Buck Rogers in the 21st Century (1 Viewer)

[Tom Brennan]

I'm picking the set up this week, but this was my always my fear...going back to when the set was first announced. I knew that Universal probably wouldn't be aware of any differences between the two...and even if they did, would probably choose one over the other.

I will agree with others and say that if given the choice, I would prefer to have the theatrical cut over the TV version. I think the best of both worlds would have been to simply add the TV epilogue to the theatrical version. I can live without the other minor changes. I just think the epilogue was a nice way to end the pilot movie and it sets up the series really well.

Since it is highly unlikely that we will ever see a home video release of the TV version of the pilot...I suggest recording it off the Sci Fi channel. They are going to be airing both parts of "The Awakening" on Thursday, December 16th starting at 8am.

 

[Mark Oates]

And a couple of substitutions (Twiki's "I'm freezing my ball-bearings off" and "What a body!" lines, and the removal of the "dream girl" title sequence).

I've just had a look at the R2 version of the set. It's a six-disc (DVD-9) digipak containing just the first season and the theatrical cut of the pilot. The artwork is completely different to the US 2-season version, but curiously includes a photo of Thom Christopher as Hawk from the second season. Image and sound is very acceptable for a show of 23 years of age and no serious restoration. Cheese factor is very high, so I'm well suited. Especially seeing the theatrical pilot again. I'd have hated for the tv version to be substituted.

 

[Sam Favate]

Maybe it's the format, but I enjoyed the pilot movie a lot more on DVD than I did 8 or 9 years ago when I saw it on VHS (which was the first time I had seen it since the theater in 1979). It was good, campy fun. More Saturday-matinee style than most science fiction. Buck was part of a sea change in sci-fi after Star Wars, in which sci-fi was light-hearted. Before SW, sci-fi was very serious and often depressing, but also much more mature.

In any event, I found the Buck pilot to be good fun. Looking forward to watching the rest of the series, most of which I haven't seen since 1979-81, and even then sometimes I fell asleep!

 

[Will_B]

So how much spandex is in this series, anyway? I remember enjoying this vision of the future when I was a child, but is there really enough spandex to make it kitchy and enjoyable today? Or will it seem tame by comparison to, oh, well, to real life people jogging down the sidewalk?

 

[Bob-R]

No, I do not believe that "says it all", I did read that fine print but it boggles the mind. If they just had a good reason why they did not include the TV pilot on the "complete" TV series, maybe that would be the end of this discussion. This set is really fantastic and this discussion should stay on how great it is, I just thought that we could possibly make a difference by making this set truly complete or atleast ask for a reason as to why we do not have a complete epic series.

 

[Will_B]

The reason is they decided not to.

 

[Paul_Scott]

i used to watch the show as a kid and when they would have a scene set in a futuristic night club they would have this erstatz synthesized disco music and back then i thought "c'mon...couldn't they get a little more creative...why would anyone think it was hip to listen to some synthesized, droning melange?"

now that i look back...they weren't that far off from anticipating techno, trance etc.
if only Lucas had control of this show, we could probably give Wilma a pacifier in these scenes now.

 

[John McDevitt]

Just got the set today and I'm so disappointed with the physical quality of the discs! Disc one has some kind of green glue or something on the edge of the disc. It's inside of the disc so I can't get it off. All of the other disc have scratches and marks all over. It's almost as bad as the Magnum PI set I picked up. I had to open three other sets at Best Buy before a found a halfway decent looking set of discs. I'm not waisting my time anymore with Universal. Unless they manufacture the DVD's with some quality I'll just keep my money. And yeah I did email Universal, but I'm sure they will tell me to return it to the store I bought it from. Then I can only hope DDD sends me back a decent set.

 

[Citizen87645]

Y'know some people pay for that sort of thing

 

[James Reader]

What I meant was it ends the disscussion of what was included on the set, which is all that was being debated at that point.

I don't know if you noticed, but this disclaimer was on a sticker which covers up the entire original specifications and contents box on the back.

So to me, it looks like the issue was only discovered after the discs and initial packaging were finalised and manufactured. So I guess the problem is "human error".

 

[Aryn Leroux]

Some people are just never happy...
So it only has the Theatrical Cut for the pilot.. So what ? The consensus i have had through the years is most people preferred the theatrical cut to the tv pilot. Sure would it have been nice to have both no question. But i would have watched the tv version maybe once anyway so no big deal.

Sometimes you have good reason to complain but in this case you should just be quiet and be thankful you even got this released at all.

 

[Bob-R]

I am very happy to have this set, I was not angry about not having the TV pilot, just simply puzzled about it's omission, as anyone would be, maybe I was a little more vocal about it, but, by looking at this thread and reading about how everyone loved the set, I thought the subject would never be brought up, so I figured that I would, I figured it would gain some attention so someone could contact Universal about it. That's the only "flaw" I see with the set, it's perfect, it has superb picture and sound, and it has 32 episodes of fun and adventure, what more could you want?

Something else I was wondering as it was also mentioned a few pages back, I have the Buck Rogers DiscoVision laserdisc and I find it odd that the laserdisc is in Stereo and the DVD is in Mono, I just wanted to know what you guys thought of that, a little odd, isn't it?

 

[Tom Brennan]

I don't think the laserdisc was true stereo. I remember it had some odd phasing and it sounded more like some weird mono to stereo converstion than true stereo to me. I think that the original source is mono, and this is an accurate release. However, that is just an edjucated guess...

 

[Jay Pennington]

...and some people are way too hard on people that voice a concern calmly and intelligently.

 

[Jonathan Kaye]

Can someone please change the title of this thread so that it reflects the actual series title? As mentioned earlier in the thread, it's 25th Century, not 21st!

 

[Sam Favate]

I always thought the title of the thread was a reference to the Buck Rogers DVDs being released in the 21st Century, in which case, it works just fine.

 

[Jonathan Kaye]

No, read the first and third posts on page 1 of this thread.

 

[Tom Brennan]

Can anyone with a region 2 copy confirm if the TV pilot is included or not? On Amazon, it's listed in two parts... so its possible. Please let us know...

 

[Paul_Scott]

was finally able to crack mine open.
those opening credits are a hoot!
i never remembered them, although i know i did see this at the theater.
watching the pilot, i found it hard to believe that this would have ever been cropped for a 1.75 ratio.
the compositions almost always looked appropriate for 1.33- if anything, i would have been inclined to believe that the tv pilot was cropped from a wider ratio, rather than the theatrical prints being matted.

 

[Patrick.C]

Here is a pretty funny "review" of the box set by Nick Nunziata of chud.com:

http://chud.com/dvd/497