Yeah- wake me when the EEs are announced.

in the year 2011... long sleep, eh?

I won't even rent them. There's just no point for me anymore. The EE's are the films I love, and it would be too jarring to see the films with all that stuff cut. I haven't watched the TE's since they all came out on DVD before each respective EE.

It's cool- I have better movies to watch in the meantime.

I doubt it'll take that long, though. My money's on Q4, 2010.

I feel the same- and I haven't watched the TE's since the theatrical first-run.

same here.

Blu-Ray.com is reporting

Our good friend Bill Hunt is at it again, and today he has more information regarding the upcoming release of the 'Lord of the Rings' films. This bad news is that when Warner delivers the films sometime late next year, they will be of the theatrical versions of the films. The good news is that this decision was made because director Peter Jackson wants to save the extended versions for a super Blu-ray boxset to be released near the theatrical release of 'The Hobbit'.

With the original extended cut box sets being of the utmost quality, I have high hopes that Jackson will once again produce a magnificent Blu-ray box set for the extended cuts of the film. Until then (which will be about two years if 'The Hobbit' stays on schedule, enjoy the theatricals cuts on Blu-ray sometime next year.

ECHO . . . ECho . . . Echo . . . echo . . .

:)

Ditto

HD is nice, but I'd prefer the DVD EEs over a shiny blu-ray Theatricals. Humbug!!!

Am I alone in preferring the theatrical cuts of Fellowship and Return? I'll buy all three theatricals and all three extended cuts when they come out on Blu-ray. It's Lord of the Rings.

You realize, smilies are optional, yes?

Now :) he :) tells :) me.

I hope nobody in here complains. We got the theatricals well in advance on DVD before the extendeds, but it was cool they let us know what was coming. Now again, they are letting us know the extendeds are coming eventually... so make your choice, and nobody can complain later on that they had no idea the extended cuts were going to eventually come.

I'm disappointed I can't get them off the bat but, at least this information is up front here and now.

Why not have both on the same disc or set?

There I go with my crazy ideas again.

True, but I think the rationale there was that it took time to get the EEs and their supplements put together. Now, they should be ready to go.

:lol:rotfl:lol:rotfl:lol:

Oh I would never complain about how the DVD's and this go down. I'm just disappointed. It was different with the DVD's - all we knew when each TE came out on DVD was that cut. Now we know what we are missing.

Also, I wouldn't say three months (seven for ROTK) was well in advance - just my opinion.

FOTR and TTT TE's came out in late August, followed by their respective EE's in November of the same year. ROTK TE came out in May but the EE wasn't until December. We're talking about a much longer wait until the Blu EE's.

Let's not forget they were also able to release seamless branching versions with the theatrical and extended versions, also.

At least they are coming. I will not buy the theatricals because I love the EE so much. Maybe a rent to see the quality and such for the anticipation for the EE.

No. Same here.

given the long wait, by the time of the EE's making their hidef releases, who knows maybe the next generation of 4K players/monitor's will be out by then.

:lol: You people saying you will be "holding" out will be the first ones to jump on when Amazon sells all three of them for $50.

Care to make it interesting? :)

EDIT: I will say this - if there are new extras, especially in HD, that will be exclusive to these releases, I will buy them just for that. These are some of the few films I will buy for extras.

I don't see how anyone can accept that Saruman's fate is never addressed in the ROTK TE. That was the biggest mistake they made with any of the TE's. If he had been included in the TE I'd find it much more palatable.

IMO, the FOTR EE gives more of a sense of a "journey" to the hobbits' trek to Rivendell. In the TE it just seems like <zip>, they're there.

I'll wait for the Gold Box deal.

Agreed....thats why Ill stick with my EE DVDs until they release them on BD.

I'm actually glad to hear that this initial release will only be the theatrical cuts....that makes them so much easier for me to turn down!
I will wait for the extended editions.....as a couple others have stated, I would rather watch the extended cuts upconverted on DVD than the theatricals in HD!

