Can The Lord of the Rings Ever be Remastered?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 พ.ค. 2024
- After several home releases, The Lord of the Rings doesn't look as good as I remember, but my memory isn't the problem.
My recommendations:
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The Fellowship of the Ring:
1. The Fan Version.
From what I understand, the Fan Version uses the luminance of the HD Extended Edition, but is color matched to the Theatrical Edition and the Extended DVDs. I love it. I found it on 1337x.to.
2. The HD Theatrical Edition (2010)
If you don’t care about the Extended Edition, this is a great option. It has some DNR, but the colors look good.
3. The 4K (2020)
The 4Ks are fine, but out of all of them, Fellowship is the worst, because the colors are so boring.
4. The DVDs?
I don’t know, anything but the HD Extended Edition.
5. The HD Extended Edition (2011)
Abysmal.
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The Two Towers:
1. The HD Extended Edition (2011)
The Two Towers and The Return of the King weren’t messed up, so I prefer the HD Blu-rays over the 4Ks. However, the Extended Edition of The Two Towers has a slight green tint in some scenes, compared to the Theatrical Edition, but it’s not that noticeable.
2. The 4K (2020)
Arguably, The Two Towers benefits the most from a fancy new color grade, since the original was a little flat. I love how blue the skies are in this version. Unfortunately, the DNR looks the worst. The plains of Rohan are wiped out. There are like ten different flashbacks, so the white filter bugs me. And anything that’s yellow-green is too saturated, so certain costume details look like caution-tape, and anyone with blonde hair looks like they’ve been swimming in chlorine.
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The Return of the King:
1. The HD Extended Edition (2011)
Perfect.
Although, I had audio-sync problems with The Two Towers and the Return of the King, so personally, I swapped the audio with the 4K audio.
2. The 4K (2020)
The Return of the King 4K doesn’t bother me that much. But I prefer the HD version.
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MUSIC USED:
Night Vision - Homage
Impact Moderato - Kevin MacLeod
Prologue: One Ring to Rule Them All - Howard Shore
Absolutely Nothing - Jeremy Blake
For You Blue - The Beatles
Bright Eyed Blues - Unicorn Heads
Caras Galadhon - Howard Shore
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"Night Vision"
Instrumental by Homage
• [Free] Joey Bada$$ x O... - ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
Stuff like this is exactly why I fear physical media becoming obsolete.
You definitely shouldn't. This is just a transition period. Within 10-15yrs, we'll be at or above even 70mm IMAX for most everything and someone will have worked out a comprehensive archiving and preservation strategy.
@@mastpg Some Ai nonsense will do it for all private video tapes but it won't do justice for LOTR
@@morcjul They still have the negatives...allegedly. Seriously, we're not too far off from full, digital, 12-18K workflows for the high end stuff. Redundancy methods and strategies are top of mind for any corporate-media concern. Also, there will be a Harmy for LotR if there isn't one already. The extended editions are basically World Heritage Movies at this point. I'm sure there's at least one tape backup of the VFX files somewhere, and I'm not necessarily opposed to having some tasteful upgrading of the effects done for a cash grab.
Physical Media has nothing todo with it.
@@mastpg yeah, no. Without physical media you own nothing. At some point in the next 10-15 years someone will deem LOTR "problematic" somehow and it will be banned.
These movies are classics and made billions, but it's too expensive to rescan the original negatives? Hollywood is so cheap!
…that doesn’t even have anything to do with Hollywood.
I honestly just think that in reality most consumers don't care that much about this
@@bighatastrea wrong
The original negatives didn't have all of the coloring and effects though.
@@DravenX53 That's not the point, the point is they should be scanning those for the remaster, not the HD DVDs (which they apparently did). They can rescan the original negatives and do a full remaster for the best picture, and not a blown out image.
My version has a Cerveza Cristal commercial about every half hour or so.
God damn! Good one.
ICONIC
The good version has the cerveza commericials in 4k HDR DNR as well
🤣🤣🤣
"What does it have in its pocketses?"
CERVEZA CRIIIISTAL!
As one of the matte painters on the film, ( painted the afternoon Leaving Rivendell 14:59 and morning Entering Rivendell 15:31 ), it's painful to see such degradation - pun intended - in the colour and tones of LOTR.
I had my own 'war' with PJ in regards to the colour of the sky in the 'entering Rivendell' scene. It was meant to be warm, morning light and he wanted me to paint in a bright blue sky with two puffy white clouds, just like a Simpsons sky. I refused at first but then cartoonised, like the Simpsons, the entire shot and sent it for film out to be viewed in the screening room. They were NOT happy!
He ended up getting the compositors to grade the sky blue. Everyone, including Elijah Wood told him to leave it alone and he relented... halfway.
I love PJ for making the films but by God he made some stupid decisions at the time!
Thank you for your work, maybe hopefully someday we will get an official release that does not butcher it though.
Thank you for the insight and your great work!
This is gold.
People need to see and know these things to realise that the directors of the films they love are anything but infallible gods of cinema.
I can only shudder at the thought to the coming Gollum movie that I doubt even Andy Serkis can save.
PJ is not the director he once was making The Frighteners and LOTR - and as you say he wasn't such hot s**t as people think even back then....
@@mnomadvfx You think that's bad, the animators nearly went on strike over PJ's insistence that they decrease the level of realism in the Cave Troll's (FOTR) rigging, musculature, movement etc! They flipped out!
Having said all that, every production has screw up's and people disagree, it's normal. And LOTR is still lightening in a bottle. I'm proud to have contributed.
Certain shots, particularly in the Shire, have very obvious masking that paints the sky an unnaturally intense blue. It's always bothered me. So this was very interesting to read and didn't really come as a surprise. Thanks for sharing!
Going from that brooding ending to those shitty upscaled credits made me burst out laughing. 10/10 editing mate.
yeah I straight ROFL'd
i burst out laughing haha
Yep. Came to the comments to make sure I wasn’t the only one who laughed at it. 10/10 editing perfection.
"So instead of a magical elf gliding through her enchanted realm, she looks like a beautiful woman in a beautiful gown on a beautiful set."
This is so sad!
Compare this to playing older video game systems on a CRT vs a modern TV. I personally prefer to watch craptube in 1080>higher res because otherwise it's too sharp and, ironically, grainy (with the details sticking out rather than blending). Sometimes less is more...
