The Lord of the Rings... Extended Editions on Blu-ray

 

Mark Sommer, Fantasy Editor

So much has already been said about Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings, it seems superfluous to add another review. I am not a technical film expert by any means, so I must defer judgment about color palettes and sound quality to the experts. (Blu-ray.com has excellent articles on the subjects. Their analyses of the the video and sound quality of The Fellowship of the Ring would be a good place to start for those interested. Paul McElligot presents a positive review of the color grading in his article on the subject on BlogCritics.org: Color Grading Lord of the Rings: It's Not Easy Being (Dark) Green.) All I would be able to say is: it looks and sounds splendid to me!

Volumes have been written about the the screenplays-more than enough for a person to spend a lifetime studying what expert critics have to say. So, it occurred to me what I would add should be basically a review of the "Bonus Materials."

The Lord of the Rings Extended Edition Blu-ray set comes with fifteen discs (six Blu-ray and nine DVD). Each movie takes up two discs, which include options to listen to one of four commentaries. The other bonus materials are the two-disc "Appendices" for each film, and the behind-the-scenes documentaries by Costa Botes, who was personally hired by Peter Jackson. All of these features (including the audio commentaries attached to the films) have been released previously, although the Botes documentaries were only included in the special 2006 limited edition DVD set. (For a handy chart of what has been included in various Lord of the Rings sets, go to Amazon.com's order page by clicking here, and scroll about a third of the way down the page.)

In "The Passage of an Age" (Return of the King Appendices Part 6), Peter Jackson describes the trilogy as "the biggest home movie in the world." Watching the various features, it was obvious that this massive project was a labor of love. Emphasis on "labor." Jackson believes in getting a film as close to perfect as possible, and he is able to push his team into doing the seemingly impossible. The final movie faced a post-production schedule that became so tight Peter Jackson himself did not see the whole movie in one sitting until the Premiere in Wellington! It is doubtful whether another project besides The Lord of the Rings would have garnered such devotion and tireless work. The labor was propelled at least as much by love for Tolkien and Middle-earth as affection for the Director.

All the hard work paid off with an eleven-win sweep at the Oscars for The Return of the King...

Click through for the rest of Mark's review...