HTF REVIEW: The Wizard Of Oz - Three-Disc Collector's Edition (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED).

DaVid,
Looking very forward to reading your thoughts after you've reviewed the disc too.

I don't believe this shit... Warner actually splashed French text all over the deluxe 3-disc edition!!!


I was lucky enough to grab an English only cover, but there were only 3 on shelf and to my dismay, I just got home to find that the back of the box is damaged and one of the discs is scratched so now I need to return it and hope I can find another English version.

This is absolutely ridiculous, this means that from now on... every WB release I want to buy will have to be bought on release day before the English covers get phased out. It's almost like these normal DVD's are suddenly limited collector's editions... what the hell is that about!

Even the Looney Tunes Golden Collections were in French and there were like 1 English version to every 5 French.




Back to Metro Video for an exchange.

Thanks for the comparison Joe,

Its my opinion that the older print is leaps and bounds better than the new one.

I seriously doubt the director would have preferred the newer transfer if given the choice and technology to do so.

But i guess we'll never know.

As they say, whatever floats your boat.

None of these screen caps do the new transfer any justice. All of the caps look pretty inaccurate compared to how my copy looks on my set. I too was skeptical but I'm convinced now its a great improvement.

I'll certainly find out how the in-motion image compares in a detailed A/B this Friday. We already have a few HTF members joining in. email me if interested.

David: Will Ron & Parker pay my airfare from upstate New York?!

David,

Wish I could be there at your WIZARD OF OZ party! I'm jealous. Sounds like fun!

I got the 3-Disc Version today, but strangely the 1933 cartoon is nowhere to be found on the third disc!!! Can anyone help me out here???

Grab the torches and the battering ram!

Not on purpose, but you are correct. I've revised my last post with new scans. PowerDVD was set for some CLEV-2 setup and I changed it to their "original" setup. Thus it would appear that PowerDVD is as vanilla as it gets. Still seeing more detail than in Herb's scans ... don't know why. The CLEV-2 setup seems too hot. Shows the danger in that if we all aren't using the same setups it becomes even less apples to apples.

Importing seems to be the only way to go a lot of the time these days.

Perhaps it's just a Canada thing? I got my 3 disc set here in the States and mine had the 1933 cartoon.

And if anybody cares, I picked it up at Costco for only 31.99!

Canada thing? On the slipcase, the 1933 cartoon doesn't appear but on the digipak the 1933 cartoon is listed.

I just got this and the 3rd Looney Tunes set...

Somehow, I'm seeing something completely different from what the nay-sayers are seeing. I don't mean to be that blunt, but I'm stunned by how detailed this is. You can actually see real film grain. When I saw a dye-transfer print, it had this wonderful "velvet" film grain texture. The color bumps are finally gone. The color is so much more pure and vivid. The finely detailed burlap textures on Ray Bolger that I saw in the theater are finally clearly visible rather than smoothed over. Simply put, in comparison, the old DVD was run over by a steamroller. The new 5.1 mix is much, much better.

The old transfer, while great, was just not that fine detailed and had too much compression. After seeing this, I just don't know how anyone can defend it. It's just like the dye-transfer print I saw, save for the color bumps.

Of course, I got the 3-disc set. WB did a fantastic job on the pre-1939 films. The 1925 version looks like a brand new film. The 1933 cartoon looks rough, but the transfer (progressive, even) makes the best of a lousy source.

I think there were some worries that this was missing the audio supplements. In the audio vault, there's a gigantic section with about 20 songs.


By the way, while Best Buy lists a higher price on their website, they're selling the 3-disc edition for $33.99 in-store.

That's not surprising due to different pair of eyes as well as HT setups. Such opinions about color will always vary from person to person. IMO, I prefer this newest dvd presentation, but what do I know except what is pleasing to my eyes.





Crawdaddy

Seeing frames at 1600x1200 (uncompressed JPG) better exposes how great the image is on the new DVD:




It's hard to see in a still, but the shot with the crossroads is so detailed, you can see nearly all the bricks in the road clearly as the camera moves down.

The new transfer does look different than the previous one, but it looks damned good. Overall the new set is leaps and bounds better than the last one in terms of organization and authoring. For those of you who are poo-pooing Disc 3, shame on you. You call yourselves film buffs? The films on the third disc have their problems, but they're all interesting for different reasons and well worth the price of the set. The documentary about Baum is also quite well done. The enclosed printed materials are all really nicely-printed and interesting to have, save for the "Premiere Ticket" that isn't even a real facsimile of the actual ticket but was created especially for this set. Kind of a waste of paper. I have to say, though, that it's the only misstep I've noticed about this set. Everything else absolutely reeks of quality.

