New re-releases of The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy

Anyone else who thinks Peter Lu… Jackson has turned into someone familiar?
I was hoping to see the original look of each movie with way better quality. But they didn’t just de-grain them and add edge enhancement, they even went so far as to do small things like remove some smoke here, light up some tiny area there, vignette effects on flashback shots and so on. Of course the biggest sin was to alter the colors yet again. This time not just with the first movie. Not to mention The Hobbit Trilogy which they claim was shot with 4K digital cameras yet the UHD versions are plain upscales of the blu-rays with altered colors and all that other stuff.

“The thing with 4K is not just to go for pristine sharpness,” he says, “it is to preserve the cinematic look of it at the same time as everything becoming crisp.”

https://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/13348

Good job, Peter. 😄

Once detail is lost it cannot be regained, i’m just going to get the original extended blu rays.

Such a shame. Andrew Lesnie put all that work in as the cinematographer on Lord of the Rings and they seem determined to make them look like they weren’t shot on film.

Yeah, this release in basically crapping all over his legacy.

I remember I was beyond happy when I got the original DVD boxes with the extended versions and bonus material, and by the way, I have never ever seen such interesting documentaries about films before. They made me appreciate them even more. But back then DVD was the standard and I had a CRT TV. It’s sad they messed up Fellowship in the extended blu-ray release but at least the other two used the same masters, or it sure looks like it. When I saw that release I wished there would be some old HD broadcast of the old master but I think none existed.

I’m glad some people around here have been working hard on fixing Fellowship. The news of UHD versions gave me hope but that was lost after taking a quick look at them.

Apparently they’re re-releasing the extended trilogy on blu-ray later this year but I bet that just means it’s pure downscales of their new, awful “remasters”.

Lucas the Barbarian said:

I don’t have this set yet, but I hope they’re at least right about the color grading being an improvement over the first Blu-ray.

Fellowship doesn’t have a green blanket tint anymore, but they’ve made new changes like vignette effects and desaturation in flashback scenes and such. Even the shots where Galadriel gives her gifts to the Fellowship have blur around the edges. I think our best hope is to stick to fan color correction projects using old sources!

EDIT: I was just sent this by Dwalin: https://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/13429
Apparently Fellowship has its share of small changes too. Frodo’s pimple is suddenly gone!

EDIT 2: Another one Dwalin found: https://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/13445
I’m just… speechless.