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One DVD To Rule Them All
Obiwan Kenobi writes "In a gala event last night New Line Cinema revealed their Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring DVD Plans. This includes a 2-disc version on August 6th (in both Pan & Scan and Widescreen, click here for box art), and a special 4-hour, R-rated cut of the film debuting in a 4-disc set on November 12th. While the August release includes some nifty features, it's the four disc version, with the longer cut and three audio commentaries, that really gets the drool flowing."
Now that's what I'm talkin about!
Seriously, in order to earn an R rating, they'll need to introduce a huge volume of profanity, nudity, or extremely graphic violence; none of which will enhance the film.
In my opinion, such additions would only damage the quality of the film. I liked it precisely because it was faithful to the books, without all the traditional garbage (see above) that Hollywood's executives think is necessary for a "mainstream" film launch.
'Tis a shame.
--
Spaz!
I understand. It's long. If you don't want the 1/2 hour extra footage you can buy the shorter version. Everyone wins.
I take that last bit back. in the end the people selling me the cd utimately win. Bastards.
There's always Arwen/Lix ;-)
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Am I the only one disappointed by the sound getting no better than DD 5.1? I'm all about DTS. And widescreen. I'm still trying to convince some of my friends that you GAIN by watching the widescreen. They always complain that the black bars destroy their viewing experience. Ahh well, a home theater nerd I am. :)
The theatrical DVD relase should really contain BOTH the pan/scan and widescreen.
..
I guess we are starting to see the limitations of current DVD technology (ie not enough space for both versions when its a long movie).
Back in the day they didn't figure into the equation that interactive features would become so popular / take up so much space. So when the movie is long you run out of room.
Now would be a good time to release HD-DVD
Oh no, not again.
Firstly, forget the 'dual layer, double sided' discs - every piece of research has shown that most people would rather have two single sided disc than one double sided one. Nice disc artwork rather than tiny, hard to read writing to check where side one is, the selling point of a two-disc set and the fact that plenty of people have multi-disc changers but no-one has a player that reads both sides are the main reasons.
Secondly, no offense to you personally but I trust the likes of David Prior and Charlie De Lauzirika to choose the optimum bitrate and encoding settings for the absolute best in picture quality than I do anyone on Slashdot. Most people here seem to think that MP4 is watchable. I've seen the original and Superbit releases of Fifth Element, and I can see the improvement. Mind you, I think that someone seriously dropped the ball at Lucasfilm over the Pile-O-Cack Episode 1 transfer, so you can tell I'm a picky git.
On an unrelated note, I only need to know one thing: is the Theatrical Cut going in the four disc set as well, or is there value in buying both (not that I won't probably get both anyway).
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
What trolls are you talking about? The ones turned to stone?
1. They were in the film.
2. The non-stone trolls were in "The Hobbit", not FotR.
Granted, the fight scenes are there to sell the movie. If you've read the books, you'd realize Tolkien skipped the ork battle, instead he described it as a second hand accounting from Pippin/Merry.
Anything is possible given time and money.
What does the MPAA have to do with this? As far as I know, all they do is rate the movie (PG-13, R, etc.)
Heh, four hours doesn't come close to doing the books justice. The book is an epic adventure through wide spaces, dozens of side stories, meetings with all sorts of interesting people, etc... Heck like half a year passes in the first book. The movie is like "gotta go, gotta go, move move move move move, not enough time, lets skip a few chapters, go go go, action action action, go go go, skip some more, go go go go go, fight some baddies, go go go..." The movie makes it seem like the whole war of the rings took place in 3 days. A movie that actually represented the first book would alone take like 12+ hours, even if some of the more expendable side stories (like Tom Bombadil) were cut.
If it weren't that mini-series were always so poorly made, it would be better served in that format... Except it would be like 3 seasons long... So, maybe a regular TV show where the entire series is written and shot before it airs... But the first season would have a lot of episodes with no action, so nobody would watch it... Maybe if they took the story and put it in a series of books... Oh, wait...
