HOLY FLIRKING SCHMIDT! New Lord of the Rings releases! (2 Viewers)

[Ray H]

These docs have been in the works since filming started! They better be worth it!

 

[JediFonger]

you folx remember back in the LD days, pioneer used to have a player that either had 2 laser for pickup or the 1 laser would travel to the other side, but you didn't have to flip anything. the 2-sided LD would continue to play. was i hallucinating or... did such a beast exist?

if so, wouldn't it be logical for a DVD player to have such a feature to capture the 'flipper" market or how about releasing HD/BR discs in flipper so we have less discs but more content per disc?

 

[Ric Easton]

Yeppers! I still have one!

 

[Matt Stone]

Me too!

The laser indeed travels on a track to from the bottom of the disc to the top side. I had an old CLD-D505 that used to get stuck occasionally

I miss laserdiscs, but I'm not looking forward to an autoflip DVD player

 

[JediFonger]

why not matt? wouldn't it make sense for the flippers?

okay, maybe it's a not a majority of the films out there... but what about "auto-continue" feature on a DVD change where a film like LOTR:EE can seamlessly continue from disc1 to 2? i hate interruptions between discs. it's sooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOO annoying.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

I once briefly owned a player that did double-sided play for TWO LDs. Two separate trays and it could flip both of them. Didn't work worth a damn - that's why I owned it only briefly...

 

[Elijah Sullivan]

I wonder if the Gandalf vs. Balrog fight from The Two Towers will ever be completed - they shot templates for an additional sequence but ran out of money to finish it in post.

Maybe the future uber-edition will include a finished version of that sequence.

Yeah, dream on...

 

[Matt Stone]

Indeed, but as someone who hates flippers, I'd hate for studios to have a good reason to produce them

 

[Michael:M]

Like others here, I own both the theatrical versions and the EEs. The documentaries will have to contain a LOT of "new" and heretofore uncovered material for me to consider buying them.

Too bad I can't just purchase the documentaries.

 

[JediFonger]

i wonder if there are legal restrictions studios place on netflix to *not* rent bonus discs for multiple dippings. i mean, those w/netflix just wouldn't buy the extra dippings if they could just rent the goods.

like in this case, if i know for sure that the bonus will be available on nf, there's no way i'd buy it =).

 

[Jefferson Morris]

Did they really run out of cash? I thought they just had trouble developing the "slime Balrog" concept of what it would look like after it got doused in the water.

--Jefferson Morris

 

[Malcolm R]

Yeah, given the success of the first two films in the trilogy, I find it hard to believe there was any shortage of cash related to the production of ROTK. I'd think it's more likely to be conceptual issues, like Jefferson said, or simply running out of time to meet the release date.

 

[MarkHastings]

How about an option to decide how many endings you'd like in RoTK?

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Waiting for HD 1080p.

 

[Jefferson Morris]

A compelling argument for holding out.

--Jefferson Morris

 

[Elijah Sullivan]

The trouble was they needed something like $200,000 more dollars to create the "slime balrog" in the computer. At least I'm pretty sure that's why PJ says on the Two Towers commentary. At any rate, the miniatures for the sequence (fighting up the stairs from the bowels of the mountain to the "highest peak") had already been photographed and Ian McKellen's footage was shot, they just needed to finish the balrog effect.

It sounds like they were pretty short on cash for the movie in general -- the warg attack was supposed to occur at Edoras at night, but they couldn't afford the number of lights needed to light the set for a night shoot.

I'm sure there are TONS more deleted scenes out there, because they also say in the commentary that "if it was in the book, they shot it, just in case" - with the sole exception of the Scouring of the Shire. There's a bunch more epilogue RotK stuff, for example, and a dramatically different alternate cut of Two Towers that was the original cut... six weeks worth of reshoots were added to make the theatrical cut.

If they wanted, they could jamb another 12 hours worth of deleted scenes and throw the alternate Towers on there and release another four-disc Rings set without repeating footage.

The New Line vaults are STUFFED with footage for these films.

 

[Lou Sytsma]

The deleted scenes I am most interested are the ones showing the final fates of the Fellowship outside of the Grey Havens. There are quick shots of Legolas and Gimli in one of the documentaries. I also wonder if they ever got Cate Blanchett to record an epilogue.

 

[Elijah Sullivan]

Now The Bits is saying that the new DVDs are going to look better than the theatrical cuts, but not as good as the extended cuts.

The most dramatic improvement will be Fellowship, that means... I'm betting the new release will look better than the extended cut disc, which makes a good case for an upgrade. Film one is my favorite, anyway, and the one most in need of revisiting. Sa-weet.

 

[Arnie G]

How can anyone tell before the product is out???

 

[Adam_WM]

I think they are saying it is because of the difference in compression technologies since the original discs were released.