New Apocalypse Now DVD set this year? (1 Viewer)

[Shawn.F]

Hi Peter,

Unfortunately, all home video versions of Apocalypse Now will be at the 2:1 ratio. I can't believe that Coppola went along with this.

 

[streeter]

If you got a bonus disc, you're lucky. Apparently the Circuit City DVD department caters to people who don't have to work on Tuesday mornings (my local store consistently sells out of titles they have advertised by the time I get there). I got to the store after work and picked up the DVD. I asked about the bonus disc at check-out, and the girl said that it was in the package.
Nope. I went back and asked, and Customer Service said that they either didn't get any or were already out. There was no mention in the weekly ad that said quantities were limited, or 'minimum x per store'.
I called Circuit City and they said they can't do anything about it.
Color me annoyed. It's false advertising in my book.

 

[Dustin James]

.

 

[Roy Batty]

For all of you hunting for the Circuit City exclusive third disc in Manhattan, I got my copy last night at the Union Square's store, and it certainly came enclosed inside.

When I left it was almost closing time, and there were at least some other 3 or 4 copies remaining, all with the "Bonus disc" sticker, so if you hurry up this wednesday morning I hope you will snatch one too.

By the by, what really ticks me off about all this "exclusives" rage is the fact that both studios and stores are catering to the eBay-type resellers and speculators, and knowingly so.

A couple of weeks ago, when the Best Buy V FOR VENDETTA exclusive was released, it was almost an instant sell-out, but you could find quite a few overpriced copies on eBay that very same day, and members of this boards claim they saw customers buying them by the tens, when these special promotions are supposedly restricted to limited quantities per customer (usually no more than 3 copies).

 

[streeter]

It's silly that the retailers would pressure the studios into doing something that angers many of their customers.
There are already overpriced 3-disc Apocalypse Now Dossier sets on eBay.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Still $12.99 at CC. My local store still had plenty, with bonus sticker, this morning.

Actually forgot to grab the free Snakes On A Plane preview disc, but the store manager was standing near the register and flagged me down as I was leaving. What a guy! I haven't watched it yet, but the package says it includes a motherf***in'11-minute preview plus motherf***in' trailers.

(Note: The above colorful metaphors were my own editorializing, not actually on the package. )

 

[Dave H]

Are these transfers improved in anyway over the original discs?

 

[Haden]

What all is included on the Circuit City bonus disc? Is it really worth seeking out? I heard that it just shows the footage of the destruction of the Kurtz compound, but wasn't that on a previous DVD?

 

[Jonathon M]

So there is seamless branching? That's disappointing. We're 100% on that? If there's 3GB of video that's shared, I'm confused about Coppola's claims that Redux was recut from scratch...

 

[Aaron Silverman]

My understanding is that it just includes the stuff that was on the original release but got left off this new edition. I think there were one or two other items besides the scene you mentioned.

Considering that they also have the cheapest price ($12.99) (not to mention the Snakes preview freebie), it's worth looking for if it's not too much trouble. (I notice also that their regular price for it is $14.99, so if the $2 doesn't mean much to you, you could even wait, although that would hurt your chances of getting the bonus disc.)

 

[Pete York]

Bonus Disc (20 min.):
Destruction of Kurtz compound with Coppola commentary
1979, 2001 Trailers
'Added Scenes and Expanded Themes' from Redux

 

[Ray H]

Darn. Forgot to pick up that Snakes on a Plane disc. :frowning:

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I got my copy at Newbury Comics yesterday for $11.88. No third disc, of course, but for that price, who cares? There isn't a Circuit City near me anyway, and the feature I'm most interested in is the commentary, so I'm not really bugged by the lack of the bonus disc.

One of the features I do like is the (optional) Redux Marker.. basically, there's a subtitle track that will display the word "REDUX" in the bottom right of your screen (over the black bars, not over the image) whenever footage exclusive to the Redux version is playing. This is something I've wanted DVD producers to do for ages whenever releasing an extended or different cut of a film. Sometimes new cuts are better, sometimes they're not, but either way, it would be nice to know what was different while I'm watching it rather than having to manually compare the versions after watching, or trying to go from memory. Kudos to Coppola, Zoetrope and Paramount for that, and I hope more DVD producers will follow.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

The special edition of Stripes has this feature.

 

[Haggai]

I always suspected that Colonel Kurtz had something in common with...Sergeant Hulka!

 

[Mike Frezon]

Well...as long as it's optional. I hated the new cut of Stripes that was released where there was some kind of a bug (non-optional) on screen while the added footage played. Ugh.

EDIT** Ooops. Didn't see Aaron's response to Josh's post. But that's a big difference...being an optional feature. Aaron, I don't remember either the footage or the bug being optional on Stripes.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

The bug wasn't optional, and that was annoying (it annoyed some folks more than others), but I am pretty sure that it had the option of watching either the original cut (without the bug) or the extended version via seamless branching. I think those scene transitions may have been affected, though. (Dig up my review in the DVD Reviews Archive if you need to know for sure. )

 

[Peter Neski]

I wish they would have gone back to the negative for the last couple
of Outtakes,the one with brando and Scott Glenn,these are great and
they sould have better versions than those work print dubs

 

[Aaron Reynolds]

You realize that this would mean:

1) finding all the negs, if all of them still exist and are in good shape (wasn't there an issue with Redux not being able to use all of the original shot negative for the "new" sequences because some had degenerated?)
2) finding all the audio stems
3) editing them from scratch, since they've never been completed outside of the workprint -- see, the negative wasn't cut until they were sure about it in the good old analog days. So they'd make these work prints and cut them and recut them and they'd get all ugly and messy and dirty, but they didn't have to worry about hurting the negative by handling it so much. Then, once things were locked down, the actual negative would be cut.

That's really a lot of work when it hasn't all been logged and digitized like on a more recent production.

How many more dollars would you pay to upgrade those sequences from workprint to a beautiful, finished scene? I mean for your copy of the set.

I'm not trying to be a pain -- that's a genuine question. Is it worth five extra dollars to you? How many people do you think it'd be worth five extra dollars to? How many people wouldn't buy this set if it weren't selling for $12.99?

 

[Charles de Lauzirika]

Only for the record, optional deleted/alternate footage markers have long been included on the following discs:

"Thelma & Louise" (Deleted Scenes section)

All four films of the "Alien Quadrilogy"

"Gladiator" - Extended Edition

Sometimes it's difficult to mark exact cuts (which proved nearly impossible for us to do on the radically re-edited "Kingdom of Heaven" director's cut) and it's not always frame-accurate but I've always found it to be a useful guide.

Looking forward to immersing myself in the new "Apocalypse Now" set this weekend.