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Odds of a 4K UHD LOTR trilogy release?


John

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As the thread title states, what are the odds of the Lord of the Rings trilogy eventually having a 4K UHD release?

 

I understand the visual effects in the films were rendered in 2K, and that that may hinder the possibility of the trilogy ever being released in a higher resolution than it is currently available in.

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Of course it will happen. There's too much money to be made.

 

The question is, what will we get? As you correctly observe, the effects were rendered in 2K, meaning they'd either have to redo all of them (unlikely) or we'll simply get an upscale (almost certainly).  And as @Disco Stu points out, hopefully at a minimum they'll have corrected the colour issues that plague FOTR. In any event, even with on just an upscale the HDR alone would be worth it.

 

I'd love for this to happen, but what I'd like to see more than just an upscaled release of what we have. We need the original cuts of the theatrical and extended editions in 4K HDR. Then Jackson can do a new cut of all three (six?) films with deleted scenes and whatever Lucasing he wants to do and create a cohesive, connected sextet if that's what his heart desires. But all this should be done in ADDITION to the existing cuts, not in lieu of. Jackson can stick Martin Freeman in the flashback scenes, put The Hobbit Gloin at the Council of Elrond and have Tauriel running around Rivendell for all I care, as long as we always have the existing cuts in whatever the latest, best format is.

 

Even without new cuts however, there is a ton of unseen footage from these films that need to be seen. On top of that, thousands of hours of documentary footage shot by Costa Botes that is sitting in storage somewhere. We need new documentaries, a retrospective film, new commentaries, isolated score, deleted scenes, etc.

 

Any future release need to be done right and given the care and respect befitting these classics place in cinema history.

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3 hours ago, Nick1066 said:

Of course it will happen. There's too much money to be made.

 

The question is, what will we get? As you correctly observe, the effects were rendered in 2K, meaning they'd either have to redo all of them (unlikely) or we'll simply get an upscale (almost certainly).  And as @Disco Stu points out, hopefully at a minimum they'll have corrected the colour issues that plague FOTR. In any event, even with on just an upscale the HDR alone would be worth it.

 

I'd love for this to happen, but what I'd like to see more than just an upscaled release of what we have. We need the original cuts of the theatrical and extended editions in 4K HDR. Then Jackson can do a new cut of all three (six?) films with deleted scenes and whatever Localising he wants to do and create a cohesive, connected sextet if that's what his heard desires. But all this should be done in ADDITION to the existing cuts, not in lieu of. Jackson can stick Martin Freeman in the flashback scenes, put The Hobbit Gloin at the Council of Elrond and have Tauriel running around Rivendell for all I care, as long as we always have the existing cuts in whatever the latest, best format is.

 

Even without new cuts however, there is a ton of unseen footage from these films that need to be seen. On top of that, thousands of hours of documentary footage shot by Costa Botes that is sitting in storage somewhere. We need new documentaries, a retrospective film, new commentaries, isolated score, deleted scenes, etc.

 

Any future release need to be done right and given the care and respect befitting these classics place in cinema history.

 

I hope they fix Treebeard's voice. It sounds like they just settled for that guy who voiced Gimli. 

 

......... 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Stumbled across this the other day. If these are truly 4K, then perhaps there's new hope for a home video release...even if just a fool's hope....

 

Quote

 

Starting at 11:30am, for a single ticket price of $15, we will be presenting the Extended Editions of all three The Lord of the Rings films, on 4K digital prints, back-to-back at The Frida Cinema.

 

 

 

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Yeah - hugely popular movie with a large collector-heavy fanbase.  They sold Blu-rays with a special bookshelf.  This is coming to 4K.  I doubt there will be any meaningful new special features, at least not on the first go round.  4K is enough of a reason for fans to trade up.

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  • 1 month later...

If you take HP for exemple, the release in 4K only applies to the theatrical cuts, not the extended cuts for HP1 and HP2… And if they release only the theatrical cut in 4K HDR I would be truly pissed…

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The HP extended cuts were only a gimmick, restoring all the deleted scenes that were already available on the first DVD release. The LOTR extended editions are much more substantial and important.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Agreed. I consider them the definitive versions of the films.

 

The extended cuts are somewhat of a mixed bag for me when it comes to additional material; they’re a novelty for the hardcore fans who want to see the extra material. 

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I wouldn't say they're a novelty. The existence of the extended cut is predicated on the fact that we experience pace differently when we watch a film on the small screen, so you can tailor-make films with a different flow: they're not assembly cuts. I found that most people who prefer the theatrical cut are ones who wish to recapture the theatrical experience of watching the films originally, whereas I like the theatrical cut - for the theater; the extended cut - for my home. Although there is a merit to having the theatrical cut - if you introduce new audiences to the series, you'd probably want to start them off with the theatrical cut of the first film, and than progress into the extended cuts.

