Boomsticks, DVD's, etc.

[Muad'Dib]

To be honest with you ahartman, I caught it too. I just forgot about it when I reposted... Yeah, so how does this work guys, I mean one of you is in NY and the other is in the Netherlands, right? Does ICQ have a new feature I don't know about?

hehe

Dimitri

P.S.: Thanks for translating Steve....

[Gurm]

Boomsticks, DVD's, etc.

Ok, this thread has been started as a general rant/rave thread about DVD's. To keep it somewhat relevant, my first rave is over my most recent DVD acquisition:

"Army of Darkness", the super-special version!

It has the original ending, as well as deleted scenes and a featurette. It has voice-overs by Mr. Campbell himself! Woohoo!

Now I get to hear my favorite quotes in Dolby Digital, baby!

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Ok, another rant. Why the #$%^* are Disney movies so damned expensive on DVD? I found the "Tarzan" special edition, with 2 DVD's, for "only" $29.95, and bought it because that's SUCH a good deal. Of course the REGULAR "Tarzan" is usually $29.95. ACK!

--------------------------------

Heard a random quote somewhere saying that Lucas is actually readying an Episode 1 DVD release, in an effort to get us to spend even more money. *sigh*

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DIDN'T get the "Conan the Barbarian" DVD release, since it had NO extras and was in Dolby Mono. Ick!

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Movies I still can't get on DVD:

- Back to the Future (All)
- Princess Bride
- Star Trek 1 & 2
- The Long version of DUNE.

---------------------------------

Ok, I'm done now. TTFN!

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Himself]

I want "Basket Case" on DVD.

[Brian R.]

I want all Stanley Kubrick on wide-screen. Full Metal Jacket, Dr. Strangelove etc. on 4x3 is poor.

[xortam]

Ah, a man with taste ... don't forget "Clockwork Orange".

[Rags]

I want Falling Down, and Clockwork Orange on DVD.

[ahartman]

I'd like a DVD with the first 25 minutes of Full Metal Jacket run back to back to back to back to back.

"Your ass looks like about a hundred pounds of chewed bubblegum!"

I've never understood the anime thing...

[Rags]

Ahhhhh...Full Metal Jacket, let's see:

"Sgt Pile, put down your rifle now, or I will poke your eyeballs out and skull **** you soldier!"

and of course:

"What do you get for 10 dollars, 'any-ting you want', Anything? 'anyting!'"

Hehehe Great movie.

[Wombat]

This is my rifle,
This is my gun!
This is for fighting,
This is for fun!

[ahartman]

My other favorite lines:

"The best part of you ran down the crack of your momma's @ss and ended up as a brown stain on the sofa"

and

"I bet you're the kind of guy that would **** a man in the @ss and not even give him the courtesy of a god d@mned reach-around!"

Truly brutal...

[Gurm]

Ok, some thoughts:

Special Editions in general. I am sick and friggin' tired of going to the store, being about to pick up a good movie, and then thinking... "Wait, there might be a special edition!" so I have to go home, look on the Internet to see if there is one or not, and then go BACK to the Mall. Or else I have to look around every store. ARGH!

Example: Entrapment. Special Edition: $26. Regular Edition: $26. Outside Differences: Box Color.

But the special edition has ALL KINDS OF FEATURES, plus a bunch of deleted scenes, etc.

Or... Stargate. The "special edition" (which I own) has a half hour of extra footage - inserted into the movie! With the option to watch with or without! WOWEE! Of course, it is the same price as the regular edition, and differentiated only by a little bar that says "special edition".

Army of Darkness - I had to hunt for this one. The one with the cover from the videotape is NOT the special edition and contains NO extras. The special edition has a vastly different cover and is the same price.

What is behind this bull****?

------------------------

As for Dune, Holly - I liked the movie. It was strange and odd, but I liked it. Why? Because I saw the 6-hour version first. The Beta tape it was on has sadly disintegrated, and I have a "taped-from-the-sci-fi-channel" copy of the 4-hour version, which is "acceptable", but has commercials.

