I eagerly await Lord of The Rings: The Boomstick Edition

One request: the video transfer BETTER be absolutely top-notch in the 1080p 24fps Blu-ray format. The old DVD EE releases were highly praised for their superb video given the limitations of the DVD 480p format.

Supposedly to be released in June. Sucks it's all DVD except for the movies.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=6027

Lord of the Rings Extended Blu-ray Details, Possible Street Date

The highly-anticipated Blu-ray release of the extended edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy doesn't have an official announcement yet, but retailers are revealing further release details, including special features and number of discs. Also, according to Canadian retailer Futureshop, it will come out on June 28.

Amazon has put up a useful comparison table summarizing the contents present in all previous DVD editions, the BD of the Theatrical Editions released a year ago and the upcoming Extended trilogy on Blu-ray.

Reportedly, the box set will consist of 15 discs in total, most of them DVDs for the special features: in all likelihood, they will include the six discs from the extended-edition DVDs plus the three discs from the theatrical and extended limited-edition DVD set released in 2006.

Digital copies will be available online.


Special features will reportedly include:

The Fellowship of the Ring
• Commentaries:
o Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens
o Design team
o Production/post-production team
o Ten actors, including Elijah Wood and Ian McKellen
• Easter egg: MTV Movie Award Spoof (The Council of Elrod)
• Costa Botes Documentary: The Fellowship of the Ring: Behind the Scenes (on DVD)
• The Appendices (on DVD)
o Part 1: From Book to Vision
 Peter Jackson introduction
 J.R.R. Tolkien: Creator of Middle Earth
 From Book to Script
 Visualizing the Story
 Designing and Building Middle Earth
 Middle Earth atlas interactive
o Part 2: From Vision to Reality
 Elijah Wood introduction
 Filming The Fellowship of the Ring
 Visual effects
 Post-production: Putting it all together
 Digital Grading
 Sound and music
 The Road Goes Ever On...


The Two Towers
• Commentaries:
o Writer-director Peter Jackson and writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens
o Design team
o Production/post-production team
• Sixteen cast members, including Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Andy Serkis, John Rhys-Davies, Orlando Bloom, Christopher Lee, Bernard Hill, and Miranda Otto
• Easter Egg: MTV Movie Awards clip (Gollum accepting award)
• Costa Botes documentary: The Two Towers: Behind the Scenes (on DVD)
• The Appendices (on DVD)
o Part 3: The Journey Continues
 Peter Jackson introduction
 J.R.R. Tolkien: Origin of Middle Earth
 From Book to Script: Finding a Story
 Designing and Building Middle-Earth
 Gollum
 Middle-Earth Atlas interactive
 New Zealand as Middle Earth (map with video location)
o Part 4: The Battle for Middle Earth
 Elijah Wood introduction
 Filming The Two Towers
 Visual effects
 Editorial: Refining the Story
 Music and Sound
 The Battle for Helm's Deep is Over


The Return of the King
• Commentaries:
o Writer-director Peter Jackson and writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens
o Design team
o Production/post-production team
• Costa Botes documentary: The Return of the King: Behind the Scenes (on DVD)
• The Appendices (on DVD)
o Part 5: The War of the Ring
 Peter Jackson Intro
 J.R.R. Tolkien: The Legacy of Middle-earth
 From Book to Script
 Designing and Building Middle-earth
 Home of the Horse Lords
 Middle-earth Atlas: Tracing the Journeys of the Fellowship: interactive map
 New Zealand as Middle-earth: interactive map with on-location footage
o Part 6: The Passing of an Age
 Elijah Wood/Sean Astin/Billy Boyd/Dominic Monaghan intro
 Filming The Return of the King
 Visual Effects
 Post Production: Journey's End
 The Passing of an Age
 Cameron Duncan

guess I'll pass.

All of the info in the article is taken from Amazon, with the exception of the release date, which is from FutureShop. None of the info is official yet, as New Line still has not made an official announcement. So take it with a grain of salt.

Can you quote all the times you've been right about LOTR?

WB hardly ever creates HD extras for their catalogue titles so dont know why anyone would be bothered by this.

I don't know why anyone would be bothered by non-HD extras at all?

I want 1080p in the actual film, not an interview with Sean Astin and Elijah Wood.

It's just lazy of them to re-use old discs. All of the extras available could have been fit (in SD) onto two Blu-ray discs max, thus, saving some space, and some disc-swapping. They would also have Blu-ray's protective coating on the discs. I don't mind SD extras at all, but for a franchise title like this, it's pathetic to just include the old, already-released DVDs.

Exactly.

And whatever amount they're saving with these DVDs, I, for one, am a lot more attracted to (and thus ready to spend more money on) a set that fits all of these features onto 5 discs than one that takes up the space of 12.

It appears in the pictures that each movie comes in a standard-sized Blu-Ray case.

I'm skeptical that all four discs are going to be in each of those, but I'd be cool with it if that were the case (no pun intended).

I don't think Amazon created that picture showing 15 discs. Looks to be set in stone.

Amazon's picture of the set doesn't include the discs. I'm not sure where blu-ray.com got that picture with the discs.

Ehh, I wouldn't be surprised. Season 3 of Star Trek: TOS comes in a blu-ray case that's basically normal thickness and that's six discs.

They don't make eco versions of the 4-6 disc cases do they?

I wish they had a barebones movie-only version of the extended set, since I'm probably not selling my DVDs; it's kind of double-wasted space.

Oh well. I'll buy day 1 anyway.

I really don't care if they include all previous extras on DVDs in SD. All I care about is getting all 3 extended cuts on BD - with spectacular transfers and audio - for a price lower than $50.

To answer my own question. It has just been anounced that this will be released in the UK the same day as in the US. No price as yet.

Blu-ray.com sez:

"Confirming earlier reports (see Blu-ray.com, January 14, March 7 and March 16), Warner Home Video has officially announced the Blu-ray release of the extended version of The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy for June 28. This three-movie collection will be presented in a 15-disc set (6 BDs, 9 DVDs), packaged in multi-disc elite packaging inside a premium rigid slipcase, with an SRP of $119.98. Each movie will be split across two discs. Audio will be 6.1 DTS-HD Master Audio. The Fellowship of the Ring has been remastered from the original 2k digital files.

"This latest tidbit will be welcome news, as the first installment of the trilogy had been controversial among reviewers and enthusiasts alike because of its inferior picture quality, allegedly related to the use of an older master."

Haha. They remastered it. Now many will just have to double-dip thanks to the crappy job they did on the Theatrical Cut. Just classic.

I'm glad about the remastering but disappointed each film will be spread across two discs. I was hoping that, unlike the DVD releases, each film would be presented on one disc each without the tacked on intermissions.

That's probably to increase the bit-rate to the maximum and to avoid any compression issues.

WTF?? Are they only wanting to use 25 gig discs and not 50??