Androids and hobbits duke it out today with the home video release of 20th Century Fox’s sci-fi thriller I, Robot and New Line Cinema’s extended edition of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The titles arrive on retail shelves just in time to greet holiday shoppers.
Loosely based on the classic sci-fi short story collection by Isaac Asimov, I, Robot has police detective Del Spooner (Will Smith) investigating a murder that may have been committed by one of the many highly evolved automatons designed to serve mankind in the year 2035. The unusual investigation eventually takes a more sinister turn as Spooner uncovers a larger threat to humanity. The film was directed by Alex Proyas, whose previous genre ventures include the cult favorites The Crow and Dark City.
I, Robot’s title character, a robot named Sonny, is completely computer-generated. Just as Weta animated Gollum based on the performance of Andy Serkis for the Lord of the Rings movies, the crew at Digital Domain, which handled most of the Sonny shots, used actor Alan Tudyk as their inspiration. Weta Digital, Rainmaker Digital and Pixel Magic handled the remainder of the film’s 1,000 visual effects shots.
DVD extra features for I, Robot include commentary by Proyas and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, a making-of featurette and a still gallery. The disc lists for $29.98.
The Academy Award-winning The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is back on shelves with nearly an hour of never-before-seen footage, a new musical score and a cameo appearance by director Peter Jackson. The new 250-minute version is available as a four-disc DVD set and as a double-cassette VHS pack.
Included in the 50 minutes of new footage are 300 special effects shots and additional scenes including a final appearance of the evil wizard Saruman (Christopher Lee), Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) being confronted by the Mouth of Sauron, and an emerging romance between Faramir (David Wenham) and Eowyn (Miranda Otto). Extra features will include audio commentaries by Jackson; stars Elijah Wood, Sean Astin and Orlando Bloom; composers Richard Taylor and Howard Shore; vfx guru Randy Cook and others.
The Return of the King extended double-cassette VHS will list at $24.99 and the four-disc DVD boxed set will retail for $39.99.
There is also a limited collector’s DVD edition featuring a fifth disc containing a 52-minute featurette titled Howard Shore: Creating the Lord of the Rings Symphony—A Composers Journey Through Middle-Earth. Packaged with the release is a hand-painted polystone sculpture of Minas Tirith and its accompanying keep-sake box. This puppy will set collectors back $79.92.
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