David Lynch made a mockery of the book. The 4-hour version is MUCH better, has all the scenes necessary for the beginner to understand what the hell is going on, and removes the irritating "I am the daughter of the emperor" voice over in favor of Frank Herbert reading passages from the book to fill in the gaps, accompanied by hand-illustrations.

The 6-hour version contains even more footage, but some of it is of questionable quality, hence it is impossible to get. Even the 4-hour version had to be dubbed an "Alan Smithee" film, since Lynch refused to authorize it.

-------------------------

On to Anime - is it so much to ask that they pack 3 hours onto a DVD? DVD's can hold hours and hours of video if it's just in Stereo (and you can't convince me that they redubbed all that Anime in surround). The videotapes were bad enough - half an hour each for $19.95. Now it's half an hour for $24.95. Silly. And yeah, it would be nice to be able to get the old stuff, but it's coming (albeit slowly). I want the long version of Akira on DVD, that's what I want.

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Dual layer DVD's, or the lack thereof, bother me as well. We rented "Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves" the other night. Now, I know it's 3 hours long. But I had to flip the damn disc over! What kind of idiot does that? Now Amadeus is the same way, but that's understandable - they have like 6 audio tracks on that, and a couple of them are THX versions of just the music... so you get 3-hours of digital music. So I can forgive that. But Robin Hood? And there were no real big extras either... just some text. So why do you have to flip it over? I'm waiting for them to announce the "special edition" of that, since the Stargate non-special was the same way - flip it over halfway through. GRR...

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Ok, I'm done for now.

- Gurm

P.S. Jord, is there something ELSE you guys have failed to properly announce? You're lucky Holly loves you, after the massive fumble you made of the whole proposal thing... hehe.


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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[This message has been edited by Gurm (edited 11 May 2000).]

[Genom]

If I may, I'd like to put in some perspective for ya'll out there regarding DVD, special editions and such.

First off Holly, most anime companies in the US are producing anime on DVD as fast as they can, but there is something you have to realize. While it may seem in a small circle of friends that everybody loves anime and more should be produced, you have to know that producing a DVD is not a inexpensive prospect, and you normally have friends with similar interests to your own. So while you may like anime, it's still a niche market in the US. Anime is usually produced on DVD in runs of about 5000 copies, and there have been times when the company has this first run on shelves for a year or so. That's TERRIBLE for business. Especially when it costs them about 10 grand just to make the master, then you have duplication costs, etc. VHS is incredibly cheaper. DVD is mpeg2. Well, mpeg2 is a very fickle compression. It usually takes a few months just to encode the movie properly, since it has to be done and redone with different bit rates to get optimal viewing quality, while maintaining a bitrate that will allow the company to fit all they can on the disk. There have only been 7 million DVD players sold in the US (not counting DVD-ROM), and the anbime fan base is a very small number of these people. Most companies ARE producing classic anime as fast as they can, but also a lot of companies dont own the rights to a series, or the japanese voices, etc. anymore. Take a look at Akira. What is arguably one of the best anime fimls ever made is not on DVD. Why? the copyright for it's distribution in the US was floating for a long time. It has only just begun to be remastered for DVD. So yes, Sol bianca, etc will come out, it's just a question of time.

To the person asking about A-Ko, the reason they havent done the rest is that the first one sold so poorly. Admitidly it's because they did a lousy job of the release, but still, they register low sales, and the rest of the movies never sold that well anyway. There's stuff out there that has a lot more posibility to be done before.

Clockwork Orange is indeed on DVD BTW (xortam and Rags)

Also, the reason most Stanley Kubrick flicks are 4x3 aspect, it's because thats how Stanley wanted them originally. (Brian R.)

