The rumored, completely ludicrous, all-encompassing, $800 “Middle Earth Limited Collector’s Edition” is here — and none other than Meriadoc Brandybuck himself is here to present it.
Last week, Amazon spilled the beans about a new, very expensive Blu-ray and DVD collection of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies that packaged the extended versions of all six films into one massive set. Darkness crept back into the forests of the world. Rumor grew of a shadow in the east, whispers of a nameless fear — an $800 temptation from Warner Brothers, in the form of a massive box set. Last week, the dark lords at WB confirmed the rumors.
In the new video, Dominic Monaghan — who played Merry — in the films, shows off the 30-disc set, called the “Middle Earth Limited Collector’s Edition”. Any discerning customer would obviously want to take the car for a spin before you buy, and Tolkien fans willing to shell out nearly $1,000 for a Blu-ray set would definitely be wise to take a peek at the video before making an investment as well.
Feast your eyes on the whole collection below:
That much money gets you both trilogies housed in faux leather books, the crazily thorough behind the scenes special features for each movie, a “Hobbit-style” wooden shelf to put them on, and a replica of the Red Book of Westmarch featuring framable prints by legendary Tolkien concept artists Alan Lee and John Howe.
The whole thing is, in a word, gorgeous. But it’s also a pretty penny, as we pointed out when the Amazon listing first showed up. If you don’t want all of the fanfare and custom wooden shelving, you can get all the content for both trilogies for about $125.
Is a shelf and some fake leather-bound books worth the extra $675? If it’s any consolation, Peter Jackson himself apparently polled fans on social media about what their favorite scenes from the respective saga was, and scenes like the barrel escape in The Desolation of Smaug were added to the limited edition packaging.
The “Middle Earth Limited Collector’s Edition” will be available exclusively on Amazon starting on October 4, but if you’re a big cheapskate, a set of the theatrical editions of all six films will get a release on November 1. That will only set you back $69 for the Blu-rays or $36 for the DVDs. Start saving now.
