Paramounts new bilingual cover in Canada (1 Viewer)

[Martin Fontaine]

It's because of a law that was passed that all DVDs sold in Quebec from Jan 2002 and later that contain a french track must be available in french cover.

And the rule is: Each time the PQ passes a foolish law, it MUST always backfire somehow! Result: More complex packaging such as Star Trek TNG do not include french tracks so this way they do not need to make french packaging.

For a long time, DVDs had no french on it because studios were afraid of France imporing R1 disks, I fought that cause because I agreed that removing french for that reason was stupid and unfair, and was harming DVD progress here which meant less choices to rent, less people to trade disks.

Now, if studios remove french tracks because of insanities about packaging as a way to protest at stupid laws, then GOOD FOR THEM! I just hope that the next steps are not: "No French on Disk = No Sale in Quebec" then we'll have to order from Amazon, being more expensive thus becoming an insentive to "Honor Your Language" and be reminded that the movie can be watched in french each time you pick up the box on your shelf, Quebecian Stupidity At It's Best! Then if they find a way to prevent Amazon from shipping in Quebec then we'll be REALLY PISSED!

And also, Star Trek is probably the best example of why translations suck so I wonder who will really miss the french tracks!

 

[Kai Zas]

Why oh why does the French title for K-Pax read K-Pax: L'homme qui devient de loin (or something similar, I don't have it with me here). "The man that came from far away" is indeed applicable to the movie, bus why is it there?

Are the french so out of touch with the media that they need an explanation or something? Weirdness!

 

[Christian Preischl]

Hey,

Are the french so out of touch with the media that they need an explanation or something? Weirdness!

Believe me, this is not just a French thing. It's just as bad in Germany, and some of the added phrases are unbelievably stupid. Some examples?
Carrie - Satan's youngest daughter
Jerry Maguire - Game of Life
Waterboy - The Guy with Water Damage
Assassins - The Killers
Those are just a few that come to mind, but there are hundreds more.
Cheers,
Chris

 

[MikeEckman]

Wow, so Im not the only one. I just got K-Pax from CDNow earlier this week and I have the bilingual cover, and I thought they screwed up and just sent me the Canadian version. The disc is the same though, but the thing thats weird, is that even on the English side, there is a small Canadian leaf logo on the spine, and nowhere on the packaging is the American MPAA rating. Only the Canadian PG rating.

 

[Christian Preischl]

Mike,
what you're describing is the Canadian Version. As you say, the disc in the Candian packaging is the same as the US Disc, but that's how it's supposed to be.
Funnily enough, while they manage to mess up the cover by making it bilingual, they apparently couldn't be bothered to offer additional French menus on the disc itself. Those would be picked by the player automatically according to your DVD player's settings. I guess there's no point in changing it if it doesn't annoy us.
Chris

 

[Denny_S]

Somebody please start a petition quick.....this thing is going to kill me. Luckily I haven't bought any of the 'affected' discs as yet, but could you imagine what crap they will do with a title like LOTR or BLADE II, both being New Line releases.

 

[Mikko Rasinkangas]

Here's a petition
http://www.petitiononline.com/bay5/petition.html

 

[Christian Preischl]

Hi,

We suggest that you follow the example of other DVD distributors, and have an all French package to comply with the Quebec law. The same applies to the disc art and inserts. We WILL NOT spend our money purchasing any DVDs that have multi-lingual covers.

I don't like this paragraph. I don't want all French covers. I want the cover to be completely in English on one side, completely in French on the other. I don't even care if French is on the outside by default just as long as I can have full english artwork as well.

Chris

 

[Rolando]

I agree with Cris, I cannot sign a petition that fights half the battle. Heck actually it suggests the use of one of one of the methods we need to fight.

Can whoever started the petition alter it to show we don't want French only covers either?

Or can another be started requested either English only or reversable covers?

Petition is only at 22 signatures. I know I won't be part of it as it is. We need new wording and LOTS OF SUPPORT!

Who will come to our rescue?

 

[Ken Situ]

Well, why French at all? If the movies are originally all in English, then the covers should only be in English, period.

For those people who want their covers in French, they can always order them from R2 France. Hell, for all I care, they can even move to France permanently.

 

[rutger_s]

Have any of you purchased any Hollywood Films from Asia?
They have bilingual covers in Asia.
Here is the artwork for Rush Hour 2 R3 Hong Kong distributed by Universe Video & Laser Company Limited.

 

[Dan Brecher]

Rutger, I had to hyperlink to the JPG image.

This issue bothers me somewhat. I'd much rather the studios did true double sided covers. The Jay & Bob disc was a farce, I was expecting straight english on one side and straight french on the other, but instead no matter what side you go with you get a mish mash of both languages.

Dan

 

[Martin Fontaine]

For those people who want their covers in French, they can always order them from R2 France. Hell, for all I care, they can even move to France permanently.

Yeah, on DVDEnFrancais.com people say that Quebec should be part of R2 because almost all DVDs in France have french in 5.1 or even DTS while the R1 only has french in 2.0... Then when someone on that forum posted the name and address of a store in Montreal that sells Malata Players, the mod replaced it with *'s because he doesn't want us to hack region coding but at the same time keeps going on about wanting R2 disks at the same time...

Ahh, Quebs can be so inconsistant sometimes... No wonder they refer to me as a traitor!

 

[MichaelPe]

I've just started a new petition and I will start a new thread so that it receives the attention it deserves. Please pass along the URL to your friends and as many people as possible.
Link

 

[Jay Mitchosky]

I'm glad I'm not alone in this. It infuriates me when I see these brutalized covers from Alliance, DreamWorks, and Paramount. I will purchase my discs from the US from now on where only bilingual covers are available here. As a collector I want the original artwork. Period.

 

[Matt DeVillier]

DV-Depot allows you to purchase a printout of the US cover (at their cost) for canadian releases that have bilingual covers. if you'd prefer to print it out yourself, you can download the cover from www.dvdcoverart.com

 

[Jeff]

I just wish I had a nice printer to do this.

 

[IanS]

Without getting too political, its these separatist a-holes at the Office de la Langue Francaise (Quebec language Police) who made it illegal to have the standard DVD U.S. covers here and applied pressure on the movie studios by telling them that they were breaking the law up here by distributing unilingual english packaging.

Well all I can say about this is that these a-holes will never have their country separate from Canada as they gave up the chance the day they let everybody and his brother immigrate here from outside Quebec.

 

[Lafe F]

I'm looking for a scan of the Paramount "Don't Look Now" cover English version.

 

[Ryan Peter]

Deepdiscountdvd.com has been fantastic to me. Low prices and free shipping. Dunno how they are internationally though.