About the dual sided dual density disks, the reason they arent used now is the horrible manufacturing costs for them still. It would cost double to make a disk like this than 2 double density disks. The manufacturing process is still at a relativly low quality level. This will change, just give it time. DVD is only now taking off. I have had a DVD player since the very first generation came out, and only in the past year has there really been anything worth buying on DVD (Space Jam was one of the few disks available when the format started. That tell's ya how sad it was).

About Special editions, now this is even worse. Reeason? Your avergae Joe just wants to watch the movie. Hell, most people plug their DVD players in the TV using a composite video cable. Even worse, most epople dont even have a big screen to watch the flicks on. These are the epople that will buy the nromall versions. However, if your like me, you'll just wait and buy the special edition, because this is where DVD really shinces IMHO. Hell. Look at The Abyss. This has to be one of the best examples of what a special edition should be.

Finally, Disney DVD. Disney is a money loving company that will do whatever it can to make more. Simple. Until people boycott them for their ridiculous prices, and eve more importantly, let them know about it, they will do the same. When they raised their price for special editions to 50 bucks and the normal flicks to 35, a HUG boycott went into effect. as soon as they saw the 10,000 or so emaisl telling them to take their overpriced DVD's and shove them where the sun dont shine, the prices dropped to 39 and 29 respectivly. Still expensive, but MUCH better no?

P.S.

Anybody that buys Star Wars on DVD is just giving Mr. lucas even more incentive to screw his fans over. It wasnt until Lucas got a petition with over 25,000 signatures that he decided to release the DVD next year. He originally had stated it wouldnt be out until the other 2 movies had been released. Kinda shows ya how quick people will change their mind if the money is there huh?


Anyway, there's a little something to think about. I am not in the DVD production business per se, but I sell some fo the stuff used for it, hence why I know some of this stuff. Hope it help's the frustration (for the record, I am a huge DVD fan, having well over 300 titles in my collection so far)

Also escuse any spelling mistakes, as I am recovering from a damn kidney stone and still kinda fuzzy from the pain and I just dont feel like fixing them.

[This message has been edited by Genom (edited 11 May 2000).]

[Paddy]

We need all our money for our **to be kid**

???

[Jorden]

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
To answer Andy, Dimi and Paddy quickly: It's no ICQ feature (not one I have heard of anyway ), but have you ever heard of artificial insemination?

Well, that ain't it lol

Jord.

[HollyBerri]

Thanks very much for the info, Genom! That's what I love about the MURC; there's always a pro or semi-pro around to help put things into a real-world perspective. So sorry about the kidney stone, btw. Hope you feel better very soon.

It's true that in surfing around the anime distribution houses, I did get it that people are working as fast as they can on transferring stuff (I think it was A.D. Vision that complained "Stop emailing us! We <u>get</u> it, already!!" ).

So, fine, I'll be a little patient. Watching a 6-hour version of Dune would sure use up a little time, anyway , maybe I'll try that.

As to announcements: forthcoming shortly, though I'd think that

Since all my videos are now useless once I get to Europe

might be something of a clue, and did you think that Jord's "Brief Goodbye" as he moves to a new flat comes for no reason in particular?

Ah heck, Gurm, maybe you can't hear me anyway, as your ears are probably still ringing from Jord's likely response to your mention of the engagement thread... at least he hates it when I mention it , maybe you're a bit luckier.

---------------------------
Holly, in the count at T-29.

Later, it occurred to her (sorry, I'm slow)... Oh!! No, no... we didn't have an 'accident on purpose' while I was there last, thanks for asking, Jason . We did try to, but our daughter politely but firmly declined the invitation . She clearly has no intention of setting foot in the material world until she can develop in the company of both her parents. Stubborn, like her dad. *sigh*.

The announcement I'm referring to should occur at about T-(minus)10.

Holly (again), at T-28 (it now being after midnight here... )

[This message has been edited by HollyBerri (edited 12 May 2000).]