Has 2003 been a banner year for DVD releases? (1 Viewer)

[Nick Senger]

2003 seems to me to have been a huge year for the dvd format. I've only been into this hobby for a couple of years, so I can't imagine what a year it's been for those of you who have been collecting longer. This year has seen the release of some of my most wanted dvds, either for the first time or in OAR special editions:

Indiana Jones
Looney Tunes
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Yankee Doodle Dandy
The Lion King
Sleeping Beauty
A Christmas Story
The Two Towers EE
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Casablanca
The Chaplin Collection
Lawrence of Arabia Superbit
Fritz Lang's Metropolis
Dances With Wolves
The Right Stuff
West Side Story
Babe
Much Ado About Nothing
The entire Fox Studio Classics series, including Sunrise

And if I go back twelve months, I can also include these titles:

The Back to the Future trilogy
E.T.
Fellowship of the Ring EE
Sunset Boulevard
The Producers

And I haven't even mentioned TV shows!

No doubt there are still some great movies and TV shows yet to see the light of day in the dvd format, but hasn't this year been great so far? I feel like I jumped into dvds at just the right time.

Thanks to all of you who have advocated OAR, high quality transfers for all those years when home theater was just beginning; and thanks to those of you working to restore these great films, and to those of you who do such a great job reviewing dvds.

Sure, there's more and better on the horizon, but I think back to my childhood (only thirty-something years!) when we didn't even have cable in my house (not to mention video tape)--just ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS, and the only movies I saw were at the whim of network programmers, except for maybe one or two per year in the theater.

Well, I didn't mean to ramble on, but for me it's been a great year for dvds, thanks in no small part to this forum. Here's looking at you...

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

The 'Big Guns', ie. Indy Jones, Back To The Future, Once Upon A Time In The West/In America and so on that have been released in the last year or so has been quite surprising. Great stuff.

But still no John Wayne Holy Grail, The High and the Mighty...


Gordy

 

[ChrisBEA]

Or Star Wars.... Hopefully next year for that!
But yeah, this has been a great year, my collection has increased enormously this year, check out the link in my sig!

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

Or Star Wars.... Hopefully next year for that!

Oh yeah, I forgot about that one!

Yeah, it could be possible that late 2004 will see the release of a version of the Holy Trilogy. I think they are great, unabashedly fun movies, and I would love to see the original versions that screened in '77, '80 and '83, but cleaned up by Lowry and with 5.1 and original mono/stereo mixes. And maybe a few extras. I'm not as hardcore as some, but I do think that Chewbacca is one of the most shamefully underappreciated characters in the history of Cinema. I think Chewy is great.


Gordy

 

[Thomas T]

2003 has been a terrific year for the collector of classic or older catalogue films. By all accounts, 2004 will be bigger and better.

 

[Kevin Porter]

I was about to say it before someone started a thread but it seems like there's generally nothing left. We got all the major trilogies (Except for that one which may be coming next year) and we've got the big blockbusters and all that jazz. The only thing that seems left is Schindler's List or something. Was Singin' in the Rain released this year? What an excellent set. Truly a great year for DVD.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

It really has been a banner year, of course I've only been collecting this format since 2001, but this is the most expensive year I've had for DVD purchases. There are some things still to come out, Star Wars, some of the Disney animated films, and more Warner Bros Looney Tunes but that set started this year also.

Not just for film, but this has been a huge year for TV on DVD, and next year will be even bigger.

 

[Raymond_H]

Yeah, so exactly what is left?

King Kong is also up there, and what else?

I'm more looking forward to special editions of classic, and re-releases of movies that should've had a better DVD treatment, like...

Titanic
Goodfellas
Blade Runner
Wizard of Oz

and the list can go on


Raymond

 

[MatS]

Yep we are now at the point where the studios will go heavy into re-issuing titles early and often. Some titles will truely need this but the majority will be just to milk the cash cow they have. The window in which multiple versions of the same title exists seems to get smaller and smaller each year.

 

[Dharmesh C]

I'm glad that the big titles have taken so long to come out 'cos the wait is half the fun

 

[David Lambert]

Yeah, so exactly what is left?

King Kong is also up there, and what else?

Before you guys go turning this one into another thread just like it, please read through the VERY recent (less than a week old) thread called "What's Left?" and you'll see that there are still MANY titles unreleased on DVD that people want!

 

[SteveGon]

Definitely a banner year for film buffs: Three Colors Trilogy, the Truffaut and Fassbinder sets from Criterion, the Warner Legends titles - and that's just a few of 'em.

 

[Marc Colella]

Not much (for me) in the way of quantity, but some damn good quality releases:

Three Colours Trilogy
The Dekalog
Punch-Drunk Love
Truffaut Set

Really looking forward to City of God in December.

 

[Nick T Robot]

Seems like Each year is getting better and better!

Big ones (Please feel free to add to this list):

2001-Superman, The Godfather Trilogy, The Matrix Revisited, The Simpsons first Season and the first Star Wars DVD!

2002- 2 Lord of the Rings DVDs (6 discs!) The Back to the Future Trilogy, The 1st, 2nd and 3rd films on Special Edition DVD from Quentin Tarantino (within 2 weeks!) along with True Romance (unrated special edition) and another Star Wars DVD!

2003- 2 More Lord of the Rings DVDs (Many of us will have 12 discs so far! The Matrix Reloaded(not a big wait, but a great looking movie) and Indiana Jones on DVD!

 

[Anthony Neilson]

Don't forget thata year ago nobody would have predicted the ALIEN QUADRILOGY set, which looks set to raise the bar on DVD re-releases and DVDs full stop.
If there are more double-dips of this quality ahead, I won't be complaining. What the hell else would we do with ourselves ?

 

[Nick T Robot]

When does the ALIEN TETRARILOGY come out?

 

[Anthony Neilson]

February.

 

[Neil Joseph]

There have been a larger than usual flurry of releases for me to buy for sure. ALL I can say is I remember how painful it was to be onboard the dvd format back in 1997, especially in Canada where they seemed to only have 10 releases in total to choose from for months and most of the studios were not in support of the format yet.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

A banner year, just because nearly everything i out that you want?

I am sorry if that came out a little crude, but I would consider this a banner year only that more disks have been released than ever before. Either more factories have gone into production, or they are running 3 shifts - maybe both.

We still have 2 months yet, but I'd like to see a count for the total new releases that have come out every year. I have a feeling that this year is probably about 5 times last year.

Glenn

 

[Nick Senger]

I agree, Glenn, and I guess that's what I meant by a banner year. Not only did dvd production go into overdrive, but there were some long-awaited dvds that were finally released.

Maybe the dvds I listed were ones that mattered mostly to me, but I guess what I meant to ask was "Has any previous year been better for dvd releases?" It seems to me that the last twelve months have been the biggest in the history of the format, both in terms of quantity and quality of releases.

That being said, I have not been collecting as long as others, so I lack a certain perspective. That was the reason for starting this thread.

Also, will 2004 top 2003? As other threads have discussed, what major releases from the past are left? I don't want to restart that discussion here, except to wonder where 2003 will be seen in dvd history. Is this the peak year for releases of highly anticipated older movies, or will the output continue to grow? There will always be releases of new movies, but for sheer volume and quality of dvd releases of past movies, has any former year topped this year, and is any year in the future likely to?