Lord Of The Rings, The: The Fellowship Of The Ring Extended Version (4 Disc Set) (UK)

The picture quality on this disc is excellent, but, and I would appreciate some feedback and confirmation - the audio, both on DTS and DD5.1 exhibits "sample slip" (slight hiccups or audible glitches), as did the original cinema release. (I have tested the disc on several players and DD/DTS decoders to eliminate equipment problems).

I also have a Region 1 version of the standard edition on which the audio is perfect. Can anyone at New Line Cinema (or the UK Distributors, Entertainment in Video) comment on this problem with the audio?

It`s a shame such a good box set is let down like this.

Firstly let me say that there will be many people who state that this is the "best DVD package ever". It is not, T2 Judgement Day Ultimate Edition is still numero uno (there are 3 versions of the film plus DTS sound and endless extras etc etc). But this is definately a reasonably close second and in my opinion should have be the only edition that was released. On the downside, you have to watch the film on 2 discs which whether you agree or not is a `flipper` albeit a glorified one (at least you get the chance to nip out for a few more beers before resuming the film).

J.R.R. Tolkien`s legendary trilogy "The Lord of the Rings," perhaps the ultimate in modern mythology and a favorite for nearly five decades, has always been, at heart, the definitive Boys` Book. In bringing the author`s fanciful vision of Middle-Earth adventures to the screen, New Zealand director Peter Jackson has meticulously seen to it that just about every detail has been delivered (including extra footage) with the proper respect and just the right look. This edition also includes the superior DTS sound option.

In this movie, the first chapter of "The Lord of the Rings" sets the stage for the hobbit Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood, perfectly cast) and his quest, which is to destroy the One Ring, a mysterious magic ring that has dark, deadly powers. Although I`m sure you don`t need me to tell you the plot!

The costumes, the energy, and the special effects are brilliant, but the bottom line is that this must be respected for the overwhelming achievement that it is. The bar has been raised, and the world of film entertainment will hereinafter be better for it.

OK first things first... great movie and definetly worthy of a 4 disc set. But they`ve cocked up the sound tracks.

Because of the 4% speed up required in a PAL transfer (converting 24fps to 25fps), the audio must be sped up to sync with the video. To transfer the audio to the PAL version of this disc they performed a 4% speed up and pitch correction. This pitch correction has unfortunatly resulted in some audible artifacts in all the soundtracks available on the discs (Dolby 5.1, Dolby 2.0 and DTS alike). I can hear pops cracks and skips all through the movie. This error is exactly the same on the theatrical 2-disc version of the movie. It is easier to hear these audio errors on the DTS track, as the higher bit rate and higher quality of audio more easily reveals them. People in NTSC Region 1 land are unaffected by this as they do not require the 4% speed up and pitch correction.

Apart from this hurendous error the rest of the 4-disc set is perfect. Great picture, great extra features, everything is great. But for people like me, who can discern these audio glitches, it destracts from the film completely and totally puts you off watching it.

I stress again that these glitches are on both versions of the movie (theatrical and extended) only in PAL regions (Region 2 and Region 4 mostly). If you can`t hear them then you have nothing to worry about but if you can it makes you want to scream. I can`t believe that such a big movie company can actually create (and presumably test) a dvd, miss an error as big as this, and go on to release it.

More details on this glitch are all around the web. A PAL Region 4 review found at "http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/Reviews/Reviews.asp?ReviewID=2231" has a detailed explination and more comments on this issue.

A great film made greater! Great Extras! Great Sound!
I hope you get it now! ITS ALL GREAT!
(Except Peter Jackson`s Beard)

Film: Spoilers ahead. Being a fan of Tolkien`s work since before I can remember, I was delighted to hear (circa 1999) that they were being made into proper films. I didn`t know this Jackson fellow, but I had a supernatural feeling that these films would be good - and I was right. In 2001 `The Fellowship of the Ring` opened and I was treated to the most flawless adaptation of Tolkien`s work I could possibly imagine. I would like people to recognise the word `adaptation`. The film is not Tolkien`s work verbatim. Jackson and his writers made changes, but in most cases they are for the better, and they keep true to Tolkien`s style and story. Adapting a book like `The Lord of the Rings` was always going to be hard, but Jackson does it seamlessly, from removing the fat to updating the dialogue.

