.

[zzap64]

Originally Posted by Steel76

Yeah, just like Lucas Star Wars prequels, Jackson went overboard with CGI.
Hated how bad the CGI Orcs looked, compared to the LOTR films, which used actors in makeup. The Hobbit films just feels rushed and cheap in comparison.

I agree regarding the orcs. I still love the movies but Viggo Mortensen said it best during an interview, as he wasn't impressed with The Hobbit's overindulgence of computerized effects work:

"Also, Peter was always a geek in terms of technology but, once he had the means to do it, and the evolution of the technology really took off, he never looked back. In the first movie, yes, there’s Rivendell, and Mordor, but there’s sort of an organic quality to it, actors acting with each other, and real landscapes; it’s grittier. The second movie already started ballooning, for my taste, and then by the third one, there were a lot of special effects. It was grandiose, and all that, but whatever was subtle, in the first movie, gradually got lost in the second and third. Now with The Hobbit, one and two, it’s like that to the power of 10."

[KcMsterpce]

Originally Posted by zzap64

I agree regarding the orcs. I still love the movies but Viggo Mortensen said it best during an interview, as he wasn't impressed with The Hobbit's overindulgence of computerized effects work:

"Also, Peter was always a geek in terms of technology but, once he had the means to do it, and the evolution of the technology really took off, he never looked back. In the first movie, yes, there’s Rivendell, and Mordor, but there’s sort of an organic quality to it, actors acting with each other, and real landscapes; it’s grittier. The second movie already started ballooning, for my taste, and then by the third one, there were a lot of special effects. It was grandiose, and all that, but whatever was subtle, in the first movie, gradually got lost in the second and third. Now with The Hobbit, one and two, it’s like that to the power of 10."

I agree with Viggo.
I thought TFotR looked freaking awesome, and I had very few complaints about the CGI that was tastefully thrown in.
But by the time RotK came out, I was nauseated by the awful, cheap, uncanny valley of the entire presentation.
It was disheartening for me to go from loving the first installment of the trilogy, only to fall father into depression with the next two releases.
It hurt my heart the most to think that FotR didn't get best picture, and that the worst movie in the trilogy - by far - took all the accolades from the first movie, which started the series with a bang.
Oh well.
Actually, it was this very thing, combined with the lack of accolades for "American Psycho", that made me quit giving a shit about the Oscars. And I haven't cared since.

[Steel76]

Originally Posted by KcMsterpce

I agree with Viggo.
I thought TFotR looked freaking awesome,

It's the reason, why it's the only movie in the trilogy, that I enjoy watching these days.
The pacing is much better as well, with plenty of adventure and new locations visited.

[Geoff D]

Just finished the remastered Hobbitses on BD and I likes them a lot. They retain the same base grading as the UHDs so all the colour changes between old and new are replicated, albeit with a touch more saturation on the BDs (though nothing like how big the difference is on capsaholic, the HDR shots being badly represented by the SDR conversion) but the real difference maker is of coursh the HDR.

I pooh-poohed the HDR a few posts back, saying it wasn't all that, but when watching Unexpected Journey I was really missing it, and I've only seen the UHD once! Jackson is a weapons-grade digital prevert but I can't argue with his HDR grading, it imbues depth and realism and impact without overcooking things. The new BDs bring back a bunch of highlight detail compared to the old BDs but they in turn lose out to the highlight range that's on the UHDs, as well as the overall 'snap' of the HDR image. Colour seems to clip a bit more readily on the new BDs vs the UHDs but make no mistake, these are VERY solid SDR conversions by Warners and are nothing like the dreck they often serve up on new Blu-rays.

I wouldn't say that the new BDs look a lot more textured in motion vs the UHDs, as although the former retains some noise that is being blitzed away on the UHDs it's so fine that it tends to just blur away in motion. The key thing is the lack of the UHDs' horrible sharpening on the BDs, they look much softer to the eye but also much less aggressively 'digital' and it's so much more pleasant to my eyeses. Another bonus is that the cleaner detail of the UHDs - where the old BD could seem to flicker or alias over areas of very fine detail - is carried over to the new BDs, there's even less aliasing in some spots on the new BD than on the UHD, like the window at the start of chapter 9 in AUJ.

I'd say that the one exception to this is Five Armies, that's just a dreadfully ugly film and although the new BD isn't anywhere like as bad as the UHD it's still got to contend with much stronger sharpening than the other two movies (that's baked into the DI, I mean) and more noise reduction on faces too. It's got much worse motion as well, these movies were shot at 48fps and the 24 version is generally just every other frame dropped, you might get a hint of wonky motion on the first two but in the third there are so many shots where the motion looks really jerky and odd, this is endemic to all versions.

What TBOTFA didn't need is MORE sharpening slathered on top but that's exactly what Jackson did and the UHD is an absolute eyesore as a result. I enjoyed the UHDs of the first two well enough, it's right there in my reviews, as the benefits outweighed the drawbacks but for the third the drawbacks are just too great. So while I'll stick to the UHDs for the first two the new BD is the best of a very bad bunch for the third.

