There are new UHD/blu-rays sets supposedly coming this summer but I doubt they will be different transfers. I think they'll just have new bonus features.
I stayed away from all extended versions until now, so I'm coming into it with a different set of priorities. Totally agree that a studio and production team needs to take responsibility for its mistakes. But once you realize they're not going to, then you need to take responsibility, go into the menu and optimize your system to enjoy your discs, whether that's dialing back the green or dialing up the color warmth. It's just a matter of picking up the remote and moving your thumb around for a few seconds, and certainly not worth years of bad feelings and frustration. Should you have to adjust your settings for different discs? In an ideal world--no. But that's not the reality. LOTR is a blatant example, but there are many others where I see a pretty obvious mistake in how the film was presented for disc or streaming. Compared to the 1080p versions, the 4K discs are absolutely worth getting both for the superior color presentation and improved resolution and broader dynamic range. I'm not sure what you are waiting for. This is it. No reason to continue holding a grudge.
Zero percent chance the deluxe 4K set will have a different transfer than the 4Ks on the market right now. IIRC, the 2021 Blu-rays will be based off the 2020 4K transfers, though...
If I didn't have any previous releases I'd probably see it more like you do and I reckon I would've bought the 4K discs already. From where I stand, though, if I'd bought an SACD of an old favourite and found its eq unpleasant to listen to, I'd stick to enjoying the old 16-bit CD and be wary of the next superduper hi-res reissue. It's not so much spending years with bad feelings, but more having been burnt by a release that was supposed to be better and it wasn't so I'm not as trigger-happy clicking on the 'buy' button anymore. As a paying customer, being lied to and taken for a fool isn't something that keeps me awake at nights, but I do keep it in mind should those people try to sell me something again. Regarding the Lord Of The Rings movies, I'm happy with what I already have and I'm not pining for something else or losing sleep over it. I'm not waiting for anything in particular to come out in the future either, but I sure am suspicious after the green Fellowship and won't buy these titles again blindfold anymore like I did in the past out of faith. I've bought these movies twice already and, from what I've seen, the new noise-reduced/detail-scrubbed 4K releases just aren't something I feel worth paying for. Glad I checked this time around. But it's not out of a grudge that I'm not buying them. The day something else comes out that I do consider worth it, I'll be happy to pay for it. If not, that's fine too.
If you can set aside a full day you can get through all of them in one sitting. Or rather 3 sittings since it's a good idea to at least take a break between movies.
Did that one day with a group of friends. Fellowship and Towers basically back to back, pizza break, Return Of The King. Took about 12ish hours. Worth. It.
If you're happy with what you have, that's great. But I don't think any of us would be here if we weren't trying to find a "better version" of what we already have. Holding a grudge seems like a spectacularly poor reason to avoid a significant upgrade. I've bought plenty of SACDs of old favorites and many of them were far from perfect. It never stopped me from exploring more titles that, like the 4K LotR, are far superior to what came before. I always found higher resolution of both audio and video to be hugely rewarding. Like with all hobbies, there will be a few missteps along the way. Another good comparison between SACD and 4K is that, if we as the target group of consumers don't buy the discs, we will be left with only streaming options soon.
The 4k release is far from superior to the previous releases, preferable to some but far from superior. Between the revisionist Color Grade and the DNR which is needlessly heavy and varying from shot to shot there are many people who would prefer the blu-ray or if you were unhappy with the color on those then the iTunes before they swapped it out for the new 4k transfers. I don't hate the new transfers but if they are going to make fresh 1080p blu-rays I think I'd prefer they go back to whatever they used for the DCPs or at the very least removed the DNR. In this shot you see both the revisionist color grade and the heavy DNR and edge enhancement, in fact the edge enhancement has made resulted in Gollum looking a little out of focus.
Yeah they do. Just chop off the last 15-20 minutes after he says "no my friends you bow to no one!" That would have been the perfect end point.
Hmm...that reminds me...does anyone know if the original sets will stay in print after the new sets are released? Anyone who wants to see these films with actual grain (what little there originally was in the first place) or the original color schemes of TTT and ROTK may wanna make sure to get a copy of the old sets, just in case.
Are there any settings on TVs/monitors/projectors that truly fix the blanket teal (or the insufferable trend of the last decade to give EVERY movie a de-saturated, puke-colored, Orange & Teal color scheme though? I myself am someone who changed the settings as much as possible during viewings of FOTR, but they never quite fixed the issues all the way. Perhaps I'm just too much of novice at these things though.
As a complete Tolkien freak, the movies still hold up. Yes, some of the visual effects are starting to show some age, but to me it's minor. The acting, the landscapes, the cinematography, the sound design and the directing all keep me riveted.
On the LG OLED and I'm sure on all TVs you can go into the Dolby Vision menu and adjust the settings in red, green and blue independently. This is sometimes necessary anyway because the 2019 model of my OLED (and maybe the others, not sure) had bigger red subpixels relative to green or blue subpixels, and therefore didn't have to push the red as hard. I dialed the red back a touch. For the LOTR with the green tint, you'd definitely want to dial that back. The first few months I owned the OLED, I was way too OCD with the settings to the point where I wasn't letting myself or my kid enjoy our viewing. Part of it was a very steep learning curve about streaming, my disc player, 4K and the TV all hitting me at the same time. Just trying to troubleshoot for the CEC was a major issue for me, as the settings on the TV would change, depending on what settings I selected in the Oppo and Integra. Then of course I was trying to optimize the Atmos and had added two height speakers (another important reason to upgrade to the 4K).
I find I am a bigger fan of the movies now then when they came out. I just got the Hobbit and LOTR Extended versions on Blu-Ray i had the LOTR Extended on DVD but not the Hobbit Trilogy in fact I still havent seen Desolation of Smaug and Battle of the Five Armies extended yet.
I think the 4k's are a great release, people can pick them apart technically as much as they want but ultimately they are what they are, if you really don't like them then just don't buy them and wait 50 years till someone has another stab at it. Let's instead look at what is right about it, LOTR trilogy kept broadly in line with the books from what I recall, sure there will be differences (sometime since I read it all in my youth), but watching the first time was like seeing my memories of the book come to life, the detail of the white horses in the water washing the nazgul away, the Argonath's. Now admittedly some of the digital effects are awful like the gate trolls on the door to Mordor in ROTK, but the work they put in on the make up for the orcs is superb and stands up still. Anyway, I love it for what it is still, can't say same for The Hobbit trilogy, they forgot how much credit Tolkien gave to his readership and dumbed it down with all the shenanigans in the barrels and the mine and the like.
I've watched Fellowship dozens, perhaps a hundred times or more. But I've managed to watch the extended Hobbit versions just once I think. They're awful. I do, however, like the maple films fanedit of the Hobbit trilogy, which trims it down to 247 minutes.
Eh, I used to be all about the bonus features. Now it’s just the movies. I’ll stick to the current UHD. Nice upscaling for the film.
The Hobbit films are terrible - endless chase and CGI battle sequences. It's a slight (if classic book) and really didn't need to be 3 films, 2 to 2 1/2 hours in 1 outing would have been enough to serve the story fine. As original films, I really liked Fellowship, it seemed the most 'natural' out of the 3, the following two felt less organic to me. I don't really understand why out of the 3, Return of the King got all the award plaudits.
+1 to all of this, although I kind of know that ROTK got all the awards because of Hollywood politics, they also left out Andrew Lesnie for an award so that the Rings would be tied for first place with 11 awards (I think) rather than become the film with most wins at 12.