This is my main problem with all modern tv and movies. I'm taken out of the illusion
This is why 24 fps looks cinematic. Lower fidelity lets our imaginations fill in the realism. The Hobbit in 48 fps was neat, but it looked like a play instead of a movie.
Same thing when I play older 30 fps games in 60 fps - the graphics look worse because it's more revealing.
@@guitarzilla555 Yes 24 FPS is just more pleasant somehow which is weird if you think about it. If you're going slow shutter effect everything seems drunk which is also really immersive
I always felt the film grain added to the effect of viewing an old forgotten world.
That doesn't bother me so much, but it's only sensible for masking the older CG, to say nothing of preserving as much detail of the original celluloid as possible.
In one aspect, I think film looks cleaner than digital. The images are imprinted onto light-sensitive crystals that are oddly shaped and thus change alignment, spacing and size with each frame, unlike digital, which is a consistant grid. This in turn does a lot to smooth out the overcrisp look of digital without losing actual visual information.
Film grain just adds to viewing a film in general. Youre watching a film. It isnt real. Digital cameras and abundant CGI just make everything look more plastic.
@@TheSuperappelflap
Digital cameras produce noise too depending on the lighting and the ISO settings.
As for CGI, it's down to the amount of time you want to put into it as to how realistic it looks both still and moving.
As water, gas, fire/combustion and explosion simulations become more realistic with less time to preview them it will become easier to get a moderately realistic result in a short time without requiring practical FX to reinforce it visually.
@@mnomadvfx you can make it look nice but imo, we have a long way to go before even top notch vfx with AI and all the state of the art tech to approach the realism and gravity of practical sets. Not just because of how it looks but because having a physical environment just makes it easier for actors to give a good performance.
Compare the Alien movie from decades ago to the greenscreened modern Prometheus movie or whatever Ridley Scott does nowadays. I know which I prefer.
Aw, what are you doing to me?! I had _zero_ idea any of this was even a thing. I have a blue ray copy of the extended edition that I watch every Christmas. I was happy! I was perfectly content with what I have! I didn't know all these other editions had all these other qualities and that my copy has problems. But now that you've pointed it out to me, **shaky screen yelling** _I'LL NEVER UN-SEE IT!_ So, thanks for that. Now, I'll be obsessed with finding a perfect version before I'm happy again. Ugh. This is exactly the kind of thing my pedantic brain will obsess over for a year.
It bothered me for a few days and then i just enjoy my blu ray copy like ever before.
Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
Same for me, but I think i will shut off my brain as there is no true solution for the extended editions....
I think the DVDs still look pretty damn good.
I went through this with Star Wars and went down the rabbit hole of fan restorations and now have collected a few different versions. I thought LOTR was immune from the insanity of someone like Lucas but it seems nothing is sacred anymore. I'm not sure why this type of thing (keeping things the same but simply upgrading) seems to be such a difficult process for filmmakers to get correct. I think it may just be in the nature of artistic people to feel a compulsion to reinvent even when something by the public is essentially deemed "perfect".
same lol. i stick with my blu ray extended edition box set from 2005, it's grainy on big TVs but the coloring is secure and it's got all the glorious bonus content
Thanks for the shoutout! Glad you’ve enjoyed the HD color restoration. I agree with your analysis here 100%. All I want is the same version of LOTR that I saw in the 2000s, but in a higher resolution than a DVD. Pretty simple idea, but apparently Peter Jackson just doesn’t care to offer that, unfortunately.
I was initially pretty happy when the 4K Blu-rays first released, because even though it wasn’t a 1:1 color restoration, at least the Blu-ray’s ugly green tint problem had been fixed. But after the rose-colored glasses came off, it became really obvious to me that the 4K remaster wasn’t handled nearly as well as it should have been. The digital noise reduction is especially egregious, and the fact that it has less highlight detail than the DVD is straightup absurd.
Hoping that one day we’ll finally get a proper 4K restoration that preserves the original color grade.
Since you're the guy mentioned in the video: is there anyway to still download the fan color regrading (or whatever terminology was used)?
totally love your work. just bought 4k TV and had 4k disks ready but it seems ill save it for another time.
gonna search for your release now😊
How can I reach to you and get the colour restored Extended Edition film? I have a physical copy of the trilogy as needed.
@@samuraibat1916 If you search you will find it.
Well, firstly, sincere congratulations for the amazing work and time you poured into this project! As i am understanding, there is no straightforward way for someone to get a hold of your edits, but have you thought about making them openly available? There are literally millions of fans all over the world, many lacking the money to purchase a boxset or, in case the already own it, may lack the time, fortitude or disposition to track down a preservesionist! I get that you guys gave a shit ton of time and love to these edits, wouldn't be better to be somewhere, openly available for humanity? To be able to experience the best movies in their most pristine, authentic condition?
He remembered the password
Explain plz? :)
Huh?
@@Brangelina-mt1tw he disappeared lol
@@DJLizardon The correct form is "THE BEACONS ARE LIT! HE REMEMBERED THE PASSWORD!"
mellon?
Hi! I was directed here by a friend, namely Dwalin who is one of the guys behind the two most common preservation projects for FOTR. (Fellowship of the Ring)
First of all: HUGE thanks for making more people aware of this. It's a nightmare. While I only saw FOTR on DVD back then, I saw TTT and ROTK in the cinema on 35mm film. And unlike many, I pay notice to things like colors in quite high detail. I have a clear memory of the color of the battle at Helm's Deep, as well as the battle at Minas Tirith. They looked very close to the way they're presented on the extended blu-rays. And while you don't like the Hobbit trilogy, and yes, I agree they shouldn't be "bridged" to LOTR, the whole parts with Frodo and old Bilbo shouldn't have been there either since they assume whoever is watching has already seen the LOTR trilogy which they consider this one bridging into... (?) Anyway, I saw the first Hobbit movie in the theater and tried hard to remember the colors, and indeed, it had a green blanket tint both there and on blu-ray. But we're here for LOTR now!
I was among the first to present a way to battle the green tint when the FOTR extended blu-ray was released. Sadly, it had more problems than just a green tint. Colors that were actually green in the original had been darkened, and that's just one example. There was simply no way to make it look like the original colors without doing what 44rh1n and Dwalin did.