Another surprise though was how competently the new BDs have been encoded, they don't have giant bitrates as 3+ hours of HD video on a BD50 is a bit of a squeeze and Warners haven't come close to maxing out the discs anyway (these UK extended edition remastered BDs only have English, French and audio commentary for audio tracks). But even so, I only noticed a couple of moments across all three movies where the compression got a bit crunchy, while the banding is pretty damned good. There's a spot at the start of TDOS where the old BDs (2D and 3D) both have banding in the sky behind Azog but, like the UHD, the new BD is nice and smooth. It fares less well in the darker spots inside Erebor as you get a kind of oval-shape banding in the darkness on the new BDs while the UHD is much smoother, but it's a minor thing and isn't a huge distraction. I noted that the approach to Lake-town in the fog had some banding on the UHD and it's replicated almost exactly on the new BD, must be a source issue with the new master rather than an encoding one (which I noted at the time because the old BD has no banding there). But otherwise it's a bit like the SDR-converted grading: it's far betterer than I'd ever expect from Warners.

The burnt-in subtitles are subtly different from new BD to UHD, the ones on the latter have a darker drop-shadow and the '60 years later...' text in AUJ is spaced slightly differently between the two versions. Also, the missing credit for Peter Hambleton from TBOTFA's 4K end credits is back on the new BD, lending further credence to the notion that these two versions had different mastering workflows once the new grading was set in stone.

If you're BD only then these remastered BDs are the superior editions, no question in my mind, but if you're a UHD pepper too then you'll have to weigh up losing the HDR for that gentler look of the BDs. One thing I will say is that when doing my comparisons I started messing with the sharpness on my TV for the UHDs, on Sony sets the default is 50 which neither adds nor subtracts sharpness, but it allows you to adjust it downwards as well as up. By setting the sharpness to 25 it made the UHDs of AUJ and TDOS more palatable to me, greatly toning down the edge ringing and making them look naturally softer. But TBOTFA is too far gone, there's so much sharpening on top of sharpening that even at 25 for sharpness it still looks nasty.

[zzap64]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Just finished the remastered Hobbitses on BD and I likes them a lot...

Great analysis and summary of the different versions. Unfortunately no version stands out as superior in all areas, but on the balance of positives I would pick the Remastered 2K Blu-rays as my preferred version.

The main problem with the Hobbit movies is the camera used. They were filmed in 2011 using a Red Epic (with the Mysterium-X 5K sensor released in 2009), which although a powerful camera and great specs, is still an early Red sensor. The Red Epic has 13.5+ stops of dynamic range and some of the issues during the movies is clipped highlights and a digital look rather than the soft highlight rolloff and organic look 35mm film gave in the LOTR movies. Red has had numerous sensor upgrades since 2009 and if the Hobbit movies were shot in 2022 using one of Red's newest sensors like the V-RAPTOR with its 17+ stops of dynamic range, it would have given the movies a much more film like and organic appearance.

I wish Peter Jackson had used 35mm film to shoot the Hobbit movies and forgotten about 48fps and 3D so they had a consistent look with the LOTR. But Peter Jackson loves his toys and must dislike film with its grain, as instead of trying to make the Hobbit movies look like the LOTR he did the reverse by scrubbing and sharpening the LOTR master to within an inch of its life trying to match the digital look of the Hobbit for the 4K release.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by zzap64

Great analysis and summary of the different versions. Unfortunately no version stands out as superior in all areas, but on the balance of positives I would pick the Remastered 2K Blu-rays as my preferred version.

The main problem with the Hobbit movies is the camera used. They were filmed in 2011 using a Red Epic (with the Mysterium-X 5K sensor released in 2009), which although a powerful camera and great specs, is still an early Red sensor. The Red Epic has 13.5+ stops of dynamic range and some of the issues during the movies is clipped highlights and a digital look rather than the soft highlight rolloff and organic look 35mm film gave in the LOTR movies. Red has had numerous sensor upgrades since 2009 and if the Hobbit movies were shot in 2022 using one of Red's newest sensors like the V-RAPTOR with its 17+ stops of dynamic range, it would have given the movies a much more film like and organic appearance.

I wish Peter Jackson had used 35mm film to shoot the Hobbit movies and forgotten about 48fps and 3D so they had a consistent look with the LOTR. But Peter Jackson loves his toys and must dislike film with its grain, as instead of trying to make the Hobbit movies look like the LOTR he did the reverse by scrubbing and sharpening the LOTR master to within an inch of its life trying to match the digital look of the Hobbit for the 4K release.

The dynamic range on RED is plenty good enough, it looks digital because it is and there’s little pretence in even trying to make it look like film (Lesnie adding some noise aside) because it was shot 48fps to begin with. You could give Jackson the most badass modern camera and it still wouldn’t look like film because he doesn’t want it to look like nasty old filmses, he hates it.

[badadadadadawomp!]

Originally Posted by bga84

That kinda demonstrates the "over baked" look that I have an issue with for The Hobbit trilogy as a whole, but that really gets turned up to 11 in the third film. It looks like the groundwork is of a decent quality, but everything has just been processed to within an inch of its life and sharpened. Had it been finished to look a little more natural I'm sure everything would have blended together much more nicely.

I just finished watching the Hobbit Appendices, for BOFA they said something like 30-40% of the shots are entirely digital, and 96% had digital work done.