All of this. It is what it is, we're not getting the like of this again, so it's either watch it or don't. Complaining about it is free, though
I think they actually shot some of that because you get a glimpse of it in the first movie when Frodo gets a vision of the future. Though I'm not sure if Peter ever intended it to be in the movie as Sauramon was supposed to fall off the tower onto a spike in Two Towers and then in Return of the King before it found itself in the Extended Edition.
I think that was a choice to include a hint of that in that sequence, not a reuse of unfinished filming. I would assume that part of the book was one of the first things cut when adapting for film, but I don't know for sure.
Scenes that hurt the most are ones that are out of focus, with some non-denoised grain left, and 35mm fine grain added over it
I wouldn't go 99%, but yeah, most of it looks pretty good. I wouldn't say it was stunning, but some of the archival clips (like the Shea Stadium concert) looked better than I've ever seen them. There are very definitely some wide shots from Let It Be that are soft and weird-looking. But I tell ya, the bad lip-sync was more annoying. I'm always surprised when I worked on a film and there's a half-dozen out-of-focus shots in it. If I ask about it, they generally shrug and say, "yeah, the only time the actor delivered a good performance was that one, but it was the worst one for camera." Even worse for documentaries, where there's no retakes. BTW, grain still stays in focus when the shot is out of focus.
Sampled 30 minutes of part 1 and it's definitely... "watchable". I was into the story and the performances, and accepted the video for what it is. The previously posted screenshots were absolutely awful, but watching pictures in motion the wax effect is much less noticeable, at least on a 1080p computer monitor.
Cinematically, I think "ROTK" should've ended after the Hobbit reunion. The weary way Sam looks at Frodo seems like a good conclusion to me. But like I said, the Tolkien fans would've been upset if PJ lopped off the subsequent 97 endings!
I have a bootleg DVD that was evidently sourced from a VHS tape. It's unwatchable. Whatever Jackson's finished product looks like, it's bound to look better than that, so I say bring it on!
My 15-year old, who doesn't give a toss about The Beatles, asked why the footage looked so new. Personally, it looks way too waxy and soft-focused. I'd have preferred seeing the chunky 16mm grain, I think. Regardless, it's been a joy and I'm happy to get what we've gotten. Jackson has done a masterful job with assembling and editing.
I think the issue is that he was starting with an abundance of audio that told the story and much less synched video than we would have hoped for. So, he was more willing to make compromises with the video to use all the audio he wanted. Similarly, I have a suspicion that the most waxy, CGI-looking shots were where Jackson was desperate and needed to really zoom in on the frame to have something to fill the gaps. I also noted many instances where he used the same shots multiple times. The real miracle of the whole project is the audio he was able to extract from those mono Nagra tapes. Really amazing work.
Yup, that’s it. Filling the gaps included shots that more typically might have been excluded for consideration from a feature film perspective for a variety of reasons - too wide, unfocused, non-principals, un-syncable, etc. But in this case it is the audio that drives the narrative, not the video, so to have this great variety of relevant-if-imperfect shots to fill the gaps is just excellent, and -my opinion - enriches the story.
I came back to this thread to see if anyone had backed-0ff the ‘waxy’ claims. On my big-screen TV everything looked fine, and not as DNR’d as the previews, which I always thought would be the case.
It's very variable. Some shots (the minority) look great and pretty natural with sharp focus, the majority looks hyper waxy, smeary, soft, with added grain on top... It's super inconsistent, you can jump from one sharp shot to a shot where people look like wax figures or seen through a piece of smeary glass. The colour and sound are pretty good (surprisingly for the sound) throughout.
I’m about done with Part 1, and I agree. Ultimately, it has not affected my enjoyment of it. I could have (should have) been better, but it’s not a dealbreaker.
I mentioned in the main thread about the weird lip-sync issues I'm seeing all over the place, and someone commented that it's probably something to do with the AI that Jackson used for smoothing and/or reconstituting blurry shots, but I thought I'd bring it up here to see what @Vidiot might have to say. And the rest of you of course. I'm really enjoying seeing all the audio I've known for decades paired with video, but the DNR is distracting at times.
It has nothing to do with the smoothing or noise reduction, Jackson simply didn't have sync film for some of the audio he was using and had to fake his way thru those moments...a common trick in documentaries.
From what I've seen so far - grain and grain removal are not a problem. Out of focus shots is the worst offender. With hq transfers on the negs it became super apparent. P. S. What happened to the main thread?
For some reason, my screen (during the 2nd episode) would sometimes flash lighter/darker in certain scenes. Was it the Dolby Vision? I didn’t see it in the first episode.
I want a copy of that iPad app Peter was showing off with all the available footage synced to the available audio.
