Inspired by the guy who recently released “The Tolkien Edition” cut of The Hobbit I have decided to embark on a project to create a high quality, purist version of a new cut of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy called “The Purist Edition.”

I will do this with the bluray editions of all the Lord of the Rings films in order to get the highest available audio and video quality (1080p). I’d like subtitles to be available on the final version as well, however I’m not quite sure what this entails at this time.

In order to distribute this work while keeping it legal, I will not be releasing a rendered version of the video, but I will be releasing the project’s sources on GitHub. My desire is for you, the end-user, to be able to use your bluray copies of the movies to generate The Purist Edition cut of the trilogy. You will be able to track my progress in this endeavor by visiting the project’s GitHub page and by checking my blog.

Oh, did I mention that I’ll be attempting to do all of this using my favorite version of Linux: Gentoo. I believe there will plenty of things for me to learn, and probably a steep learning curve, so it might take me a while to get started. Right now I’m not sure what video editor to use!

If you have something constructive to say, I’d love to hear your thoughts. As always, you can contact me via e-mail (see the bottom left of this page).

If you have a special request for LOTR: The Purist Edition, please create an issue on the project page. I should see it and to respond to your request.

Maffblaster