The folks over at Home Media Retailing have received details on new releases of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King will each arrive in newly packaged two-disc “Limited Edition” sets, along with an exclusive new behind-the scenes documentary. Each set will carry both the theatrical and extended versions of the film (via seamless branching), while disc two features an intimate, never-before-seen documentary created by Costa Botes. The feature-length documentaries, with more than 300 minutes of never-before-available footage, focus on a number of complexities and circumstances and affected the making of the movies. The discs will be available to own from the 29th August, priced at around $28.98 a piece. Stay tuned for further details.
And it's not even HD or Blu-Ray. It seems odd—even a film lover like me is hardly likely to drop almost $90 to buy them again unless the films themselves are better than what I already have. And it sounds like they might be worse—I have trouble imagining fitting that much material on two discs for each film without compression problems.
I'm curious about the Costa Botes documentary, but I'll just rent it. It will probably also be on the Blu-Ray set (which I will buy, assuming I have an HD monitor by then).
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
Erunáme wrote:...so we have to buy the movies again!
Have to? HAVE TO?!!!!
Nay, pretty lady, we don't have to. You may want to, but that's not the same as have to...
You know, I'm pretty happy with my three Special Extended DVD Editions. I think I'll spend my ill-gotten, er, I mean hardly-earned silver pennies on some other LOTR merchandise instead.
I still have my Original Trilogy videotapes, and I'm frankly inclined to let that be enough for now. I have been dipped one too many times by old George.
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
I'm in two minds about this. On the one hand, I'd prefer to be able to buy the Documentaries seperately in a single box set. On the other hand, these will probably turn up in bargain bins for about $10 a piece in a year or so.
I suppose the big question is whether this release is a lithmus test to see if the fans are still interested. They can put this together for very little money, whereas a "Super Extended Edition" would involve investment of a lot of cash in a project that may already have jumped the shark.
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - There hasn't been a new "Lord of the Rings" movie in nearly three years.
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But that hasn't stopped New Line Home Entertainment from preparing new DVD versions of all three films in the franchise, which generated more than $1 billion in U.S. theaters and won 17
Academy Awards.
Three "The Lord of the Rings Limited Edition" sets, one for each movie, will roll out August 29. Each two-disc set will include the original theatrical and the extended versions of the film, along with Costa Botes' feature-length documentary on each film's creation.
Both versions of the three films -- 2001's "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," 2002's "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" and 2003's "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" -- have previously been released on DVD.
"But this is the first time they are available together, which we feel will appeal to the first-time buyer," New Line executive vp marketing Matt Lasorsa said.
New to DVD are the documentaries, in which director
Peter Jackson and his crew gave Botes full access to the set for hours of behind-the-scenes footage.
"It's something fans have been asking for," Lasorsa said. "Costa was hired a year before principal photography began, and his job was to capture all the production, relate his personal experiences and provide his perspective for Peter."
Except for the first documentary's screening at the New Zealand Film Festival, none of the three video production diaries have been seen anywhere, Lasorsa said.
"New Line has owned these documentaries and waited to make them available to the general public," Lasorsa said. "The style of these documentaries is quite different from the documentaries on the extended-edition DVDs. These are more organic, and had they come out sooner people might have been confused."
While first-time buyers might be intrigued by the two versions of the film, ardent "Rings" fans who already own the two previous DVD releases might be enticed to buy a third just for the documentaries.
"It gives us the chance to refresh the franchise," Lasorsa said.
ardent "Rings" fans who already own the two previous DVD releases might be enticed to buy a third just for the documentaries.
Mercenaries!
The epitome of milking the franchise.
I'd love to see the documentaries but I'm not going to shell out $90. for a few hours of behind-the-scenes footage and I don't need additional copies of the films.
Frankly, I hope New Line has shot itself in the foot over this.
Ever mindful of the maxim that brevity is the soul of wit, axordil sums up the Sil:
Sadly, I think the likely result is that it will significantly lessen the chances that we will get the Super Extended Versions that we want.
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
Well, they do have to come out with at least one more release, the HD/Blu-Ray one. I hope they don't just use this package.
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
'Refreshing the franchise' ... the bare-faced cheek of them!
But I would really, REALLY, like to see that Costa Botes documentary ...
"Frodo undertook his quest out of love - to save the world he knew from disaster at his own expense, if he could ... " Letter no. 246, The Collected Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien Avatar by goldlighticons on Live Journal
It means that there aren't two complete separate recordings of the films—instead, you pick whether you're watching theatrical or extended, and as it plays the DVD skips over things that aren't in the version you're watching and adds in things that are. "Seamless" means that the machine does not stop and show you a blank screen for several seconds every time there's a "branch," theoretically—you're not supposed to be able to tell it's happening.
My DVDs with this feature are all older, so maybe it really is seamless now. It sure wasn't.
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
yov wrote:Darn. I was hoping it meant we could pick scene by scene.
Someday, maybe, though I doubt it.
It would be such fun to program our own cuts—I've always felt that these films, good as they already are, could be hugely improved by cutting out just an awful joke here, a belch there. . . .
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
It seems odd—even a film lover like me is hardly likely to drop almost $90 to buy them again unless the films themselves are better than what I already have. And it sounds like they might be worse—I have trouble imagining fitting that much material on two discs for each film without compression problems.