Anyway, some facts that are not presented here are: The HDTV broadcasts of all three movies in their theatrical versions, before their release on blu-ray, had all the dirt and grain intact. The theatrical blu-rays had DNR on all three, completely unnecessary in TTT and ROTK if you ask me. I understand if they wanted to clean up FOTR since it had lots of dirt spots and flares and things appearing all the time, but they also scrubbed away the grain along with it, and it could've been cleaned from dirt while still preserving the grain instead.
Now, like most, I prefer the extended editions. I was horrified when I saw FOTR on blu-ray for the first time and ended up watching the good old DVD instead. The other two are true to the DVD releases. The reason people think the colors changed in TTT and ROTK in the first extended blu-ray releases was the color space conversion. Convert the DVDs' color spaces to Rec709 and they look the same as the blu-rays, except FOTR of course.
There are a few more facts that are missing in this video and I'll list them:
The 1080p blu-rays of the 2020 "remaster" of ALL THREE actually have more detail and grain in it than the 4K versions! The 4K versions are upscaled, DNR'd versions of the new 1080p versions which is insane. Here are some good comparisons from each on caps-a-holic:
FOTR: caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0&d1=15006&d2=17668&s1=156523&s2=198551&i=13&l=0
TTT: caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0&d1=15008&d2=17673&s1=156546&s2=198561&i=6&l=0
ROTK: caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0&d1=15009&d2=17674&s1=156561&s2=198576&i=5&l=0
Mouseover is the 1080p blu-ray of the 2020 "remaster". The master has grain preserved and is the same master they used for the first extended blu-ray, just color tweaked to oblivion once again instead of going back to the negatives to faithfully restore the original, and more "fixes" than anyone can count, like closeup shots where they've removed a pimple on Frodo's face or "fixing" the visible hobbit feet in one shot where Frodo falls on the mountain and drops the ring, where Boromir picks it up. (The "fixes" are some findings of Dwalin)
There's another thing with the first FOTR extended remaster: Aliasing. It's there all the time but only truly visible when there are thin dark objects against a bright background, like in this shot, mouseover is the 2020 "remaster": caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0&d1=5240&d2=17668&s1=48914&s2=198533&i=2&l=0
Look at the thinnest branches of the trees against the bright background. Another thing in the first FOTR extended remaster is some shots are oversharpened on top of the aliasing, like the closeups of Aragorn telling Frodo he would've followed him to the fires of Mordor.
Another huge fact is about The Two Towers. It was DNR'd already in the CINEMATIC TEASERS! Which means that it's the one of the trilogy that would benefit the most from going back to the camera negatives. Watch the original teaser shots of Frodo and Sam walking in the bog and then watch all blu-ray versions. Another time when it's very visible is when "Gimli falls behind", the running scenes of Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, especially when they run into the sunset you can see trails of them left behind from the previous frame. This is applied to the entire film, it was on the 35mm prints and like I said, even in the teasers so it was done very, very early in production.
Either way, my preferred versions remain the fan version(s) of FOTR as well as the first release of the other two extended versions on blu-ray.
I won't get started on George Lucas but Peter Jackson has pretty much turned into him. James Cameron is bad too, not as bad but close.
What hit me the hardest about the disrespect for the original colors of FOTR the first time I saw the first extended remaster was that I used to watch ALL the documentaries included with the extended DVD boxes and I knew that they paid huge respect to Tolkien's descriptions of colors of everything. Now they just threw all that work in the garbage bin as if it meant nothing. I had so much respect for everyone working on the movies back then when realizing how close to an infinite amount of work was put into it all. Now I hope "Peter Lucas" never touches them again but that a proper restoration will happen one day, but sadly, the vast majority won't care, they're blinded by all the "HDR 4K ULTRA HD blah blah"... I can't count how many movies have been oversaturated in 4K just to make people think everything looked like that originally when in reality the DCI-P3 colorspace should be used only to be able to capture all colors/hues a 35mm film can hold, which Rec709 can't. It's supposed to look more realistic since every film could, in theory, be presented the way they originally looked but oversaturation wins the audiences. And I have nothing against high saturation on new works by filmmakers where it's the intent.
PS. The Hobbit trilogy's new "remasters" also have more detail in their 1080p versions and the 4K versions are upscales of those. For the record, they should only have removed the blanket tints then stayed away from the colors but they messed them up badly. The originals look like they did in the theaters, like I said earlier, the first one had a green blanket tint even there and I've ever heard a rumor that it's the reason FOTR extended also got it, to "make it look closer to the Hobbit" which doesn't make any sense either since the Hobbit didn't suffer from dark greens or aliasing as far as I know.
Thanks again for the video and I hope these facts are useful. And thanks for not accepting the fact that they ruin our favorite movies by doing this. I remember when The Terminator remaster was released and one guy on a certain forum where I was very active argued that the cyan blanket tint was "the original look and it's there because they could now scan it properly"... Just now, James Cameron did it again with The Abyss and Titanic before it. No cyan in Titanic but green and altered all the way beneath it.
I think the Indiana Jones trilogy is an example of a few done right? I doubt we'll ever see LOTR treated like that. They can make money anyway and that's all some of them care about.
Pleaaaaseeee, Where or how do you get the fan version? And what about the extended versions in DVD? I have these
Which fan preservations do you recommend in particular, if you don't mind my asking? As for the other stuff, Indiana Jones is mixed - 4ks look wonderful in most aspects but they've used some weird CG to try and remove matte lines in effects shots or patch over bad keying where details vanished in motion like the wings of a plane etc. As for Cameron, there's actually overlap with Jackson: the new Cameron 4ks were all done by PJ's Park Road Post using the same processes used on Beatles Get Back - worryingly, he's hiring the process out to those who want to use it on other films now. I think that's what scares me about Jackson and makes him worse than Lucas to me - he's not limiting the damage to his own films, he's very literally financially invested in terrible restorations and is seemingly pushing for it to be used on more films than just his.
@@florpodesta561 A good place to start looking is the originaltrilogy forum. Then there are *cough* tOrReNt *cough*...
@@mangomation3945 Didn't all old DVD/VHS releases of Indiana Jones have those things edited too? I've especially read about a reflection of the snake that stares at Harrison Ford through a piece of glass that was visible on the 35mm or something. It's true that history shouldn't be altered like that.
