The Lord Of The Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy On Blu-Ray Reviewed

Warner Home Video / Region 1 / Released April 6, 2010

Surely this is the collection that Blu-Ray aficianados have been waiting for. A truly awe inspiring nine disc set that features all three theatrical versions in gorgeous 1080p and 6.1 Master Audio as well as six plus hours of bonus features and extras and last but not least separate disc digital copies of all three films.

When the first Lord of the Rings movie The Fellowship of the Ring hit cinema screens in 2001 nobody had seen anything like it before, truly special special effects, bone crunchingly realistic fight scenes and a totally involving tale based on one of the most loved stories of all time. Featuring an all star cast that includes Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Liv Tyler, Sean Astin, Sean Bean, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, John Rhys Davies and Elijah Wood and directed by Peter Jackson the trilogy (based of course on the novels by J.R.R. Tolkien) is the ultimate story of the battle between good and evil, told on a truly epic scale.

In The Fellowship of the Ring young hobbit Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) is placed in charge of a ring, a ring of dark and mysterious power and one that is coveted by the dark Lord Sauron whom seeks to have the entire Middle Earth under his dominion. The wizard Gandalf (the legendary Sir Ian McKellan) tells Frodo that the ring must be destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom and only he has the ability to do it. He is helped in his epic journey by three fellow hobbits, the man Aragorn (Mortensen), the Elf Legolas and the Dwarf Gimli (John Rhys Davies) and of course Gandolf.

The second film The Two Towers sees the group splitting in an attempt to throw Lord Sauron and his minions off the trail os Frodo, especially the evil wizard Saruman (Christopher Lee at his finest) whilst in the third and final film The Return of the King Frodo is forced to face his darkest moment alone as the rest of the group and their growing legions of followers join to do mammoth battle against the massed dark forces of Sauron.

Put together, the three films are very magnificent, storytelling at its very best. Possibly the greatest spectacle movies of this generation. Add to this the fact that these sets look as good as they did on the cinema screen and the huge amount of extras that are featured and you have one of the releases of the year.

There are a huge amount of extras in fact from extensive documentaries on all aspects of the making of the movies, TV specials from Fox, the WB and the Sci-FI, a look at the music, costumes, battles, languages of middle Earth, a behind the scenes movie made by star Sean Astin called The Long and the Short of It, a look at director Peter Jackson’s own personal vision of bringing the movies to the screen and trailers for the upcoming big budget Aragorn’s Quest console game.

In a nutshell the extras feature everything you could possibly ever need to know about the world of Middle Earth and the making of the Trilogy.

As well as making its Blu-Ray debut the trilogy is also available On Demand and for Download.