Peter Jackson Remastered ‘The Lord Of The Rings’ And ‘The Hobbit’ Trilogies Because They Looked ‘Inconsistent’

The Lord of the Rings (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and Best Picture winner The Return of the King) and The Hobbit trilogies (An Unexpected Journey, The Desolation of Smaug, and The Battle of the Five Armies) both received fancy 4K remasters (out now!) that look incredible. Which is saying something, because the six movies looked incredible as is. But to director Peter Jackson, they were inconsistent.

“It was interesting going back and revisiting these films, because I realized how inconsistent they were, and that’s really due to the way in which The Lord of the Rings trilogy was shot first about 20 years,” he said in a behind-the-feature included on the box sets. The Lord of the Rings was shot on 35mm, the color timing was done in an old-fashioned in a photo mechanical way for the first Lord of the Rings movie, then we switched to digital color timing for the 35mm for the next two.” Jackson and his crew meticulously “tweaked” the colors of all six movies, so that both trilogies looked similar, despite The Hobbit movies being shot 10 years later on “digital cameras at 4k.”

All is know is, Gollum smacking that fish is going to look goooood.

— The Hobbit (@TheHobbitMovie) December 1, 2020