As for fan preservations, definitely 44rh1n/Dwalin's Fellowship of the Ring. Dwalin used the extended blu-ray and applied 3DLUTs for every single shot. (3D color lookup tables) 44rh1n used an early version from Dwalin for all extended shots and the theatrical blu-ray with added grain for the rest. Both are great.
And actually, the greatest fan preservation of them all, we will never see, at least not until 2077 when it becomes public property. A guy named Mike Verta, musician and video editing professional in Los Angeles who used to work for Lucasfilm made the most time consuming restoration of the original Star Wars from 1977 by combining the best sources in existence, as in real film reels. He couldn't share it of course, since it blows away all blu-ray releases and everything, and he did show some screenshots which had way more detail than any 4K versions will ever have. He offered it to Disney and they turned it down. Last thing I heard was he's storing copies with his most trusted people in the business, among them people who worked with the original VFX in Star Wars. He never seemed interested in restoring ESB and ROTJ though, but I don't blame the guy, his restoration of SW should not only have been accepted by Disney, they should've paid him millions of dollars for it!
The best ones we "mere mortals" can get are either the 4K77, 4K80, 4K83 or Harmy's Despecialized Editions.
I don't know any other movies that have had such a faithful following of fans who work to restore them like that.
And again for the LOTR trilogy I guess our best bet is AI upscaling carefully done shot by shot, sourced from the fan versions of FOTR and the extended blu-rays of TTT and ROTK.
Oh and James Cameron's oldies are actual 4K scans, all of them, but he's messed up the colors badly afterwards, as well as done edits just like PJ. For example, while I don't think they released the 4K version yet, in Aliens they edited out the hole in the floor where Lance Henriksen had his legs after his character Bishop is torn apart by the alien queen. They did a lot of edits to Titanic as well.
And something that blew my mind was that part where PJ is asked if he wanted to replace the original actor of Bilbo finding the ring in the Fellowship intro, and he said if so he wanted both versions to exist... How about both the entire original movie and your own edited version? It's a mess. The fans do a better job than rich Hollywood studios and the like.
@@You2Too Oh yeah, they did release Aliens on 4k disc recently, as well as True Lies and Titanic and Abyss, and they ARE originally based on true 4k scans afaik - but some ungodly reason he got Peter Jackson's company to do an additional layer of 4k-to-4k Park Road AI upscale (The same Park Road process used on They Shall Not Grow Old and Beatles Get Back) on top of the old Lowry 4k masters to try and make it look more digital and magick up detail that was never originally there, further removing even more grain and trying to make out of focus parts of the shot back in focus etc.It's hideous and makes the already-altered BD versions yet even worse. As for Indiana Jones, the DVD of Raiders had a lot of recomposited effects but the BD was unaltered asides from the reflection iirc, if you look on capsaholic you can see for the three films how the BD uses this weird awful alteration for effects shots where they digitally enlarge actors to cover the matte lines / use CG to patch up holes etc.
Shame about the Star Wars restoration that may never be seen. You're not wrong that fans seem to do the best work - from my experience studios/labels, even if they do care about original presentation, are often reactive rather than proactive in getting it right and need fans again and again to pitch in. Not usually a 'fans know better' kinda guy but for movie restorations I'm so done with all the bull going on lol.
"What if I like to annoy people by pointing out creepy masks in the background" -- wise words, wise words my friend.
Yeah. The only thing worse is if they'd replace the take of Viggo breaking his toe or nearly getting hit by a dagger.
The silly thing about the upscaling of the Fan Club credits is that they could have easily have had a computer read it and re-write it these days.
They didn't ever bother. Such a cheap remaster really. I hope we get the re scans one day. And some new deleted scenes separate from the extended edition
@@morcjul how do you take a billion dollar franchise and not spend literally a few million on just rescanning the OG? Absolutely bewildering
@@shaunwilliams3387 It's not the rescanning that's really expensive, is that if you can rescan it the CGI is not on the films. Which means they would have to redo all of the CGI work for 4k.
@@vegeta1885 I'm not sure why he said negatives but I think he meant rescan the original film masters. Remember it wasn't distributed digitally, it was reels of film. Obviously those include the effects.
@@jonevansauthor Extended editions though
From the bottom of my heart....thank you for making this video. I always thought there was something off about the 4k release. I am not trained in editing or colour grading so I would have never been able to figure it out. Sincerely, out of all the many LOTR TH-cam vids, yours has been most helpful for my soul. Lol thanks
I remember preordering the 4K release, but because I had some bad experiences with other movies like Terminator 2 or Predator (the normal bluray) which were suffering from washed out DNR, i looked at some reviews and articles for LOTR. Ended up selling the 4k set without even opening it 😢 it would have been great to have a nice remaster, but alas
Thank you, I knew I wasn't crazy about my DVD looking radically different from my HD and 4K editions. Thank you.
Nice Touch at the end!
You upscaled your "DVD" credits!
😂
The color grading for flashbacks is truly unforgiveable. Genuinely on par with George Lucas or James Cameron revisionism.
Yep
Definitely
Not even close.
When Lucasfilm edited the Original Trilogy, they scanned the original negatives and it ended in the beautiful 4k editions we have today. Lucas didn't make the newer cuts for profit like Warner Bros. did with Lord of the Rings. He made them so he could revise his art, and make changes to things so that it was consistent with his vision. All the way back in the 70s, he complained about things he wanted to do but wasn't able to do, which he later did with the special editions.
@@DrWalterBennett That's partly true, but there are some things he has changed multiple times, like the noise Obi-wan makes to scare off the jawas. I believe there are 3 different versions of the sound, and current one was totally possible to make in '77. So his vision of what star wars should be keeps changing, and at least some of the ideas came to him much later
jesse shows up like a godsend dropping the best content on youtube but just whenever he feels like it lmao.
Wait - people are allowed to wait to upload on TH-cam until they have something worth saying? This could be revolutionary!
@@nathangallion7337
They are, but sadly the demands of the algorithm and making a career out of running a channel demand a constant flow of content, often and regular.
I'm really bummed they didn't do a full rescan... hopefully one day. I would love that higher resolution, but maintained film grain. would truly be perfect.
A full rescan I think would mean redo every CGI shot from scratch. Might as well reshot the entire movie. Or you mean a rescan of the cinema film reels?
