Gettin' It Right the First Time

Do you have the Region 1 DVD or Region 2 Shaun?

Fight Club
Pixar DVDs

The Star Wars prequels.

Whether or not you like the films themselves, they come with lots of cool special features.

I haven't checked out the recent release of the untampered originals, but the '04 box set release had some good stuff like the Empire of Dreams documentary, looking at characters, picture galleries, trailers/TV spots.

I thought this thread was about Patrick losing his virginity again. Rejected.

Ghostbusters. Even when they prettied up the Green 1 & 2 box, there's a reason disc 1 is exactly the same as it was in 2000.

Army of Darkness. Wait...no.

Kong '33. Well worth the long freaking wait. Restored and stuffed to the gills with special features. Even better: boxed with his Son and Mighty Joe.

I'd like to take this time to give the "Double-Dip" in general the big FU. You wanna release something with a new cover? Fine. Doesn't tempt me. But an extra disc of stuff or some lost treasure dug outta the vault? Damn my compulsive collecting habits and completist love for film.

Godfather Trilogy (which you can get as a boxed set or individually used for super cheap!)

In this region (USA), it was. They took their grand old time cleaning it up (film quality, not Political Incorrectness). The 2 disc version rocks my socks off. Since then, they've put out a single disc... Bah!

Not really a movie, but the 8-disc set of Freaks and Geeks. Best blind buy I ever made.

The documentary, Empire of Dreams, that came with the box set was great. It's directed by Kevin Burns, and is as thorough a treatment as you could hope for. It really reaches outside of the studio for once, and includes perspectives from people like Walter Cronkite and Bill Moyers.

They also finally got someone who wasn't a technical person on an audio commentary: Carrie Fisher. I'd still love to hear all three major cast members weighing in, but at least she has a different perspective from "how many motion-control elements went into this space battle". And, it has to be said, for a movie originally released in 1977, they did a phenomenal job restoring the first movie. I couldn't believe it had ever looked that good.

And on the subject of the thread, I have to mention Austin Powers. Whatever you think of the movie itself, it was one of the first must-have DVD's, simply on the strength of its extra content. It may not seem impressive by modern Lord of the Rings Extended Edition standards, but at the time, it was pretty damn cool. That and The Matrix were mentioned in many articles about why DVD was going to take over the film industry.

It certainly took its time getting here, but the Delicatessen dvd is quite nice as a single dip. Not a ton of features thrown in, but every one that's there is solid.

Criterion's Naked Lunch.

Wow, I couldn't disagree more strongly. I felt like it was a documentary made by committee for the masses, not a labor of love made for STAR WARS fans. The best thing about it was all of the outtakes and alternate angles, which has done before -- and better -- in other documentaries, but this was STAR WARS for a change, and that makes it special somehow, though I'm no longer entirely sure why.

Hopefully, whenever they make the ultimate six-movie boxset that makes all SW fans weep in orgasmic bliss, they'll hire a documentarian who actually loves STAR WARS...probably someone who was a kid when the first film came out, someone whose imagination was ignited that magical summer of '77.

Fisher was a nice and appropriate addition to the commentary line-up but I also tend to be underwhelmed by STAR WARS commentaries. They're so cut up, with multiple participants having a few words here and there shoehorned into a few seconds. I feel like these things were edited by the Texas Instruments Topic Identifier 6000™.

For STAR WARS DVD documentaries, nothing tops EPISODE I's "The Beginning," which is unfortunate since the film itself is shit -- but it makes for a fascinating doc.

But mt favorite unreleased STAR WARS documentary remains "From STAR WARS to JEDI: The Making of a Saga" that aired on PBS. I'd love to see that released on DVD at some point.

From STAR WARS to JEDI: The Making of a Saga" is a stellar doc. I got this on tape in the early 90's with the widescreen boxset, a DVD is long overdue.

Another great doc aired also on PBS sometime in the early 90's called "George Lucas: Heroes, Myths and Magic". Some great stuff from Joseph Campbell.

Informative as hell.

I have it taped off and the copy is shitty, so a DVD would be nice or having included in the big bofo boxset.

Lastly, I have a soft spot for the Making of Star Wars that aired on tv the fall after the film was a hit. I got a copy of it from the back of a cereal box of all places.

I think it's kind of crap that Warner Bros. is making us pay an extra $5 for special features (Superman Returns, V, Batman Begins), but if it cuts down on the $20 double dip down the road, I guess it's not so bad.

Big Trouble in Little China, although they did do that same backwards thing with selling the 1-disc version after the 2-disc sold out (Like Fight Club, Cast Away, etc.)

12 Monkeys- just for the amazing Hamster Factor doc.

Ginger Snaps - provided you get the Canadian release, and not the garbage R1 version that just came with a trailer, as I recall.

Dark City- absolutely packed- and I remember being surprised at the little game that you can play- that was pretty new at the time.

No love for The Matrix? I seem to remember at the time that this was the gold standard for doing DVDs right. Follow the white rabbit feature was pretty revolutionary too. Great DVD.

Dark City was a great disc if nothing else for the awesome commentary track by Roger Ebert. One of the best I've ever heard and cool that he wanted to do it because he was a fan of the movie.

I actually did mention The Matrix in post #18, albeit in an off-handed manner. But yes, that was an incredible package at the time, and it really showed what DVD was going to be capable of. I never really liked the white rabbit feature myself, but it was an interesting idea.
All the more impressive because the movie was such a box office failure. I was impressed that New Line would put that kind of money and effort into the home video release.

New Line was pretty good early on when it came to their DVD releases. You mentioned the first POWERS disc and THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME was also stacked when it was first released on disc. There was an entire hidden Dr. Evil section that had a funny "Biography"-style special on it.

New Line also put a lot into the DVD of THE CORRUPTOR. I'm sure that's the kind of movie that if released on disc today would have nearly no bonus features.

It's too bad they didn't offer more on THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT disc.

Naked Lunch was released separately in Canada, but no idea if that came before or after Criterion. Criterion was your first chance to get it in the U.S.

Chasing Amy was a Criterion, initially and only. I don't know if they "got it right", but I don't believe there's ever been a double dip. There are lots of titles that debuted as Criterion, mainly foreign, but I think a Cassavetes flick or two as well.

Their original Blade disc holds up too.

The Die Hard Collectors dvds. Although there are single discs out there now, the first releases were all that was needed, along with Big Trouble In Little China.

For me, the only serious disappointment is that they made just one documentary to cover the original trilogy. What with each of the prequels meriting a full-length doc apiece, it seems cheap not to present the original films in matching two-disc sets. There may not be as much on-set coverage in existence, but there's still a lot of stuff out there.

I'm guessing there's enough footage and material of the STAR WARS pre/post-production days alone that could fill a Death Star trash compactor. Lucasfilm is probably saving it for the 6 Saga HD DVD Set. You'd think.

From an archival perspective the LOTR discs got it right the first time with all of the television specials, commercials, trailers, etc. Just too bad New Line couldn't throw in the Botes documentary the first time, or make it anamorphic when they eventually did.

This archival approach is actually my dream situation for the original star wars films.

In regards to the Empire of Dreams doc covering all three movies at once, the way I look at it is as a "new" boxset of "old" movies while the prequel dvd's were "new" releases of "new" movies, hence the extra disc for each one.