*Opens set and smells*

Yup. That's quality.

The Canadian slipcover has a different UPC (012569644427) & Studio SKU (64442) than the U.S. edition, but the enclosed digipak is definitely the U.S. version along with the correct SKU (67705).

I'm guessing that Warner forgot to remove the 1933 cartoon listing from the U.S. digipak for the Canadian market.

I still haven't opened my copy yet, but it appears I'll be getting a refund and ordering it from Amazon.com instead.

No offense, but better than what? Since you didn't post comparable grabs of the same frames from the previous transfer these images are just wallpaper.

Why would the Canadian edition omit the 1933 cartoon? It's public domain, so why would it run into legal problems?


I meant by how higher res screenshots better illustrate the video quality. (original post corrected)

According to IMDb, the cartoon's country of origin was Canada. I'm ignorant both as to the history of the film in specific and Canadian copyright law in general, but this could theoretically lead to a discrepancy in its copyright status as between various countries.

DJ

I just spent a couple hours with this set and WOW! The transfer is so stunning, and detailed. My only complaint is that the circa 1979 interviews were not carried over from the last DVD, and of course since I am a Canadian consumer, the lack of the 1933 cartoon. Those are really my only complaint. I love this set. So beautiful. I also agree with Brian in how much more organized this set is.

Andy

Guys, I thought it looked great but was wondering one thing....in the 1998 re-release, the restoration technicians altered one of Dorothy's lines. When Uncle Henry is putting Toto into Miss Gulch's basket Dorothy says "Oh, Toto. Don't..." This is in the Continuity Script, the published screenplay, and every print up until the 1998 restoration. Supposedly, the team thought she was saying Toto twice and that it was a mistake. Neither the mono track nor the stereo track on the new dvd contain this partial line either.
Here is a quote from a website:

"The second departure from the accepted rendition was during a reel change when Toto is being taken from Dorothy. As she whimpers Toto’s name, there’s a stutter edit where an off camera Garland repeats the first few words of a line, “Oh, To, oh Toto.” The production team went back to the script and found no correspondence. So, the apparent mistake was excised, in the very real sense of the word!"

Memory is a tricky thing, pre WWII three strip films tended to use a muted palatte, not the rich vibrant full color of later films and DVD. The thought was that the color would be too much for the audience to handle for any length of time. So Gone with the Wind was a fairly brown palatte (and the NYTimes still felt it was too much color). Robin Hood and Gone With the Wind DVDs or VHS or LD releases are not representative of 1930s technicolor prints. Subsequent rereleases had prints struck to whatever was favorable at the time and this was probably done at studio/filmmaker/marketing consent (one or the other). What we get with the ultra-resolution transfers is something noone has ever really seen before, virtually perfect color balancing and three strip registration as well as the best combination of richness, density, contrast, and detail (hopefully without revealing things never meant to be seen) modern science can pull from the original negative to display at DVD resolution.

So I guess I'm wondering if the new dvd's audio was restored from scratch, and if so, why is the audio once again altered?

DeeF wrote:


In the very documentary you mention they clearly state who the people are who are making these choices-- the very same people who worked on the last several incarnations of TWOZ. One would think they'd know what they were doing with better technology (and I'm not just referring to better "authoring technology"), going straight to the Oneg and having had the experience of generating the very 1999 DVD that some folks here swear by.

I saw a very clear improvement upon their previous work in this new set. I wonder if any of those Warner folks have seen this thread. They'd be stunned, I bet.

I wish I could see this for myself. I went to 5 different stores here in LA today and NOT ONE had the 3-disc. Grrr.

They shouldn't be because they need to remember that old adage about "not being able to please everybody". Warner has done a great job with this dvd, even if there are those that disagree about the dvd presentation.






Crawdaddy

Went to Best Buy today to get the 3-disc set but they sold out the three copies that they got in. Went to Circuit City next door and they had a bunch in the back.

What an awesome package. The cover art alone is really well done.

Can't wait to watch this.

Thanks Warner!

My copy of the deluxe set finally arrived and I have it right by my side, still sealed. The cover art looks really cool and I like the embossed effect on the title and the hands, but that's no matter as I soooooo can't wait to get into this set.

I am such a nerd, aren't I?