@@fostena If they still have the original scene files they would re render a lot quicker on modern computers
@@MrMonkeybat you expect that a project file for a 2001 CGI editor would be compatible with modern systems? 😆 Anyway, they probably haven't kept the assets, why would they?
@@fostenaWon't be long until we can feed the movie to an AI and tell it to, not rescan or upscale but basically recreate the entire movie. In better quality, with better audio and blooper fixes like Eomer's sword falling out
@@fostena When they rereleased Toy Story they ran the old software at a higher resolution. Rendered on a single workstation faster than the runtime.
I always fucking KNEW the green tint in the Blu-ray set was bullshit. It did NOT look like that in theaters.
And yes, it CAN be remastered. It just WON'T for the reasons you mentioned. Nobody wants to pay $10M (I guess) to do it all from scratch.
Yes it would be expensive as fuck. And might even run into severe technical issues, let's say their old color grade and vfx software doesn't support such high resolution edits and crashes
@@morcjul Never mind the fact that the series is worth 20X the cost in a full release, no, we'll forgo dollars to save pennies.
Also, if you stick with the negatives and use the original VFX as reference, newer VFX software can probably recreate them at new resolutions.
Right?? This is so vindicating
Honestly the LOTR is such a hugely popular franchise that they could remaster it at the $10M cost and release the remasters box office / cinemas etc and their 10M would be blown out of the water by the money taken in from that.
it would be way more expensive than that
Annoyed me too when the 4K came out with none of the bonus discs and if you wanted those then you needed to get the regular blu-ray edition, which i already own from the previous remaster.
That’s the most ridiculous laziness I’ve ever seen and it drives me up a wall. Are they gonna do another release later with the features to milk the cash?
And the bluray editions only have the bonus features on DVDs 😂
The 4k's biggest fault isnt the bonus discs but the obvious A.I upscale, horribly done. They didnt rescan from film, they upscaled from 1080. They erased the film grain that is why the CGI looks more smooth and dated because the grain made it more seem like it's part of the world.
Hate this so much. I have multiple versions of Highlander 2 because they not only kept reimagining the movie but there are documentaries and commentaries unique to each disc. It's ridiculous.
@@vegeta1885 dunno what you're on about because the 4K's look incredible
Grain does add value in the "Silent Hill Fog" sense. Its immersive when your mind naturally fills in the gaps. Its a weird kind of stylisation.
Yes. Old Black & White Crime stories look more scary than modern HD Television films
It's even more than that, since each frame has a different grain, that frame "sees" the image slightly differently from the one before or after it. Meaning even with little movement, a slightly different detail may be revealed. Your eyes have persistence of vision, and those details from different frames blend together, it's not dissimilar to how your eyes actually make automatic micro-movements to better distinguish objects that are still. Grain adds detail and life, by reducing the grain you reduce that too.
It adds a certain texture too, especially with LOTR being effectively stuck at 2k forever due to the nature of its production it helps make it feel more detailed. Reminds me of how some games actually use grain to literally fill in colour gaps/fades and reduce colour bleed/banding, Resident Evil games of late have done that in particular I believe.
@@doltBmB over 30 years ago I think it was, the film with Connery and Snipes where the hot secretary tells them about manipulating video footage and how it's important to "keep the grains alive" in an otherwise still image, or the eye won't be fooled.
That was then
Finally watched the 4k remastered versions of Lord of the Rings. Definitely a mixed bag. They took full advantage of the HDR for the colors to pop (shots of fire, lava, the green at Minas Morgul) but at times it seemed to artificially colorful, compared to what I remembered. The high saturation also caused some unintended colors to show up such as Theoden's blonde beard turning green. A few other shots that stood out like sore thumbs: an extended edition shot of the corsair ships in the bay (the colors were cartoonishly oversaturated) and some extreme DNR on Theoden's face after the warg fight in the Two Towers. Even my partner noticed the waxy face then and he usually isn't looking out for that kind of thing. And yes, the flashbacks with the desaturation and iMovie-level vignette effect are probably the worst offenders. At the end of the day, though, the cosmetic changes may be distracting but they can't ruin the storytelling of these amazing films.
The DNR in the warg fight scene has always been there, it's always had this ugly smeary temporal DNR baked into it, it's just now they added even more DNR to stupidly try and remove the artifacts of that baked in DNR, instead of just leaving it alone.
Theodens beard did originally have a green tinge.
Sounds like your TV needs some calibration
@@Kjeleman I'm sure loads of people just leave their TV on "Vivid" or similar (and motion smoothing). Not accusing the OP of this but laziness/indifference in the general public is likely the reason errors in movie grading/detail subtleties are so easily overlooked.
Masterful work, my good sir. The upscaled credits at the end were the cherry on top
I love that I had to go through this since 97 with Star Wars and now, a new generation of fan of another franchise will do too!
Nah lmfao not even fucking close.
@@Sockimus Ok I mean, George was a SPECIAL case.
Peter is not THAT far gone.
Yet!
@@MarcAndreBelleau the fact that they even seriously contemplated putting Martin Freeman in the prologue gives me anxiety for future releases.
@@MoldyMojoMonkey I wish they edited Martin Freeman out of the Hobbit.
@@MoldyMojoMonkey The fact that they ALREADY changed a little person into Frodo is ALREADY not reassuring.
That's the slippery slope and it'll only get more Lucas from there.
Nice to see you back, Jesse. Your videos are some of my favorites.
*I did not expect this high quality analysis of my favorite films ever. You did an outstanding work here, loved it!
This was one of the best analysis videos I've ever seen. Well done.
Aragorn’s bow tapping the screen is so thing I’m strangely attached to. Seeing the “corrected” shot literally filled me with rage.
Never go "Full Lucas" on your legacy projects.
Wait, where does Aragorn's bow tap the screen?? I've never noticed this. I still have the original theatrical on DVD from way back and the original extended box. I'm sure it is visible on there and I could go look at it.
@@DisturbedFlyer7 it's what is removed by the camera correction mentioned (and shown) at 13:43
Interesting you say "tapping the screen" rather than "tapping the camera" because to the viewers, the screen is our eyes into that world, it's like the bow is tapping us. What Peter Jackson saw as being less realistic could be perceived by viewers as more realistic.
You need to chill if that's what gets you raged up
This is perfect, and verbalizes my feelings about the various releases better than I ever could have. Thanks for making it.
Amazing video, Jesse Tribble, thank you for making it!