Guess I'll be getting a blu-ray player when the Extended Editions are out. I was originally going to get one when the first Criterions were going to be released, but I was layed off recently. Glad to hear they're going to release both versions, though. I'm also glad they'll release the theatricals first because blu-ray players will be cheaper by the time the extendeds come out.

No, the biggest mistake was not addressing it in the TTT TE. The battle against Saruman and his minions is the main focus of that film, so he should have been dealt with at the end. It even feels out of place in the ROTK EE. Hey, let's wrap up the battle with a primary villain of the story at the beginning of a movie - great idea!

What happened with his face?

FOTR: TE has been available in HD (for rental only) on Apple TV for a little while.

Anyone checked it out??

The quality of other HD movies I've rented from iTunes is very good but not as good as Blu Ray.

I loved the movies but those are films I already upgraded once and haven't watched them in a very long time. They are very long and once I get started on "series" films I like to watch them all. So I need a week where I have several nights for 4 hour movies.

Can anybody tell me if there is a big difference between the 6 disc LOTR extended version trilogy box set and the 12 disc platinum edition?

The 12-disc set has each movie spread across 2 different discs, allowing for higher bit rates in the video, as well as DTS audio. There is also alot more bonus features included.

The 6 disc sets you speak of, are those the ones that include both theatrical and extended editions via seemless branching? If you want to know the big difference, it would have to be the amount of extras I would assume, that, and having both versions of the films available instead of just the EE's.

I agree on this and was really disappointed with TTT at the time when this wasn't resolved. I guess my point was, given TTT as it was, a year later it was another poor decision to leave it out of the TE of ROTK.

Yes, the 12 disc set is the one you want. The 6-disc set, I got all 3 for like $5 a piece on Amazon's Marketplace. They're good for the fly-on-the-wall doc's on the second disc but that's it. The video doesn't look even remotely as good. 'specially upconverted.

Thanks to all for the rapid feedback. I've read somewhere that there are 2 versions of the extended versions. I was hoping the 6 disc set would also be 2 discs per movie since I've already got the theatrical version on 3 single discs. My PS3 does a great job of up-converting but I can really spot the video artifacts in these movies. That would be a problem with any 3 hour movie compressed into a single DVD.

I’d like to wait for the Blu-Ray since I have seen them in HD via satellite (1080i) but they’ve been slipping the ship dates. Besides that, most speculate the extended versions won’t be released on Blu-Ray until well after the theatrical versions. Many complain about buying the movies twice, but myself and others will be forced to buy 3 times if we jump on the first Blu-Ray. Cost may be another factor. If the platinum versions are still well over $100, surely the Blu-Ray will cost even more. I'd like to buy the Blu-Ray just once. If I’m going to buy 3 times anyway, I may as well have a lower cost, good quality extended version while I wait.

If only I could find the 2 dics extended versions by themselves, I'd be happy.

http://www.amazon.com/Lord-Rings-Pic...1086201&sr=8-5
These aren't hard to find. You can probably do even better with some digging. The $80 here is not too much more than these cost on release.

There were 3 different releases of the LOTR films on DVD:

1) Theatrical Edition (TE) 2 disc
2) Extended Edition (EE) 4 disc (movie on 2 discs)
3) Theatrical/Extended Limited Edition (LE) 2 disc (movie on both sides of disc 1)

The LE has both the theatrical and extended cuts viewable via seamless branching on one disc, but it's a double sided disc. You have to flip the disc in the middle of the film, regardless of what cut you're watching. Also, the LE dropped the DTS and commentary tracks. I'm not sure why they didn't just make it a 3 disc set, but I think there was some marketing appeal to having "both cuts on one disc!"

On top of that, it wasn't much cheaper than the EE, and now it's OOP.

Here's the link to the EE:
Here's a link to the LE:
http://www.amazon.com/Rings-Trilogy-...dp/B000GTLR2A/

Here's a review of the LE:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/23916...towers-le-the/

Personally, I'd go with the EE, since it has better audio and extras, and doesn't cost any more than the LE if you buy them individually.