Middle
Earth 4K 31-Disc Collector's Edition Box Set
(2001 - 2014/MGM/Warner 4K Blu-ray w/Blu-ray Set)
4K
Picture: B+ Picture: B Sound: B+ Extras: B+ Films: C+
The
Peter Jackson Lord
Of The Rings 4K
and Hobbit
4K
films sets have been collected into a new Middle
Earth 31-Disc Collector's Edition 4K Set,
which also includes new regular Blu-rays with the new transfers
reduced to regular 1080p HD quality, but include the new lossless
Dolby Atmos 12-track upgrades and a really nice hardcover book. This
packaging is nice overall. We already covered the films in their
original, separate 4K-only releases at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/15826/Lord+Of+The+Rings+Trilogy+4K+(20
So
despite the cast, its chemistry, status of the books and money on the
screen, plus nice scenery the Rings
films can deliver, I am not a fan of the films, they lost some of the
character we were seeing in the animated versions of the books from
decades ago and they have not aged as well as they cold have in a
short time. With a TV series follow-up in the works, some of what I
say will be vindicated when it has some visual effects that look
better than these films.
Others
have criticized the series for lack of diversity and some of that
comes from the comparison of the books versus films, but that's a
separate essay that will soon be revived by the release of the new
series, so anything I could or would say would be dated and likely
obsolete by then. Thus, I will skip that part.
That
leaves us with the remastering of the picture. I have no doubt this
is as good as these films will ever sound and even I cannot deny they
have fine sound design, though I can name no specific scene from the
six releases that I would consider a sonic demo.
The
Rings
films were shot on Kodak 35mm color camera negative with digital
visual effects that were not all 4K (to say the least) and many CGI
effects that looked dated on arrival to me. The
Hobbit
films were shot with Ultra HD cameras that delivered authentic 4K,
but had odd limits where you could not have certain kinds of
materials in front of the camera or they would ruin the image
(!!!???!!!) and it was all recorded at 48 frames per second (of
'fps') versus the world sound standard of 24fps that the new versions
have been reduced to. Errors on the later were annoying and even
headache inducing, especially in 3D versions we also covered
elsewhere on this site.
So
that begs the question, are these even authentic representations of
the films as original issued theatrically? Not always, but since
there are a ton of the older regular Blu-rays and Blu-ray 3D editions
out there, some purists will want to keep those versions and even
bigger fans will want at least one of EVERY version that has been
issued to date.
However,
any remastering on the Rings
films definitely brings out more of the original photochemical camera
negative quality, especially thanks to the 12-bit color and
scene-specific capacities of the Dolby Vision (plus 10bit HDR for
older 4K setups) used on all six 4K 2160p versions of these films and
their various cuts. That outdoes the older versions including likely
some original theatrical presentations, while the Hobbit
remasters make the images sharp, clean and color-corrected in a way
that does not always resemble the older editions, though I like the
results better, why could they not have looked this good in the first
place versus such a high-risk production with a camera that was
semi-obsolete on arrival that should have stayed in the research and
development lab. Not as obnoxious as what Ang Lee has been doing in
the place of actual storytelling for the last decade or two, it is
the reason the films were not as commercially and critically
successful as the Rings
films. That they came after is NOT the reason either.
If
anything, it makes the Hobbit
films a whole new experience and though it does not make them better
films, it makes them more tolerable. Still, they managed to have a
fake look and feel like nothing else I have sat through before, save
some very bad (ofter earlier) CGI feature productions (Zemeckis'
Beowulf
or Final
Fantasy: The Spirits Within,
now also out in 4K like other CGI features in the series, all
reviewed elsewhere on this site) that feel fake off the bat and makes
me wonder why I am even bothering watching in the first place.
Part
of this comes from Hollywood trying to work its way into the
lucrative and often fun video games market, but these have often been
ill-advised projects (reflected in more than a few cases by how much
money was lost) and is barely for such fans only. However, if you
are a Rings/Hobbit
fan, this is obviously the set to get (whether they hold onto those
earlier, now out of print editions) and they should snag their copy
while supplies last!
-
Nicholas Sheffo