Wow what a video! I don't think I can state enough the level of detail and presentation this video contains. I subscribed on the quality of this one video alone! The writing, the voice narration, the video editing and color grading transitions/wipes to showcase your point, and the curated selection of key moments in the film, both for evidence and for humor. I especially liked the ending. You are very talented, please keep up the work!
I remember the main aesthetic disappointment I noted when I saw the Hobbit part 1 in a theater was the uncanny visual crispness and colorful saturation.
Since I thought of The Hobbit as an older fairytale backstory in relation to the more mature trilogy set a generation later, I imagined a MORE soft, vintage feel.
But the 48 fps 3D movies arrived with none of the hazy blooming atmosphere that textured the LOTR films.
And now I'm realizing the lack of film grain, in addition to the high frame rate and impossible CGI camera moves associated with video gaming, made it all feel like the most finely polished digital turd.
Not a bit of nostalgia was conjured.
Absolutely
What’s weird is, from what I’ve seen, they’ve ALSO DNR’d the hell out of the Hobbit even though it was shot in 5K… because the film and the VFX were finished in 2K, they upscaled that as well, and because those films are EXTREMELY VFX heavy, the CG looks far worse than it used to and the in camera stuff also looks waxy as well. It’s horrendous-and I say this as someone who likes the Hobbit a lot. They even brightened up the Smaug sequence in the second movie for “continuity” and it baffles me-not only are the images DNR’d to hell but they’re brightened up so we can see the imperfections clearly. Like, HUH??? I’m good with the original 1080p Blu-Rays for all six movies, thanks.
My guess is it's something inherent about their upscaling process that causes smearing/DNR. I strongly suspect what they did to LOTR/Hobbit was an earlier revision of what they would go on to do to True Lies and Aliens on 4k, which were some proprietary AI-fuelled upscaling system Park Road does that Cameron had hired them out to do. Same process was used on Beatles Get Back as well I believe.
This was the best and most well made video ive seen for weeks. Very good job! Thank you!
Thank you, videos like yours are literally saving my dwindling hope for TH-cam.
Now this is high effort content, great work
beautiful ending. reminds me of the story of the Warner Bros producers having truck loads of silent era film reels thrown off the Santa Monica pier to make room in their archives for the talkies. Film remains an ephemeral, fading art form we can’t seem to capture in its place. Even if a film is saved from a toss off a pier, every format we have degrades and decays in time. In many ways, it’s our most living, human expression. It’s our mirror, even in its mortality.
The original formats that LOTR were released on have not degraded and decayed... it's just that newer higher resolution formats have come along so the original LOTR "prints" do not look as sharp and hi-res by comparison. The point of this video is that leaving movies as they were might be better than tinkering with them to re-issue them in higher res versions as a money making exercise.
@@plica06 true enough, i suppose my comment was adjacent to the topic of the video. but if we’re talking about the nature of film preservation for one movie (or three), then we’re talking about all film preservation in a sense. And a lossless, time-proof media storage format does not currently exist. film decays, as do digital files. even on 35, there’s generative loss with each new print. my point was that, ultimately, film does have a limited lifespan sort of no matter what. i think that’s kind of sad, but also beautiful.
@@jackpayne1861 One day, they will rescan the original film, otherwise there's no point in keeping them. Might not be soon however. Maybe we need to wait a couple more decades
Amazing video! I enjoyed it from beginning to the end. I love the way you explained all of this!
Great video - thank you for making it and the sharp eye! ✨
You are back. I have missed you.
I finished the trilogy today for the first time.... U couldn't have timed thid vid vetter, thnx so much 😭
I hoped you loved it, if you did, make sure you watch the extended editions
@@pakuma3this
@@pakuma3 The real theatrical releases are better films than the extended editions - and it's not remotely close.
@@yeahiagree1070 why do you feel that the theatrical is so much better? The extended cuts are perfectly watchable back to back. I've done it twice.
@@visionist7 I've watched the extended films more times that I could count. The proper theatrical editions are significantly better films. Almost all of the new scenes are narratively redundant, many are badly written and all of them negatively effect the incredible pacing and atmosphere built through the proper edited films. Numerous characters and iconic moments are ruined in the extended editions.
The idea that the extended editions are the "real" versions is a hysterical mass-delusion among LOTR fans. It's this idea that has directly led to Peter Jackson feeling entitled to alter the films with each new remaster. Watching them should not a test of endurance.
I've been watching and rewatching your House videos over and over again....and now this? this is christmas.
LMAO, I was just rewatching your videos and was wondering if you would make another video. Glad you're back Jesse.
Hollywood really needs to stop tinting all movies and series. It's a plague for roughly two decades now that got worse and worse. New Alien has the same issue of tinting the picture. It's like movie makers forgot that light is white and that not every part of a frame needs to be single-toned (especially blue-green).
Ironically digital grading was supposed to prevent this from happening. You can individually colour grade elements in a frame rather than doing the whole frame photochemically
@@visionist7 True and I rarely see it done. In Resident Alien I remember a night scene where the red hair of a character is still visibly red. On the other hand, the whole scene was still extremele blue and obviously not shot at night or in darkness.
Brilliant video essay on an important topic I knew little about
Love the video, missed you dude
This is fantastic work. Thank you.
This is genuinely why there are many older films in my collection that I love that I'll PURPOSEFULLY never upgrade. Among these are the six OG crew Star Trek films (all on DVD), the 1995 Ghost in the Shell (on DVD), The Tuskegee Airmen (on DVD), the OG Star Wars trilogy (which I have on VHS before Lucas "perfected" them), and, of course, The Lord of the Rings trilogy (on DVD) among many others. Sometimes, when films are translated to more modern resolutions that the original creatives never accounted for, not only do the films loose something in the presentation during transference with the loss of celluloid's imperfections and visual noise. It looses character. To parrot your essay, "I like film grain".
Then, once again, as you pointed out, shortcomings that otherwise would have gone unnoticed like being able to see an actor's face through the prosthetics in the 90's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or the black filler paper and cardboard on the bridge of the Enterprise in ST: The Next Generation, suddenly take center stage and it sours the experience.
