the hobbit trilogy folks we are going back to middle earth in 4k ultra hd um chances are if
you're watching this video you have an opinion on the hobbit trilogy whether you love it or hate it
i'm not here to tell you whether you should love it or hate it or somewhere in between
i'll give you my two cents on it during my final recommendation later in this video
but for right now we're just going to focus on this 4k set and whether
it's a worthy successor to the 1080p version that we got on the blu-rays
i don't have as much hobbit stuff where are you first we'll start off with what's included
again we have a slip case with some really nice artwork that pairs perfectly with the lord of the
rings set that i covered in my last video inside you'll find six discs now note that's different
than the lord of the rings trilogy where we had nine discs in the hobbit we get three theatrical
discs as well as three extended discs so the extended editions are not broken up over two discs
like they were on lord of the rings now i didn't mention this in my lord of the rings review but
there are no special features whatsoever in these sets um there's no appendices i've had
some people ask me about that no appendices no bonus features of any kind it's just the movies
in 4k and i should note that the appendices if you notice going back to your blu-ray sets those
are dvds as well so i think those have been maxed out in terms of their quality on the dvd format
so personally i'm not too broken up about the fact that there's no appendices or the same bonus
features that we've gotten in previous sets with these now since we are talking about the hobbit
trilogy it's worth noting that these do not come with the 3d versions or in 48 frames per second
as they were shown in theaters if you recall and just like with the lord of the rings set
you get digital copies now that includes both the theatrical and the extended editions in 4k
now let's talk about the video quality right out of the gate in an unexpected journey i noticed
that the shots in bagan definitely looked different they looked uh more sharp more
clear and you know part of that is these films were made ten years apart from lord of the rings
and part of that is the technology was totally different that they were using as i said in my
lord of the rings review those films were shot on film the hobbit films however were shot in 5k
and on digital so the image looks different there's not as much grain the image is crisper
a little sharper and it just has a more digital look to it but that difference has existed as long
as these movies have so that isn't really news i also mentioned in my last review i talked a lot
about the lord of the rings restoration process from the original film negatives the hobbit was
restored by going back to its original raw footage since these were digital but both sets this is the
best quality that you've ever seen these movies in now these movies as it's well documented have much
more cg going on than in the lord of the rings films and i've seen these movies quite a bit so i
was kind of curious how the cg would look in this particular 4k version honestly i was pleasantly
surprised i feel like it meshed better with the live-action people and props and things like that
and while it's not as seamless as some of the practical effects that we get in lord of the rings
i personally didn't think that it stuck out as much as i previously remembered it a couple
specific examples that i had were when the eagles and bayern arrive at the battle of the five armies
the cg looked really good i thought the attack by the eagles looked great and bayorn attacking the
orcs looked great um also bomber's crazy barrel acrobatics whatever you call it um it's still
insane don't get me wrong but it doesn't look quite as cartoony as i remembered it looking now
there's two very specific moments in these movies that i really wanted to see remastered in 4k
and to see what the cg looked like in this new version these two shots just always screamed
video game cut scene to me the first comes in desolation of smaug and there's an overhead
shot of smog thrashing around and it always just looked like such a video game shot to me
the second moment is in battle of the five armies when thranduil is riding his elk and
he decapitates like half a dozen orcs and his elk gets shot by arrows and collapses and thranduil
does this role and this shot specifically when thranduil is rolling it just seemed like it came
from a video game or something that being said as you can imagine i was very attuned to these
particular shots when i was watching these films and i can honestly say i was really pleased with
the thranduil shot in particular i had to rewind it a couple times just to make sure that i wasn't
being biased because i was in awe of the 4k and the hdr and everything i was so pleasantly
surprised by this that i actually pulled out my blu-ray version to double check myself to
make sure i wasn't miss remembering it and i can honestly say it looks much better in 4k it flows
it fits with the rest of the cg in that scene um it it looked fantastic i i don't know what they
did differently but it looked great the smog shot however i thought still looked a little bit off
um but possibly not to the same degree that it was before because these movies are so much
more recent i wasn't sure right off the bat whether this was a huge leap forward
and it wasn't until i got out the blu-rays that especially the hdr and the color treatment
really really stuck out to me the colors are more rich the flames when smog is attacking
lake town are just fantastic there's just so much more detail in the shots just like
with lord of the rings there was things that i had never noticed before that i picked up on
in this 4k version there's patterns on clothes and textures on armor and helmets and stuff like that
i remember admiring the rust on the jail cell bars when bart is imprisoned for example the landscape
