These items are coming to DVD on Tuesday, October 26.
First, the genre releases:
- Alive:
Another Japanese horror film. This is the director’s
uncut
edition. - Toxic
Avenger
IV: Citizen Toxie: Yes, he’s on DVD. - Creator
Spotlight – Yoshiaki Kawajiri Brick Pack: A four
DVD set
showcasing the Anime creator’s work. - Dawn
of the
Dead: Four editions of this movie are coming to
DVD. The link
here is to the widecreen unrated director’s cut.
(The other three are
the widescreen theatrical cut, and the butchered
versions of the
theatrical and director’s cuts.) - Escaflowne
–
The Series (Perfect Collection): Fans may now
rejoice. - Frankenfish:
When
the DVD cover art says “FROM THE DIRECTOR OF SPAWN”
in a sales pitch,
you know it’s going to be entertaining in all sorts
of unintentional
ways. Did anyone catch the TV premier on October 9?
(I didn’t know it
was coming until I looked it up on the IMDB this
morning, or you would
have been warned, I mean, notified that it was on the
way.) - Frankenstein:
A
recent TV miniseries version, starring Alec
Newman. - .hack//SIGN
–
The Complete Collection (Limited Signed Edition):
That’s a mighty
fancy package. - Mystery
Science Theater 3000 Vol. 6: “Teenagers from
Outer Space,” “Attack
of the Giant Leeches,” “Gunslinger,” and “Mr. B’s
Lost Shorts” - Now
and Then,
Here and There (Complete Collector’s Boxed Set):
Anime fans look
like they’ll be really happy this week. Or really
broke. - Santa
Claus
Conquers the Martians: A true holiday classic.
Expect a review
later this year. - Star
Trek:
Deep Space Nine Seasons 1-7: A complete series
package. Oh, for a
higher income. - Star
Trek: The
Next Generation Seasons 1-7: A similar package
for the
predecessor. - The
Swan
Princess: This was enjoyed by the customers when
I worked in a
theater. Pay very close attention; in three frames,
somebody’s
fingers are visible on screen holding the plates down
for the camera.
(At least, they were in the theatrical release.) - The
Thing
(Collector’s Edition): This is the 1982
version. - Timeline /
Tomb Raider Two Pack: If either film is worth
owning. - Underworld:
A
Superbit branded rerelease.
There also appears to be a number of “Title
and Other Cartoon
Treasures” releases for very low prices. (Low enough
that I have
doubts about picture and sound quality.) The series
includes
headliners such as Superman,
Popeye,
Treasure
Island, Gulliver’s
Travels, Betty
Boop, Tom
Sawyer, Little
Lulu, Felix
The Cat, Three
Stooges,
and Mighty
Mouse. As
you can probably tell, I’m an animation fan, but for
$2.99, I don’t
see how these can be of decent quality. I’d love
nothing more than if
some company with good resources and a respect for
the material
tracked down and properly restored all of the old
Fleischer Studios
material. I’ve got Gulliver’s Travels on
DVD, but the price
was so low I’m almost afraid to see what it looks
like.
Now, the non-genre releases:
- 21
Jump Street
– The Complete First Season: Johnny Depp before
people knew the
name. - Bad
Boys II –
Superbit Edition: Once again, the Superbit
edition comes out long
after the original release. How do the Superbit
versions look? The
Spider-Man 2 Superbit is coming out the same
day as the
regular edition, so I’ll finally pick one up.
(Releasing it after the
original release has meant I’ve already got a copy of
movies I’m
interested in so far, with the one exception of
Bram Stoker’s
Dracula.) - The
China
Syndrome: This is another title I vaguely
remember hearing about,
but haven’t seen. - Cliffhanger
(Superbit): One of Stallone’s better movies is
also released as a
Superbit this week. - Footloose /
School of Rock Two Pack: I know
Footloose is good, but haven’t
seen School of Rock yet. - Garfield
Holiday Celebrations: There are a few titles in
here that I love.
The Halloween special is wonderful. - Guns
of
Navarone: The Superbit people strike again. - Homicide:
Life
on the Street Seasons 1-5: A very complete DVD
set. - Little
House
on the Prairie – Complete Season Six: Wholesome
family
entertainment, with burning babies and blind people
and stuff. - The
Missing: A Superbit edition. - Mulan
–
Special Edition: Disney’s major summer 1998
release. - The
O.C. – The
Complete First Season: I’ve heard good things
about the show. - Once
Upon A
Time In Mexico: Another Superbit release. - Road
to El
Dorado: Another recent animated feature. - Sinbad
–
Legend of the Seven Seas: Animated version - Spirit
–
Stallion of the Cimarron: A big week for
animation. - S.W.A.T.:
The Superbit people must have been planning to flood
the market this
week. - That
70’s Show
– Season One: One of the better sitcoms.
