Dead Pixel Live

The Lord of the Rings is the greatest film trilogy of my generation par none so it makes perfect sense to want to own this masterpiece of cinematography on Blu-Ray. There's been a lot of controversy going into the release of this Blu-Ray version,  that this current version isn't the extended release that came out on DVD a few years ago but the shorter theatrical release without the 30-45 minutes of extra scenes for each movie. Which begs the question is it actually worth buying right now or should you just wait the inevitable second dip that New Line will make in a year or two when extended editions come out on Blu-Ray.

 

Any trepidation with buying the Blu-Ray collection shouldn't be because of the story since if you've ever seen the trilogy, its fantastic. Anyone who hasn't either read the classic book trilogy or the films before it tells the tale of a single hobbit who holds the entire fate of Middle-Earth, the land story takes place in his hands. Either destroy what is known as the One Ring will end the evil being known as Sauron once and for all or let it fall into the enemy's hands which will doom the world to fall to Sauron's rule. Suffice to say the story is excellent and if you haven't seen it before you should pick up some edition of the movie even it doesn't happen to be one on Blu-Ray because you can describe the movie in one word, epic.

The Blu-Ray picture quality is great, and everything looks sharp. That's the one advantage to those who can't wait for the extended editions that they can enjoy the pretty picture that High Definition gives you. Everything looks great except for the colour looking a little too saturated in some daylight shots of The Fellowship of The Ring otherwise the trilogy is probably looking as good as it's probably going to get in any future releases. 

 

Now onto the true problem with this release and that it's completely anemic when it comes to any extras whatsoever. First of all the special features are on a DVD so it's not in high definition and the only extras on them are just like 3 TV specials they probably taped in 2003 per film in the trilogy and then they add some trailers and a couple of web features they got from their own website. Then you've got the fact these are the theatrical release so you don't get any extra minutes in the movie besides what you saw in the cinema. Quite honestly the whole extra situation is really pathetic and you can tell they just did it so they'll have the super extended edition later with 10x more extras.Adding insult to injury one of the extras they give you is for the special extended edition DVD that came out in 2003, what the hell are you doing New Line, trying to make feel like an idiot for buying this? The set does come with digital copies of the movie you transfer into iTunes but be warned that they're just standard definition copies and they expire on April 2nd 2011 so be sure not to buy this after that and expect it to work.

 

Anyways personally I'd say you should wait for a less cut down Blu-Ray release of the films before buying it. You don't really get much else besides the original theatrical releases, it looks good but it's kinda pricey for a $64 box set. The only reason I ended up picking it up was because I found it for $20 because of pricing error, and at that price it was worth having.