I am a huge fan of Peter Jackson’s epic take on JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. The battles, big and small; the heroism and sacrifice in the face of evil are all things that resonate. As immense as the trilogy can seem, its strength is in the telling of the personal tales of love, loss, grief and nobility. And the measure of Jackson’s
achievement is in portraying the grand and the intimate with equal and deft skill.
I have three versions of the trilogy DVDs in my collection: the original standard definition, the extended version, and the Blu-ray. I’ve probably watched them enough that there are visible scratches on all discs, and if pushed, I’d probably be a likely candidate to purchase a newly released “very special edition.” If only.
If only someone decided to adapt Lord of the Rings to Blu-ray 3Da (and if only I had a 3D TV). A tall order, I know, but if done right, I believe it would bring an entirely new dimension (as it were) to experiencing the movie trilogy.
I had the privilege of seeing each of the movies: Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and Return of the King at our local IMAX. At the time I imagined that the experience was as close to 3D as we were going to get. There is a depth of field that brings you into the craggy mountain caverns and high above the cliffs (the movies were filmed among the otherworldly landscapes of New Zealand). You could practically reach out and touch the giant Eagles sent by Gandalf to rescue Frodo and Sam Gamgee in Return, so real they seem on the giant ultra high-definition IMAX rendering.
A 3D version would one-up even this experience, and although it would play on a television and not on the enormous screen of the IMAX theater, the special high tech glasses used with new 3D TVs like Sony’s Bravia, effectively cause the image to fill your field of vision. (Actually they do this by blocking the periphery, really immersing you in the action.)
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