The Lord of the Rings -- take three!

[Peter T Chattaway]

Coming August 29.

Moderators, feel free to merge this with one of the pre-existing threads, if you so desire. Candidates include:

LOTR EEs / Discussing them as one complete film...

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy / (the entire filmed work)

The Two Towers DVD: Is this edition worth buying?

LOTR: The Return of The King - Extended Edition

Return of the King / ELEVEN Oscars! At last!

Personally, I think the three all-new feature documentaries might elevate this to something that merits its own thread.

[Clint M]

If they're going to fit the original AND extended cuts onto a two-DVD set, then these might be HD sets, but I would think they've have mentioned that.

I think New Line is borrowing from the George Lucas school of releases. These will be non-anamorphic, and only have a 2.0 stereo mix.

The covers are quite nice looking, however.

Edited June 23, 2006 by Clint M

[Peter T Chattaway]

Director angry over Lord of the Rings cuts

The director of three new "warts-and-all" documentaries set to be released with the new editions of Lord of the Rings on DVD this autumn says he was not consulted over cuts made by studio New Line. . . . Scenes which have been removed include those of extras dressed as orcs singing Stand By Me, apparently because New Line did not wish to pay for the rights to the song. Scenes in which radios are blaring at the HQ of special effects company Weta have also been cut, as well as images of the tops of New Zealand's Mt Ruapehu and Mt Ngauruhoe. "I can understand the Maori attitude to avoiding depiction of the peaks in the film ... but what have we come to," said Botes.

Guardian, July 3

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So maybe we'll get director's-cut extended-edition versions of THESE films, too, one day?

[Peter T Chattaway]

They've been out for ten days, now ... so, has anyone checked 'em out yet?

[Peter T Chattaway]

Is it too early to start talking about the fourth set of bonus features (which will apparently go on the eventual HD version)?