What really bothers me about this however is the fact that with today's level of technological progress, these are all issues that could be scrubbed during the upscale process given the time and the extra funding. These are things that FANS do on their personal computers at HOME and upload to TH-cam all the time (which you touched on with the de-specialized fan edits of SW). But unfortunately, studios are far more interested in their bottom lines than they are about proper film preservation. And because of that, 90% of the 4K and beyond upscale/remasters that we get commercially will always be sub-par when they don't have to be.
What’s the issue with the HD releases of GitS that prevents you from wanting to upgrade?
@@Tom-qo4mz Outside of the fact that I like the visual grit of it and don't want it cleaned up too much, the special edition packaging that I have for the DVD is also much more involved and of better quality than the packaging for most newer releases of the film.
@@samueltheprideofafrikarobi9319 I was gonna say, outside of some minor issues on some (but not all) of the releases being subject to slight variations in contrast/colour/brightness, window boxed presentation, sound (iirc some missing a sound effect of a water melon exploding in the chase scene, and ofc variation between the original ending song and the international version’s ending song) or choice of translation for the subs, afaik there’s no genuinely egregious offences that would warrant holding off on upgrading, so to deny yourself the opportunity to enjoy the best cyberpunk cityscapes ever put to a film with all the detail and colour accuracy that HD brings seems an odd choice to me to say the least. If you’re happy with DVD though, that’s what matters I guess. Re: packaging check out the German A/B sets I’ve been tempted to pick up them for the packaging alone!
You better make incremental copies. Those DVDs don't last forever
Thank you SO much for this video! It drives me up the wall that such great movies are so badly butchered in re-releases, and then nobody notices since that's all the studios let you buy! Not just LotR, tons of famous movies have been messed with in various ways over the years they've been on home video, especially those that are "older" and famous. If you think you're remembering something wrong from a film you love after rewatching it, chances are you aren't!
And to anyone reading this comment, remember: there's nothing ethically wrong with watching a movie through less legitimate means if you can't watch the original legitimately. Don't let corporations rewrite art!
Great video sir. Hope you upload more of them :D
Dude, that was a fantastic video. Thank you.
I agree with everything you have said 1000%! Maybe someday we will get that remaster and some additional bonus footage.
Jackson has explicitly said that he wanted the Green tint for the theatrical releases but was advised not to. He was so happy to finally be able to do it for the re-releases.
Wtf, this can’t be true. That’s so stupid
Well Jackson did have some questionable ideas. Viggo for example felt that as the movies progressed there was too much use of cgi.
This is a technically excellent video! Please make more videos like this about troubled home video histories!
lol the warped credits at the end was the icing on the cake. Great video essay!
Dunno if this'll be seen but I want to say as someone who noticed literally all of this when the 4ks first came out and got shouted down and insulted for daring disrupt the hype train... I appreciate this video so much. Like, on a deep level it makes me happy that someone is putting this out here and people are actually listening/caring and the previously-unassailable rep of these remasters is maybe finally changing. You're a real one.
This video is an Eye Opener, make no mistake! I came into it already knowing about the green tint, messy DNR and artificial look of the VFX. But while I assumed it to be technical bugs, you make clear that remastering itself is a dilemma between going with time, and losing the original spirit. I am so proud to still own my normal 2K Blu Rays. Because to me, it's currently the best balance between going with time, and being authentic.
Another great video! My partner hasn't seen the films before so glad I now know which to show them
Holy Crabs I did not notice these details - gotta love the niche programming in TH-cam- great work here
That was good man, I liked it
I noticed the smoothing in theaters when I watched the 4k rerelease of fellowship, the backgrounds out of focus were extremely blurry and were off putting. The smoothing took a lot of deltal out of the backgrounds
Yes, all 3 films at the cinema on a large screen really show up the effect of the DNR, they looked bad.
Never saw your channel before. You put a lot of work in your content! keep it up! it was very interesting 😄
Amazing video. Thanks for opening my eyes.
Okay I don't romanticize the original versions as much but I'm really just a layman here.... but that horrible text making an appearance for your own credits is brilliant. Great video!
Maybe somewhere down the line we'll get a new anniversary release that isn't just an upscale or compromised by studio greed, but faithfully scans the original film negatives and preserves film grain and the soft, fairy-tale look. Hard to say how the CGI will look, but I doubt it would be worse than trying to "modernize" the look of the films. And BOY do those desaturated flashbacks suck.
(Also, I believe the only new release material for The Hobbit films should be the M4 Cuts on 4K or the trimmed Chris Hartwell fan edits that remove so much of the crap we all hate.)
Edit: But, dude, did you really have to end it on such a bitter note?? You're still alive and talking about the subject, with your audience engaging with it and some with their own nostalgic experiences. That's better than the potential net zero of people who still don't learn about these sorts of things.
not entirely possible especially in this world full of hate and greed
@@YuutaShinjou113 That's all the more reason not to give in those evil things and to be a bulwark against them in one's own way.
Really great video mate!
This is a great video and makes me sad. Thanks for this, sir 😢
BRO WHERE WERE YOU?! your videos are some of the best on youtube please dont leave us hanging like that man
Thisss
he's back!!
Brilliant! You have my like, and my subscription!
Your videos are very good bro, keep posting if you can. Loved your Dr House vids
Still love them btw
Just in time for the 4K release of the trilogy in US theaters next month!
I never knew about the extent of the changes they made in the 4K version especially swapping the stunt double with a CGI’d Elijah Wood!
But the biggest offender for me really are the flashbacks. Arwen’s flashforward scene in TTT is far more better in its original bluish gloom color grading in the original than the black and white version in 4K.
Sadly, the next time we will get a remaster is probably on the anticipated 25th anniversary release or maybe when 8K content is the norm.
Speaking of the release of the 4k in theaters, it is a mix bag. sound is better. some of the images are better, but some of the digital changes are worse...
Would you still pay the 50 dollars to see all 3 films in theater though?
I honestly don't remember the theater version back in the 2000s.
yea thank you for documenting this, this is tragic, i started crying at 11:00
This is so pedantic, and nerdy, and I LOVE IT. Reading the description of ranked versions, even saying you combined the audio from one with the video from the other. Incredible haha. Sounds like something I'd do. I spent about 10 hours editing Hadestown's album audio with bootleg recorded video (audio quality is obviously king in musicals), subtly changing video speeds to lipsync the entire thing (I believe they didn't sing to a click track live, tempos vary enormously between versions) so I'd have my own personal perfect version to show to friends.