The following are a few of the most successful changes that I would like to mention: Moving Boromir`s death to the end of the film, instead of leaving it for a cliff-hanger to the beginning of `The Two Towers`. This gives the film an explosive conclusion to the mounting pace of the film. It was a huge and satisfying end to a film that would continue a year later. Having Aragorn meet Frodo before they depart gives the film one of its more emotionally resonant scenes. It also sets up Aragorn`s character for the next film. Another great move by Jackson is having Arwen save Frodo during `Flight to the Ford`. This not only beefs out Arwen`s role, but it gives us a reason why Aragorn would choose her instead of Éowyn. Moving Gandalf`s talk to Frodo about fate and judgement to Moria works in three ways - it fills in the story of Sméagol, it sets in motion his threat and it brings important Tolkien themes to the screen.

Whereas the book is about the journey, the film is about the quest. Jackson trims down the opening significantly to set the ball rolling fast. This is a good move. Tolkien also wrote much about the landscape of Middle-earth -to the point of near boredom for this reader. Thankfully a picture is worth a thousand words, and despite immaculately recreating the world of Middle-earth, Jackson is never obsessed with it and shows rather amazing restraint when coming to film it. Other directors may have filmed endless shots detailing how amazing the sets and models are.

I must disagree with a well known critic who criticised the film for supposedly concentrating on the action and lacking the spirit of Tolkien`s books. Considering this and his review for `Return of the King` I wonder if this supposed `fan` ever read the books. This film strikes a perfect balance between action and character and plot. It is superior to the book in this respect. Perhaps the critic mistook action for pace. There are also less action scenes in this film than the book. Jackson made another great decision by not including the boat attack by orcs after Moria. This scene would have felt gratuitous and lessened the impact of the previous scene. The action scenes that are in the film are excellent - though sometimes the camera gets a bit shakey, which hampers the viewing. The fight in the mines of Moria is brought to the screen fantastically, encompassing all the clammy tension and hectic fighting of the book. Gandalf`s fight with the Balrog is unbelievable. It`s so flawlessly and seamlessly brought to the screen and McKellen`s delivery of the words; `You shall not pass!` can not be bettered. Best yet, all the action scenes punctuate character points.

As for the Tolkien spirit - Jackson nails it. He not only nails it in the grandiose action scenes and grand scenery but in the smaller, intimate scenes. The changed scene with Bilbo and Gandalf smoking on a hilltop feels like it`s right out of Tolkien. The theme of friendship and the hobbit`s entrance into the outside world are both magnificently rendered. Their realisation that they must grow up and must make sacrifices to help their friends succeed at the end is done even better than Tolkien did it - thanks to the less cumbersome dialogue and the replaced death scene.

The film is immaculately crafted by true artisans. One should admire Jackson for not going down the Lucas route by creating all sets in the computer. Utilising everything from real sets, models, matte paintings and CG, Jackson and his crew have flawlessly constructed Middle-earth out of the New Zealand landscape. The in-camera effects work to scope all the races at their different sizes are seamless. I rarely, if ever called into question what I was seeing. I was never brought out of the story. I never thought of this world as a manufactured one. Jackson and his crew managed to make a fantasy world seem like reality for three hours. If I do have a complaint about the technical aspects of the film, is that Jackson is not a very composed shot-maker. He is certainly no Kubrick or Lean. His shots display a hectic `whatever` attitude to being rather than a true artist working to get the perfect shot - both in a stylistic and a substantial sense.

The casting is also perfect (I say casting there, not acting). There is no other actor on the planet that could play Gandalf and Bilbo as well as Ian McKellen and Ian Holm do. When Gandalf greets Bilbo for the first time at Bag End, it felt like these people knew each other for a very long time - like it should. Incidentally, this was the scene in which I knew Jackson was on the ball with this film. Sean Bean`s character Boromir gets the most involving dramatic conflict and he grabs hold of the opportunity delivering an excellent performance. Though I had my doubts about Elijah Wood he certainly looks the part and his wide-eyed naivety suits Frodo in this film. The rest of the cast also fit into their roles extremely well and I admit when reading the books I envision this cast as the characters.

`The Fellowship of the Ring` is a rare cinematic beast. It is an adaptation that not only exhorts smiles from every caring fan of the book, but also stands up by itself as a carefully crafted and intricate cinematic work. The opening title proclaims the film as `J.R.R. Tolkien`s The Lord of the Rings` and despite some cinematic changes, it is indeed. Tolkien would be proud. The Extended Edition is just that - an extension on an already complete experience. It doesn`t add anything you need to know. It just adds small bits and pieces that flesh out the world and (in my view) enrich the experience. And despite being half an hour longer, the film still goes by in a heartbeat.

