LotR fans vent their frustrations at double-dipping
Wow! Those Lord of the Rings fans are a scary bunch! Days before the trilogy is released on Blu-ray, fans blast it with over 2,800 1-star reviews on Amazon.com.
Fans are outraged because they feel that the studio is double-dipping them by only releasing the theatrical editions now, leaving space for a future release of the extended editions.
Reviewer C.BURNS puts it into perspective:
Some confusion among other reviewers that somehow we're obligated to post a five star recommendation for the movie. This is an incorrect understanding of the review process. If I were reviewing the movie itself it would get a five. This review is for the product, as listed--in other words, I DO NOT RECOMMEND BUYING THIS PRODUCT/DVD. This product is being created FOR NO OTHER REASON than to dupe people into buying this movie twice...again. Those of us who were huge fans bought the original DVDs of the theatrical releases. THEN the studio FINALLY released the extended editions, even though they could have released both at the same time. Now that Blu Ray has won the High Def battle, the studios are salivating at screwing us all again the same way!
Please do not let them get away with pretending that Blu Ray can't hold both versions on one disc--it certainly can! A simple menu option would let you watch the Extended Edition when you have time, or Theatrical Edition when you don't.
Their other argument, that "Peter Jackson is busy working on The Hobbit and will work on Extended Editions later" is 100% total BS. He's ALREADY DONE THE WORK--just copy what he did for the regular DVDs onto a new Blu Ray master!
BOTTOM-LINE: The studios will make whatever argument they think will fly to convince us they can't put both versions on one disc, because they want to double their income on this movie. Which has ALREADY MADE THEM A BILLION DOLLARS. Don't play along--let friends know not to buy ANY LOTR Blu Ray that doesn't have BOTH versions on one disc.
Please do not let them get away with holding the extended edition hostage until everyone buys the theatrical versions. If you agree with my review, you can do your part to exert influence on the studio by doing the following:
Let's not forget that most fans will probably have bought each movie twice already - the theatrical and extended releases of each of the movies on DVD.
Given the capacity of Blu-ray discs, combined with the fact that the extended editions have already been produced for DVD, this seems like pretty desperate money-grabbing to me.
I have to agree with with the rebelling masses on this one. this is taking the squeeze too far. Who knows, maybe Peter Jackson will do what George Lucas did and add some new Tom Bombadil to the movies at some later stage ...