NFTs exist solely to destroy the planet and occupy the attention of people who believe in the ownership of imaginary nonsense. And yet, Warner Bros. Discovery’s new NFT plan for Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring seems even more ludicrous than normal. The plan is to release the movie as a set of NFTs… that sound suspiciously like glorified digital copies of the film.
There are two versions of the extended edition of the movie being released in NFT form: the Mystery edition and the Epic edition, the former “limited” to 10,000 copies and the latter to 999. What differentiates this from owning the movie on some form of home video? Well, the Mystery version has one of three special menus based on the Shire, Rivendell, or the Mines of Moria, while the Epic has all three. Both have “location-specific image galleries” and eight hours of special features which are pointedly not specified as exclusive to the NFTs, and “AR collectibles,” which are also unspecified.
If you want to purchase a copy of the extended version of The Fellowship of the Ring you can only view on Web3, the Mystery edition will run you $US30 ($42) while the Epic is $US100 ($139). If you want a version you can watch anyplace you have internet access, Amazon sells it for $US10 ($14) (or you can watch it for free if you have Amazon Prime). A Blu-ray/DVD combo is also $US10 ($14) at the time of this article’s publication. But if you really want a version you pretend you exclusively own, the NFTs will go on sale tomorrow, October 21, here.
Just a reminder: Tolkien loved the natural world and would absolutely hate this.
[Via our pal Charles Pulliam-Moore at The Verge. We miss you, Charles!]
Want more Gizmodo news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel and Star Wars releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about House of the Dragon and Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.