Superbit?
What’s so special about superbit editions? I’ve never heard of them before.
Re: Superbit?
It’s a re-encoding of the movies to get the highest
possible bitrate, which means they should have great
picture and sound quality. They tend to have fewer extras
than the regular edition to make room on the disk to do
this.
School of Rock
Never saw it, but I read some favorable reviews when it came out.
Re: School of Rock
It’s enjoyable – just don’t go in expecting too much. The kids are excellent, given that they’re originally musicians rather than actors, and Jack Black is, well, Jack Black. The best parts are not in the movie, but in the extras – nothing quite beats Jack Black and an auditorium of people begging Led Zeppelin to use their song in the movie.
Why do DVDs cost so much?
The Star Trek series costs an unbelievable amount of money. I paid half the amazon.com list price for the entire stargate series. Thats 1/3 the price of the MSRP for the Star Trek series. If they dropped the price by half they might tripple their sales. As it is now only hardcore star trek fans would buy it.
Re: Why do DVDs cost so much?
DVD prices are set according to what the company thinks people will pay for them. The MSRP numbers on Star Trek sets are amusing; Paramount stopped sending me their press releases for reasons I haven’t yet figured out, but the TNG sets actually had no MSRP on them. Paramount suggested that most retailers should be able to get them on shelves for below $100, but that’s it. I don’t know what they cost the stores to purchase, but given the uniformly high prices, I suspect that the $100 retail mark is with an unusually low retail profit margin. Either way, people keep paying them.
Also, keep in mind that Star Trek: The Original Series was the first show released on DVD, and that came out in 40 volumes with two episodes each. The retail prices there were (in Canada, at least) about $25 per volume, or $1000 for the entire three season series. When people pay that, it gets really, really hard to convince the distributor that the price is too high. This is also why season sets of The X-Files are higher than most other shows. That was the first series ever released in complete season sets, so they basically had to guess at a price people were willing to pay. (They were also retailing in region one before region two, unlike most, so the extras and DVD authoring costs were paid by the North American audience instead of the European audience like they usually are.) The bottom line is, if people will pay high prices, retailers will continue releasing with high prices. It disturbs me, as my compulsion to own everything written by Larry Niven (which drove me to buying a season of The Land of the Lost and a box set of The Outer Limits that didn’t even have his episode) will probably get me to buy Star Trek: The Animated Series when it comes out next year, despite what is sure to be an unusually high retail price.
Re: Why do DVDs cost so much?
Besides the “charging what people will pay” theory, you also have some sets, like the Homicide: Life on the Street seasons or Jeeves and Wooster (both released by A&E on DVD), that are sold at a higher price because they just don’t sell as well. Sets like Buffy or Alias don’t need big individual margins because they’re going to sell like hotcakes. Homicide and others are apparently in such little demand that I had to hunt for a week just find a place in town (Portland, Oregon – million strong) that stocked Homicide (I tend to buy from B&M stores because I’m silly that way).
Of course, I’ll pay $100 for a season of Homicide while I consider that too high for Star Trek – not necessarily because I wouldn’t enjoy the latter just as much (though there is truth to that) but for the exact reason stated above: It simply shouldn’t cost that much considering how well it can sell. :)
Re: Why do DVDs cost so much?
When my store originally got in the TNG box sets, the cost to us was approximately $97 – we ended up selling them for $109.99, whereas Futureshop was selling them for either $119.99 or $129.99. Most new games that we get in, we’re lucky to make more than $7 above what we paid for them. Now, the killer bit is that we’re a small-time place, so we don’t get the bulk discounts the big boxes (like Futureshop, Best Buy and Wal-mart) do, yet we usually retail our stuff for less than them. Case in point, our EA titles previous to this year – and the price war with the ESPN series – were always $64.99, but I could go into any Futureshop or Electronics Boutique and find the same title for the bargain price of $69.99.
Of course, they kill us on system prices (so much so that we occasionally use them as suppliers), but you can really only sell one of those to a customer, whereas the games lend themselves to more repeat business.