 

Besides reintroducing into the edit some key character moments, the extended cuts - which have come out as the edit of the next film was taking shape - allowed the filmmakers to knit the films together all the closer; they allowed them to fix shots, remove mistakes and polish effects, etcetra. Often, the flow of individual sequences is much better at the extended cut: I'm thinking the charge of the Rohirrim in particular: in the theatrical, we cut in the middle of it to Pippin alerting Gandalf to what's happening with Denethor, which doesn't ever work for me. The score often flows better, too. I think even the transfer used for the Blu-ray is different.

 

King Kong, on the other hand...

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The Extended cuts of LOTR are fantastic, especially for the first two films. On ROTK the returns are somewhat diminished (and in a couple cases actually detract from the film), but all in all each is superior to the Theatrical presentation (the latter of which are also fantastic).

 

The Hobbit is another matter entirely.

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If ever there was an extended cut of diminished returns, its that of The Two Towers: Have one less scene with Treebeard, and "push" that whole subplot further "down" the line, as it were. As it is, the cut from the initial assault on Helm's Deep to the Entmoot is the most unfortunate editing choice of the entire sextet.

 

Oh, and King Kong's got an extended cut, too.

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  • 1 month later...
8 minutes ago, John said:

 

That means no motion-captured Gollum, as he was in the Hobbit movies. 

 

Umm... wasn't he that in LotR too?

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Yep. 🤦‍♂️

 

Anyway, I hope they'll eventually release the 48fps versions of the Hobbit films. I know I'm in the minority, but I thought it looked great. 

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  • 4 months later...

To ever so slightly quench people's thirst, I was doing some digging a while back and I came across the portfolio website of Dylan Cole.

https://dylan-cole-j5dx.squarespace.com/return-of-the-king

It has some stills of the matte painting work he did in their original resolution. Quite frankly they're beautiful.

Sadly he seems to have updated his website and has reduced the section on Return of the King.

He used to have a lot more examples, as well as a feature on all of them to click and cycle through the different elements. There was a great one where you could see the before and after of a Barad-dûr shot showing the original shot of the miniature

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2 minutes ago, rogob said:

To ever so slightly quench people's thirst, I was doing some digging a while back and I came across the portfolio website of Dylan Cole.

https://dylan-cole-j5dx.squarespace.com/return-of-the-king

It has some stills of the matte painting work he did in their original resolution. Quite frankly they're beautiful.

Sadly he seems to have updated his website and has reduced the section on Return of the King.

He used to have a lot more examples, as well as a feature on all of them to click and cycle through the different elements. There was a great one where you could see the before and after of a Barad-dûr shot showing the original shot of the miniature

 

Ooh, those are gorgeous.

 

Also, welcome!

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2 minutes ago, John said:

 

Ooh, those are gorgeous.

 

Also, welcome!

No problem. I'm disappointed I didn't save those images sooner though cause he used to have a still from the shot with Frodo and Sam on the side of mount doom when the eagles come in, when the black gates open, and a number of minas tirith shots

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5 minutes ago, toothless said:

I thought there were news regarding a 4K release :(

 

Come on this needs to be done. I’ve been holding on buying the the Blu-ray EE for ...well a long time.

 

Me too!  I still only own LOTR in the original EE DVDs from 15+ years ago.

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15 years ago was 2004.  The first Blu Ray titles came out in 2006 and the LOTR EEs were not released on blu until 2011

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I upgraded to Blu-ray because it was cheap over the holidays (and also bought digital HD versions of the TEs and EEs more recently, because I'm dumb), but I haven't watched the movies since before the first Hobbit movie.  At this point, I'm going to hold out until I have a TV that actually plays HD video.

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I hope if a 4K set comes along, it'll look more presentable than the generic, bland blurays. I'm not hoping it could reach the level of the DVD set, though.

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On 4/20/2019 at 2:56 PM, rogob said:

To ever so slightly quench people's thirst, I was doing some digging a while back and I came across the portfolio website of Dylan Cole.

https://dylan-cole-j5dx.squarespace.com/return-of-the-king

It has some stills of the matte painting work he did in their original resolution. Quite frankly they're beautiful.

Sadly he seems to have updated his website and has reduced the section on Return of the King.

He used to have a lot more examples, as well as a feature on all of them to click and cycle through the different elements. There was a great one where you could see the before and after of a Barad-dûr shot showing the original shot of the miniature

 

Stunning images there. I wish I had a proper desktop version of this one, it's spectacular:

 

JCWzHJ1.jpg

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  • 3 months later...

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