Video: The picture is superior to the theatrical edition and both R1 editions. However, despite being presented on two discs, there is still a lack of fine detail. For an epic film like "The Fellowship of the Ring" this is quite disappointing. The print itself is pristine and I could only detect one defect (a visual dropout to the left of the hobbits just before the fight in Moria commences), which was also present in the theatrical edition. I may be fickle, but it's pretty annoying and should have been spotted and removed for this release. Aliasing is still an issue on objects such as blades, but it is thankfully less distracting than the theatrical edition. Edge enhancement is virtually absent, quite unlike the mediocre R1 edition.

Audio: This is reference material. There's no question about it. The soundmix production is top of the line - dialogue, effects and music are all perfectly balanced and audible. Surrounds are constantly used, both aggressively and subtlety. While the action scenes make be the more in your face demo material, smaller scenes are also brilliantly done and have many wowing moments. The Lothlórien scene is perhaps the best example of surround usage. Galadriel's voice fills the room on many occasions, alternating between a whisper and a thunderous shout in an instant. Sauron too is given similar treatment and his voice will enrapture your sound system. Bass is effectively used to show the ring's power. Audio problems concerning pitch correction were not heard by this listener.

Extras: It would be a worthless and mind-numbing experience to review each and every supplement on these four discs, but here's my overall impression of the discs:

Suffice to say I had big expectations for this set. 4-discs, one of the best films of recent years, New Line Platinum Series... what could go wrong? A lot, actually.

It's obvious that Jackson wanted to make a massive DVD set, bigger than anything that has yet been attempted. But in his quest for quantity, somehow quality was stopped at the door. There are many things that keeps this set from reaching the greatness it so blatantly wants to achieve.

1.) The set breaks one of the cardinal rules of extras: back-slapping. Tolkien back-slapping, cast back-slapping, crew back-slapping etc... Every documentary and commentary is paraded by this annoying trend. I am an intelligent viewer. I shall make up my own mind on the film. I do not need to be reminded that a film or the people involved with are deity every two minutes.

2.) The presence of the four hobbits. I have rarely, if ever heard a more vapid, ignorant, condescending group of people. It is an achievement greater than FOTR itself that Jackson was about to coax performances from these people. And despite their assertions I doubt any of them love the books as much as they claim as their grasp on Tolkien's text is limited to say the least.

3.) There are far, far too many talking heads. For a film so well documented so FOTR, there is really no excuse for them. A perfect example of this is when the cast talk about a joke John-Rhys Davies played on Peter Jackson (actually this could on the TTT disc, but it's all the same). The footage is there, we see glimpses of it. But no, we need to be told about what happened instead of actually seeing it. A second hand joke is rarely as funny as it is first hand. The talking head issue is in fact indicative of the whole set. Whoever edited the documentaries has no sense of succinct story-telling. Everything is repeated over and over until we get it. Frivolous rubbish is used to no doubt pad out the set and "justify" the two bonus disc. One would spend more time fast forwarding for valuable, relevant information than actually watching them.

4.) If I heard any of these mentioned one more time I think I'm going to scream: a) New Line made a big risk making these film. No, they did not. LOTR is the most popular fictional book of all time. A half way decent version of the book would have repeaped in the money. b) "This xxxx was based on a John Howe/Alan Lee drawing." No *beep*, Sherlock. c) "Yadda-yadda was so great. We had such a great time together." Blah-blah blah.

5. ) False advertising. The featurette "Cameras in Middle-Earth" has absolutely nothing to do with cameras, film-making or cinematography. This disappointment me greatly because I'm enthused with such topics. No, instead it's forty minutes of vapid comments about the cast and what Elijah Wood listens to or how Orlando Bloom likes his eggs cooked.

Despite these, there is some good information on these discs. I particularly liked the one on Tolkien and visual effects. It's a shame that one has to wade through so much rubbish to get to genuine information. It's not surprising that the most enjoyable extras are the ones that the cast and crew do not speak over, ie the animatics and visualisation demos.

These commentaries are also sadly mediocre as much of the information in these commentaries are just repeated from the documentaries (one much question how many times we need to hear the same things over and over again) and the talkers are not particularly engaging. I turned off the cast commentary after half an hour because I couldn't stand the blithering stupidity any longer. The design commentary is the definition of dry. Jackson and the writers seem tired. The production commentary is the best, but still not great and again threads over much of what was said in the documentaries.

Overall: The film is a masterpiece - one of the best of recent years. The video is very good and far better than its R1 counterpart. The audio is reference quality. The extras are copious but there is little genuine quality.