A year ago I started a new ongoing column about bad Blu-ray art. I did one installment. Let’s try this shit again:
This is a new running feature about the Blu-ray format. Bad cover art. Inexplicable products given Blu-ray Treatment, and more. If you have anything you see along your journeys that would make for a fun addition, send it my way. Today:
Excalibur has what is possibly my very favorite movie poster image of all time. A one sheet not only worth framing and hanging but one deserving a spotlight and a wall all to itself. That artwork is good enough to convey the message of the movie and draw a consumer’s eye in. The DVD and HD-DVD [R.I.P.] inexplicably featured some of the worst cover art I’ve ever seen for a film that frankly didn’t need the photo treatment. Especially with a very amateurish title treatment that reeked not of Photoshop but of a hacked and cracked knock-off of Photoshop. It’s injustice of the highest order.
The Blu-ray loses the horrible text and emulates the film’s color tone but maintains the poor judgment to showcase photos rather than art. Worse yet, Nigel Terry isn’t going to sell product. In fact, the only people from the film who will sell tickets are Liam Neeson and Helen Mirren. She’s naked in the film so there’s that. Put that shit on the cover.
But nothing compares with the original poster. They fucked up. You want to see horrible evolution? Look at the teaser poster, official posters, and then DVD box side to side.
Tragic.
5 comments
Nick Nunziata, I agree with you about the…poster for, Excalibur, being the art that should be on the dvd/blue ray cover. To me, Excalibur is the best film based on King Arthur.
The Duke is right, this is the definitive Arthurian film. I’m bummed about the crap art work, but glad it’s on Blu at all. I was afraid it wouldn’t get a blu release until after the remake, which is almost certain to be a giant disaster.
There’s got to be a market for people getting scans of old posters/VHS art and repurposing it for DVD/Blu cases in a suck-free style.
Also, I love Excalibur: I first saw at an impressionable age, and you know the scene where the knight in full arm is raping that naked chick? It gave me funny feelings in my downbelow area…
That teaser poster make it look like Boorman was making a sequel to ZARDOZ.
Excalibur is such a badass movie and it deserves the badass poster art for it’s blu ray. Regardless I’m picking this up on blu ray. Such a dirty brutal movie. I love it.
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