shots look fantastic i remember in dale and in lake town specifically looking at these shots
admiring them and trying to see how much fine detail i could make out in these big landscape
shots i remember the scene in the high fells during the desolation of smog extended edition
there was just a lot more detail in the blacks that i can make out whereas uh before on my old
copies um they just kind of looked really dark i didn't didn't see much detail there where as with
this new color with the hdr it just really stands out that there's a lot more texture a lot more to
be seen there like i said i saw things that i had never really noticed before like for example when
arrows are hitting the dwarves barrels as they're riding down the river and speaking of the barrel
ride one of the things that's not so great is that there's still those couple shots that look
like they could be gopro footage i've never really figured out what's going on with those but they
look like gopro footage to me um and again the the difference between this and the rest of the
shots it might be toned down in this cut somewhat but you can definitely still tell on those couple
shots that something's different about them for me one of the biggest wow moments aside from smog
burning lake town and some of the more obvious things like that is the moment when uh smaug is
covered with gold and uh flees from the mountain it's just a few shots but the way he moves and
the way the hdr treats him in his golden form just looked absolutely gorgeous to me next we'll talk a
bit about the audio honestly i think i noticed the soundtrack a little less in these films
and part of that is because the themes aren't as recognizable or iconic to me personally
aside from the misty mountains theme or the mirkwood theme or the laketown theme i really
like the laketown theme actually those would be the few exceptions where i really noticed the
soundtrack coming through as i've chatted with folks in the comments of my lord of the rings 4k
review i've mentioned that i'm probably going to upgrade to a sound system sometime soon
and honestly i think the hobbit trilogy did more to convince me of that even than the lord
of the rings trilogy did right off the bat an unexpected journey uh the dwarves singing
their misty mountain song it's just so good i can't wait to hear that in surround sound and
likewise for when smaug is taunting bilbo and that whole scene with smaug and bilbo um i just think
smoke's voice is perfect for a surround sound system um it sounded great on my soundbar but
i'm definitely gonna be upgrading to a sound system after hearing these
so with that we'll talk a bit about the films and my final recommendation like i said earlier i'm
not seeking to change anyone's mind on how they feel about the hobbit films personally i still
really enjoy them and i love that they give me a chance to escape back into middle earth
don't get me wrong you know if you've watched any of my videos for any amount of time
you'll picked up on there's certain moments that i do kind of roll my eyes at but that being said
i feel like there's a lot to love here um the casting is great you know thorin bilbo uh balin
and smaug in particular they're all fantastic in these movies howard shore's music is always great
you know scenes like riddles in the dark with golem and bilbo and inside information with
smaug and bilbo and pretty much any part of these movies where bilbo's heart is on full display
they just make me love these movies for what they are and while these movies certainly warrant
some criticism i also don't think that they always get the credit that they deserve either
like i said you've probably already made up your mind on how you feel about these hobbit movies and
i'm sure the comments currently reflect that even if people haven't made it this far into the video
again with this set like lord of the rings there's the question of whether you should get this now
or wait for the ultimate collector's edition that will have all six films in summer of 2021 i think
for most people this decision is going to come down to what you decide to do with lord of the
rings so if i decided to spring for lord of the rings then most likely i'm also gonna pick up the
hobbit as well i like these movies enough that i would want to have the full set i might not watch
them as often as i do lord of the rings spoiler alert i don't watch anything as much as i do lord
of the rings but like i said i still love them in their own way and i'm still going to put them on
from time to time there's still a lot of middle earth greatness there to enjoy but if you enjoy
these movies like i do i can tell you that this is certainly the best way that you're going to be
able to watch them the bottom line when it comes to this set these are reference quality video and
audio these are the kind of movies that you put on just to show off to your friends with the 4k the
hdr and the better sound quality it's definitely a worthy upgrade over blu-ray once again i want to
say a big thank you to warner brothers they sent me both trilogies so that i could watch them and
review them and share my thoughts with you guys if you're interested in purchasing either of these i
did put links in the description if you purchase through those links that does help out the channel
as well so let me know what you guys think of the lord of the rings and the hobbit in 4k
um hit me up on twitter or hear in the comments i really want to know what you guys think i'm
genuinely interested to hear other people's opinions on this again please hit that subscribe
button so you get a dose of middle earth each and every week i'm gonna get back to work on my next
tolkien explain video that comes out on saturday or maybe i'll watch fellowship in 4k one more time
first either way thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next time on nerd of the rings