One last Richard Armitage scene as Thorin? What would you pay?
Today I read an announcement of a long-awaited box set of LOTR and Hobbit films to become available on Blu-Ray.
We’d have to get a blu-ray player, I guess. Which might not be the worst thing. I never really understand these announcements — are they saying there’d be an additional hour of never-before-seen footage in addition to the full versions of the theatrical and extended edition releases? Of course, spread across six films that wouldn’t be much (and I kind of have to guess that most of it would be related to the LOTR rather than the Hobbit films).
I would really like to see a scene Richard Armitage referred to in an interview, where Thorin and Bilbo talked about his childhood during the sojourn in Rivendell. That sounded really great.
All the places where I saw this announced said they saw an initial price of $800 quoted that was then retracted.
I’d love to see that scene — but it’s maybe not $800 great.
Me + Richard Armitage 
Yeah, …no.
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Reading descriptions elsewhere, I think this edition will not have anything in it that we haven’t seen. So yeah …. no.
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Really shouldn’t be more than $100.
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I thought you were kidding about the price, but then I looked at the link and just about died laughing. Wow.
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Maybe for that price it includes the Arkenstone ? Or Thorin himself ?!?! 😉
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ooops… very nice but 700€ ! (and no Thorin including ^^ )
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right? A friend of mine on my RL FB last night said that for that price she wanted Richard Armitage to deliver it, with a romantic dinner.
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It could be nice. So:
– Richard Armitage
– romantic dinner
– dress + shoes (for the romantic dinner – not for R.A ….or maybe ..?? ^^)
– whatelse?
Finally, with all options, it might worth the price.
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and someone to clean up afterwards 🙂
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In my experience, the recommended prices are quite often ludicrous, and then sellers offer the set at a discount that’s still quite high but sounds better than the recommended price. (I guess that’s an attempt at psychology. Try to make the buyer think they’re getting a great deal and they’re more likely tp spend far too much for such a set.) And with a bit of patience, the price also sinks over time, at least until something is sold out, then it often gets even more expensive when second hand sellers try to make a mint.
That being said: If this is just a set of all the films and extras combined I’d say it’s prettier than the two trilogy box sets I already have, but not worth buying just for the pretty box etc.. But it says: ‘The Hobbit Extended Edition Trilogy features almost one hour of additional footage’, for Lord of the Rings it’s two hours. To me the question is: Are those just the extre scenes that were added to the theatrical versions to create the extended versions? If not, I’d do some pretty intense swearing (I just replaced my Lord of the Rings DVDs with the Blu ray set) because to me a full hour of extra scenes for the Hobbit would be worth buying it, albeit it not at the recommended price.
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This is supposedly limited edition from the outset. Do you think ti’s worth 50% of original price?
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To me personally no, at least not for what they seem to deliver, which seems to be basically the same films and extras + some artwork and a nice box. BUT: If this had deleted scenes, bloopers, maybe the whole Thorin audition that someone mentioned, I’d be tempted and might buy it if I thought this was the only way to get it. And I’d be angry with myself for falling for this. I intensely dislike double-dipping / ripping off buyers / fans repeatedly, and they do that a lot with the two trilogies.
But speaking about limited editions: There are some that are so limited that they sell out quickly, and then the prices rise considerably. Most of the time you find this kind of thing with limited edition books, especially from the SciFi or Fantasy genre where a lot of fans are willing to pay (to me) abnormal sums for a hardcover edition with a few illustrations and maybe a signature. Someone like that might pay 500$ for a book that’s available for 7 $ in a regular edition. On amazon and many other websites, DVD or Blu Ray sets already start out at a lower price than the recommended price and then (usually) keep on falling. I’ve known cases in which ‘limited editions’ were still available years after their original publication at a small percentage of the original price, or were actually reprinted, which is a bit of a joke when you call something ‘limited’. I naturally don’t know what will be the case here. What’s the limitation? Is it the only set world-wide, or wil there be the same sets in the UK, Germany, France etc. with a different region code and language? (It has happened and would raise the limitation number even more.)
I definitely won’t invest in this without knowing whether this really has new scenes, which I doubt. I’ve read in several places that the publishing company doesn’t want to use new material – since it would actually cost them something – and prefer selling the same stuff in different packaging over and over again. And I’ve seen a Peter Jackson interview somewhere where he stated that he dislikes this. If it had been up to him, he would have improved upon the bonus materials for the Blu Ray box sets of Lord of the Rings.
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James the Tolkienist put up a post about this and I would say about 80% of replies were that they wouldn’t buy this. But there were deifnitely people who were up for it.
I don’t know what the number is on this (I have more important things to spend this much money on at the moment), but if you can pre-order, maybe they will make about as many as people want and then kill production? I really don’t know about stuff like this.
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I don’t really know about the kind of limitation where nobody bothers to inform you about the limitation number. If it’s done the traditional way (books and some DVDs / Blu Rays) there’s a clearly stated limitation number and the individual number is usually on the item you buy. The other option is that they call something limited, make an unknown number of items, and basically rely on people buying at high prices instead of waiting for prices to sink with time because after all, it’s limited and might be sold out at any moment. It obviously works, especially with all things Tolkien, since there will always be people who just have to have this no matter the price.
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I saw fuller pricing info today at TORn — still no info on what “limited” means, but you can get just the disks for a tenth of the price or less. DVDs for ca. $35, Blu ray for about $70. So the lion’s share of the price is apparently for the shelf, faux leather books and drawings and illustrations bonuses.
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Oh dear, that looks gorgeous! I’d love to own Bilbo’s red book … as well as the other beautiful stuff. And extra material like the firefly scene would be so great!
I also remember that Peter Jackson once said that he could think about an edition that connects The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings even more, for example by showing Thranduil in the Battle of the Last Alliance. I already find myself sighing at that collection …
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I know some fans are getting tired of it, but at this point I would still be delighted to see more scenes from this world — assuming I could afford them …
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Same! although I wouldn’t buy it only because of Richard, but because I simply love Middle-Earth … Fingers crossed that the 800 $ are just to fill a gap – like Amazon sometimes gives “31 December” as date of release when they haven’t got details yet …
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Me too.
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Reblogged this on Aquilea of the Lonely Mountain.
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According to TORn, amazon confirmed the price at $799.99.
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$800? I’m a fool but not that big of a fool. Although, if Mr. A’s complete audition for Thorin was included I might succumb. I’ve always wanted to see more than those few brief lines.
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OMG. Yes. Yes.
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