Peter Jackson, of Lord of the Rings fame, was given access to the Imperial War Museum and BBC film files of The Great War. What he has accomplished is stunning!

He's even had lip-readers to synch what the Tommys were saying in the old B&W films--most notably, actual veterans' voice-overs of themselves.

Debut: 16 OCT 2018

A review by "Old Remus" of The Woodpile Report 16 OCT 2018

Daily Mail - Soldiers and trenches of WWI are revealed exactly as they looked 100 years ago in staggering colourised footage transformed by Lord Of The Rings director ... 'I wanted to reach through the fog of time and pull these men into the modern world'

This you gotta see. The black and white film was cleaned up and optimized, then time corrected by inserting digitally interpolated frames, and masterfully colorized. It's the real deal, unlike the usual slapdash stuff.

Soldiers and Trenches of WWI Revealed Exactly As Looked 100 Years Ago

Saw this last Tuesday night, very well done. The voice overs were from actors from the relevant areas of the UK as the Veterans themselves were unavailable to voice themselves. However apart from the voice syncing of the footage the whole film was 'real' in that it was shot between '14-'18 and the commentary was recordings of the veterans made in the '60s.

The film never looked at the bigger picture, no grand scheme was discussed, it was just about the man in the mud and what he was experiencing. And according to the film mostly it was fun, a great adventure, " like a great big scout camp with a bit more excitement" was one quote IIRC. I was particularly interested in how the troops felt about the enemy, and it was not always as I expected, and the thoughts of some Germans towards regiments from another part of Germany was revealing.

It was a great watch, very moving in places and the renovation of the footage made it very real and up to date. There was an interesting Q&A with Peter Jackson after the showing. The original films were cleaned up of 'noise', slowed down and the missing frames were digitally inserted before colourisation, Jackson has over 100 hours of remastered footage (in B&W) and as he's a great history buff he said if anyone sends him the raw film he'll do it for free.

Good show, Scope-eye! Thanks for a great review. Glad to see it was done up so well!

I am supposed to go see this on Sunday evening. Will report back afterwards.

I think it is also being shown on BBC later Sunday evening.

Also as I understand it, all secondary schools (high schools) in the country will be getting a free copy of this video to show to the students.