Reggie W

Re: HTF DVD REVIEW: There Will Be Blood: 2-Disc Collector's Edition

Well, I'm all for being green but I don't think there is much question that this is not only lousy packaging but a lousy second disc in the two disc set. So, it's already got my vote for worst dvd release of the year. This has nothing to do with the film itself only the total package of the dvd, features, packaging, and what I would see as total value of the entire set. The extras are of minor interest and have little to no business being tossed onto a second disc to bump up the price. I love this film but I will probably never load that second disc into the player again now that I've watched it. The scenes that were cut from the film add nothing and should have been cut. They were pretty lousy and do not at all gel with the tone of the rest of the film. The outake is a waste of time unless watching a weaker take of an existing scene where Daniel Day-Lewis laughs at the end is of interest to you. 15 Minutes is a slide show. The Story of Petroleum is an interesting silent that is not related to the film but is of some very minor historical interest. It's worth watching once if you have an interest in the history of the oil business but in all honesty there are better places to go if this is an area you wish to research.

So, if I am grading this dvd package I would do so as follows:

Film: A

Extras: D-

Packaging: F

Advice: Buy whatever version you can get the cheapest because the 2 disc "Collector's Edition" is a complete waste and the only thing worthwhile is the film. If you really are a "collector" (which implies you want to preserve the disc or discs in the best possible fashion) you will want to repackage your disc or discs once you get them home.

Basically this is the second two disc set I've seen recently where there is no reason for the second disc (Into the Wild being the other example). I would compare the There Will Be Blood set with the No Country for Old Men single disc because they are both from Paramount Vantage/Miramax and it's quite obvious that for the "collector" the No Country single disc is a far better value. I applaud any efforts to "go green" but I do not find calling something a "Collector's Edition" when it's anything but a good deal.

Hey, I still bought the product because the film is worth having but the rest of this can be tossed in the trash...that's not very "collectable" is it? I think a "green" option and an honest "collector's edition" would have been the way to go. They did two versions anyway right? I think people are correct to say, "Hey, I bought this product and I don't like what I got for my money."

The last thing I would say is if the idea was to go "green" with this set there is a great deal of comedy in that. If that was really their idea they should have just done the single disc edition with the green packaging and stated they were doing so in an effort to be green. It's far more wasteful to print and run two separate editions, one with a wasteful second disc, two sets of artwork, etc...to do that and then claim they did things this way to be "green" is, quite frankly, idiotic. You either go green with the single disc green package or you don't. I have not heard anybody claim this was "green" packaging yet and so we are just speculating that is what they did. Either way they look foolish.