Kudos to your effort in comparing these! I'll happily lend your work for next week, as I'm introducing fresh soon-to-be-fans to the movies!
I only recently(~18 months ago) saw all the extended editions for the first time. I had just always had the theatrical dvds so 🤷🏻♂️ but, I could tell something was off immediately. I really felt this video, thank you for it
I see jesse I click
Aside from the DNR the only thing I found super annoying was what they did to the flashbacks. On the whole I prefer watching the 4K versions whenever I want to watch the trilogy, but they were so close to making them almost perfect but they fumbled it over the dumbest things.
Yooooo!! You are back!!!
Such a great video, putting into words my feelings with the remasters.
I haven't upgraded since my DVD set. I don't think I'm missing much especially given these touchups that are now standard.
I have a HD and rarely see anything in HD. YT, streaming sites says they're HD and it looks good but pop in a BluRay and I see what real HD is.
Remember before definition was even a term? From it's invention all the way up to mid 2000s, tv was just tv. Bigger or smaller were the only options. You watched it and it was what it was, never thought about level of detail.
4K Dremastered version by Dr.Dre is the best version. It's the sharpest version with proper colors. Second best is Extended Edition blu ray because it's sharp, has original grain. Yes, color grading isn't the best but still looks better than 4K. Bluray has that magic fantasy look. And the most important thing about blu ray : It has all the that brilliant bonus behind the scene dvd discs and many audio tracks with cast and crew commentary. 4K is missing all of that. If some of you still own that extended edition bluray : Keep it secret, keep it safe.
Can you DM it please, I'm struggling to get it even dm'ed DR Dre but no response yet.
Edit: Never mind was able to get the first film it's beyond amazing!
@@sheri1983 Dr. is busy working hard on Extended Editions
Yes the Blu ray with all the extras is amazing. I'm keeping my box safe 🫡
@@stevemuzak8526 I got it, great transfer hope we get the Extended soon!
@@sheri1983 oh? i found the thread with the google. but don't see how to get your hands on that.
You're presentation is phenomenal!!!!!!
Fantastic piece of work.
I have the extended version and I can say that even though it is in 1080p the image retains more details than the UHD version which removed all the small details from the image.
This comment is pure cope.
@@Etherchannel It isn't. You can watch a side by side comparison and the 2k looks more organic than the 4k DNR at least in Land scape shots
Contraversially, I actually like the grade on the EE of Fellowship. It's a shame about the crushed shadows and the dim highlights, but more often than not, I really like the colours. Plus, it's still the best version of that film overall - the Theatrical blu ray and the 4k blu ray have DNR, but the EE blu ray is clean and full of lovely grain.
This! I'm so used to my green tint EE BD, it has become the norm. I take it over the current 4K DNR any day. I have the latest Lightroom but never Ai Noise reduce my photographs
I have yet to see the version with the green tint, but with what I've seen, my main issue derives from every shot being tinted the exact same way. It's not like some scenes are more tinted than others.
Fantastic Video. I just felt something was different but I couldn't tell because I never watched the Theatrical HD and the DVD is just so long ago.
I've just been to a marathon of the extended editions and the beginning of your video explained to me why something I've always thought was white was suddenly green, so thank you, my memory is not so bad after all :D
I want a remake of the entire 6 movies starting from The Hobbit. I don't like Ian McKellen being old in the hobbit films.
As someone who has watched the Extended Editions pretty much every year since they released, I have just gone and found REMUX versions of the original HD theatricals... alongside NVIDIA RTX VSR upscaling and RTX HDR + watching on an OLED... I think I just had a bloody religious experience. Can't wait to watch TTT and ROTK!
Who the fuck doesn't watch all movies together?
The 1080p remastered blu rays have less DNR than the 4k HDR version.
You are correct.
this kind of youtube video can literally have an impact on the future releases the culture as a whole. Great work
Hey there! Literally like 4 mins into this video writing this comment but the struggle to define what the ‘artistic intent’ is or was very real. Everyone has different perspectives and preferences for what preserving the intent of the original piece of art means depending on what their experience with it was. This is such a cool video and I’m doing a thesis project right now that tries to tackle the challenges of preservation of artistic intent in remastering from SDR content to HDR and visa versa. Very challenging stuff and a very cool vid!!!
It’s a pet peeve of mine to call them “camera negatives.” They are scanning completed positives. Prints of the completed and edited film. The negative has to be processed before it can even have light shone on it. Silliness.
Why is that silly? The negative is still called the negative after you've processed it, and you don't have to print a positive to scan it, you can scan the negative and flip the colors digitally. Lord of the Rings was for the most part digitally color-graded, which means they processed the negatives scanned them to be color-graded, and then printed them back out to film for distribution. Only the theatrical version of Fellowship was a partial DI. I suspect there was still a cost issue involved or time needed to scan the negatives but they still scan the negatives. It's probably why the Extended edition looks different than the theatrical version because they went back and graded the rest of the movie when they made the extended edition. I've looked at a print of the Extended edition and it's basically the same as the grade you see on the Blu-ray.
How do you find a fan version? What do you google for?
Amazing work
THIS IS SUCH AN AWESOEM VIDEO, I was thinking the same thing about the Colors.... I hope more people see this and also Peter Jackson,,, seriously
Holy crap, why has no one else pointed any of this out? Everyone online is drinking the Kool-Aid that it's a 4k rescan of the films.
Luckily I actually prefer the theatrical cuts, so I guess I'll stick with the 1080p theatrical BluRays
Theatrical cut blu-rays are sadly a bit iffy with grain and detail but they're the only HD releases where for all three films the colour is 100 percent as originally intended. Can't go wrong with them.
Maybe one day the criterion will get to make a Lord of the Rings remaster, without PJ's involvement... They usually prioritize loyalty to the original in their remasters.
Sadly for as much as they talk of it, I find the experience is the opposite and they defer to the filmmaker even when they're revisionist. Most infamously they heavily cropped The Last Emperor's DVD and blu-ray because the cinematographer developed this weird religious-fuelled obsession with a particular aspect ratio and wants to crop all his old movies to it. They even went out of their way to defend the decision and lie about it being the original aspect ratio - or at least parroted the lies. If Criterion ever did LOTR they'd probably care more about the director approved label than getting it right I'm afraid.
Tanks for posting this . I always thought it was me.
This is superb. Thank you.