DVD Double Dip
Because once is never enough.
I saw the Lord of the Rings movies once; I don’t plan to ever watch them again.
Don’t get me wrong, Peter Jackson’s trilogy was a grand accomplishment in the realm of filmmaking. Together, the three movies boasted amazing special effects, emotionally touching human drama and set construction that borders on genius.
That’s right, I notice set construction in films.
Despite all of the films’ good qualities, though, the fact remains this: together, the trilogy was nine hours and eighteen minutes long.
I respect the movies as much as the next fan (well, maybe as much as the one on the other side of the dude that’s dressed up as an elf); however, I hold higher regard for the opportunity to sit down and watch a movie without my butt falling asleep.
Thankfully, for those Lord of the Rings fans whose bladders are as large as their love for middle-earth battle, there is a product available to satisfy their appetite: the special edition DVD.
While most film fans would be more then happy just picking up the regular editions of the film, it’s the uber-fan of the trilogy that will gladly empty their wallet in order to own a box set collection of extended edition DVDs with enough extra footage to make one’s retinas scream bloody murder. I, on the other hand, would gladly fork over even more money to be able to purchase a three hour cut of all three films combined. The DVD for those with ADD, if you will.
Therein lays the fruit of the digital videodisk format — the ability to give fans a little extra for their buck. Unfortunately as the DVD rises in popularity, I have begun to discover that the fruit may be less ripe then I had previously envisioned.
With the ever-increasing boom of the DVD market, more and more studios are seeing their chance to present past decades’ films in “the way they were meant to be seen.”
This means that movies large and small are now seeing re-release in Two-Disk Specially Packaged Ultra Collector’s Director’s Cut Limited Editions that include three versions of the film, five audio commentaries, an hour of deleted scenes and a four hour documentary on the type of fabric that was used to make the costumes for the background extras.
Personally, I enjoy the special features included on DVDs. From the theatrical trailers to the production featurettes, I find it entertaining and informative to take a behind-the-scenes look at the making of my favorite movies. I even listen to commentaries.
What I don’t enjoy, however, is to have bought a DVD and then find out that a superior version will be released the following month. A collector at heart, it’s downright disheartening to find that my once-believed notion of a complete collection has been shattered by some studio’s greed.
While filmmakers should have the freedom to release their movie as they meant it to be seen, with all the special features they would like to include with it, directors should also have a responsibility to get it right the first time.
Time after time, though, it seems that studios and filmmakers have joined forces to swindle fans of their money as definitive edition after edition of their films are released, each promising to be the ultimate version.
One of the worst culprits I can think of at the present time is Sam Rami and his Evil Dead trilogy. With six slightly different versions of Army of Darkness available on the market, something is amiss. With every change of the season, it seems a new version is released of one of Rami’s three movies.
It’s not just cult classic films either; the Alien Quadrilogy box set was released just a scant three years after the much-hyped-as-definitive Alien Legacy box set, which contained the same exact films as the new set.
Universal Studios is notorious about releasing new editions of their movies whenever a sequel is released. Cases in point are the six editions of the original American Pie: Original, Unrated, Ultimate Original, Ultimate Unrated, Behind the Crust Original, and Behind the Crust Unrated.
In moderation, updated versions of DVDs are a good thing. Not only do they offer both collectors and casual fans different versions suited to their respective fandom — each with a different price tag — it is also nice to celebrate a film’s anniversary with a retrospective edition. Unfortunately, like most other collector driven markets, there will always be the companies who release alternate versions as fast as they can warm up the disk printing machines. Below are the five main questions all movie companies should ask themselves before releasing a new version of one of their films:
1. Did we release this same film less then five years ago in a different version?
2. How different is this version from previous editions?
3. If we are calling the package “Definitive,” is it indeed definitive?
4. Did we announce our plans to release this edition early enough as to discourage fans from buying earlier editions?
5. Are we being greedy soulless corporate whores who don’t care about anything besides making more money to feed our smack and hooker habit?
I should add that not all filmmakers are guilty of such unbridled greediness. The twin sets of brothers, Wachowski and Warner, should be applauded for their handling of The Matrix. Instead of releasing a dozen versions of The Matrix with only a few differences between them, the brothers decided to release a separate DVD, The Matrix Revisited, that would contain the additional features.
The release of a separate disk, which hard-core fans could buy for at a lower cost than buying a special deluxe version of a movie they already own is a tactic which shows dedication to fans and their wallets.
From their actions in the DVD market, the Wachowski brothers obviously care about their fans. In fact, they care so much that for $80, they will sell you a separate box set of the Matrix Trilogy with extra features not available anywhere else!