... "Give me a woman who loves beer and I will conquer the w
Thats fair enough I suppose - it may well be that they took one look at the news about the 4-disc set of Pearl Harbor that Prior is prepping for Buena Vista and decided that they weren't going to be beaten.
I do know that with the film eating up most of the first two discs (and minimal menus on the second so you can get back into the film asap) the decision to squeeze all the extras onto discs three and four was taken, which seems reasonable to me. Apparently there are well past 6 hours of extras to get on those two discs, so they don't fit on one - he has already stated that he is dropping things to avoid it being FIVE!!!
If you've heard about the legendary four hour documentary Jackson did for The Frightners, then him providing the DVD team with enough stuff to fill these discs seems reasonable.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Did I miss that? When I saw LOTR:FOTR in the theater, the fights went by awfully fast...so fast I'll have to skip frame to frame on my DVD player to see what's actually happening.
What is your Slash Rating?
"This tv has been modified. It has been formatted to fit your movie." PAN & SCAN should be a CRIME!
The way I look at it is that we may have bad feelings about drug dealers, but we sure do like them drugs.
hinderfreude ('hin-dur-"froi-d&), n. The feeling of joy derived from being in the way.
One of these things is not like the other, one of these things does not belong. Hello kids, can YOU find the proof that slashdot is run by a bunch of hypocritical weenies?
Remember the ring had no power over him. Nor did weapons (he had them in a pile and had no use for them). The contrast of his peaceful existance as a powerful entity when compared with every other character in the story is one that is missed in the films.
I just found the Tom Bombadil parts to be highly tedious and annoying, and never saw any sort of explanation for him being a "powerful entity".
Dinivin
"One ______ to _______ them all"
so creative, thanks, we haven't heard that ONE TRILLION TIMES already.
And we wonder why this site is becoming a laughing stock.
Whenever a story is posted about the SSSCA, or Jack/Hilary talking about piracy killing their businesses, we all get up in arms and post hundreds of comments about the RIAA & MPAA being greedy cartels (which they are). But as soon as they release something that we geeks love (Star Trek DVDs, LOTR, etc.), we all jump for joy.
Repeat after me: SLASHDOT HAS MORE THAN ONE PERSON IN ITS COMMUNITY.
Now think about it.
"And like that
We've got a guaranteed 2 years, at least, of LOTR. Perhaps it should be made into a topic, so those of us who don't care about LOTR can safely ignore it.
Thanks.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
I agree completely. I voiced a similar argument a while back.
A lot of Slashdot readers like movies. That is why they care so much about digital rights. Someone who does not watch (and enjoy) movies is not going to care if he/she is able to excercise "fair use" with digital movies.
I dislike the MPAA quite a bit. I have voiced that opinion many times on Slashdot. However, I also greatly enjoy movies. I went and saw FotR twice in the theatre and will buy it on DVD.
Why? Because I feel like a boycott of movies means that the MPAA has won. They want to take away my rights. A boycott simply means that instead of *them* taking away my rights, I *choose* to ignore my right to go to a movie, hopefully to get someone to notice.
Unfortunately, I enjoy movies too much to give them up for a political point.
Call me a hypocrite, that is fine. But notice that I have never said that I am boycotting, and I have never called on others to do the same. I have written to my congressmen and I have encouraged others to do the same.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
Why do all of these karma-whores seem to think that hating a company equates to not buying their stuff? Last summer, when California was in the middle of their energy crisis (I'm a Bay-area res myself), did anybody stop using all electricity to spite PG&E and the energy providers? No. Did they still hate the companies? Possibly.
My point is that there is a HUGE difference between these random 'boycotts' of the MPAA, and actually pushing for change (which, IMO, won't be accomplished by these fickle boycotts). In my eyes, it's perfectly OK to use something you dislike, while still working to change it.
---- I'll take you in a Hunt deathmatch any day.