Somebody (ie. Lord of the Rings and New Line) should take a tip from Dreamworks and Shrek. The DVD they put together was excellent. They didn't screw around with the customer and say you want the widescreen or the 4:3 aspect ratio? You can have the two disc, but don't forget to watch the ad. on it for the four disc? Shrek was put together simply. Here are the extras on both discs and the widescreen version on one disc and the 4:3 aspect ratio film on the other disc, 2 discs in total, have a nice day. Thats what you call value. I bought it and can watch widescreen or the 4:3 aspect ratio film AND I don't have to worry about some piddly squat extra feature to be coming soon in the future.

I think we should face facts here. New Line are milking LOTR for all it is, this is probably the marketing strategy for DVD fans like ourselves (I for one refuse to buy into it):

August, 2002: 2 disc version of LOTR

November, 2002: 4 disc version of LOTR

August, 2003: 2 disc version of The Two Towers AND release LOTR and The Two Towers together as a package with no extras

November, 2003: Four disc version of The Two Towers

August, 2004: Two disc version of The Return of the King, the last of the trilogy released the Christmas before AND release LOTR, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King 3 film set with special features at the same time

November, 2004: Release all three movies with special features in a package deal, say 6 disc set

December, 2004: okay for one last milking of the DVD fan, all three movies with extras, and DTS, its Christmas guys, give us your money for one last time. God bless J.R.R. Tolkien

if you like the lord of the rings then i suggest u buy this dvd...it is reference quality stuff..ive bought the 2 disc set and am also going to buy the 4 disc version.. :love: ..plus i dont see any reason why they shouldnt release multiple versions of the film on dvd..there are so many extra features to add..i would have been pissed off if they put the same extras or useless ones but the ones they have shown on the diff versions are different...and quite interesting...

The extras on the 2-disc FOTR are mostly EPK type stuff. They're saving the real goodies for the 4-disc set.

I think New Line is putting out separate releases to compare how sales are for both versions and to be able to include an extras disc. Both versions in one set would have either taken away the extras disc or made it a 3-disc set.

I saw LOTR in the theather and I was'nt too impressed with the movie. In my opinion, it was ok, nothing special. The movie dragged on and on, at times very boring, to be honest. I wouldn't spend a penny on it's DVD. The other day, at Castco everybody had one in thier basket paying $19.98 for it.
Just to make them feel good, that they bought LOTR dvd. I wouldn't waste my time watching that movie on tv again. This is just my opinion, I like movies alot and watch movies all the time, but this movie just not worth it.

By the way, Shrek is one of my favorite movies, and I bought the Special Edition( 2disc) Shrek on Ebay for $12(brand new and sealed) and it's great. I recomend the Shrek (SE) DVD to everybody. But I think alot of people have already bought it anyway.