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Warning: ALF Season 1 cut!

post #1 of 365
8/10/04 at 2:59am
Thread Starter 
Hi,

I received ALF Season 1 today and just by checking 2 random episodes (Pilot and "It's not easy being green") I noticed charring cuts. My guess is that once again syndicated episodes have made its way onto DVD. At this point I don't know if all episodes are affected, but the pilot alone is missing its first 2 minutes for crying out loud! As cheap as the set was, Lions Gate can shove further seasons for all I care.

EDIT: Noticed further cuts in "Mother and Child Reunion", and since it seems that all episodes have the same running time (or shorter) than this one (21:27) it's pretty much guaranteed that every episode is affected. And they have the nerve to call this "the complete first season" in the overview!

Chris
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post #2 of 365
8/10/04 at 3:43am
In the mid-eighties, half hour shows were 24 minutes or so without commercials. That's definitely cut.
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post #3 of 365
8/10/04 at 4:59am
After receiving my box set yesterday and watching the first ep it seemed short to me so I suspected this. Also beware floaters my set had them. Lions Gate used the worst 4 disk keep case. THey have the disks almost laying on top of each other and the hubs are extremely loose. I switched mine already over to a 4 disk Nexpak box. Oh well this was probably the only season I was buying anyhow.
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post #4 of 365
8/10/04 at 5:15am
Thread Starter 
Dave,

yeah, in my case 3 out of 4 discs were floaters. Luckily none of the discs were scratched. Then again, as things turned out it wouldn't have made any difference. I've watched and taped the show religiously (and excessively) when it first aired, and in the cut form the episodes are presented on the DVDs, they're unwatchable to me anyways. How can I enjoy an episode when I'm just waiting for the next cut?

Chris
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post #5 of 365
8/10/04 at 6:35am
Hi, I was wondering or any of you can tell me if there are dutch subtitles on this dvd? If so, I probably will buy these set even if they have cut some scenes out. This is what I understand from your postings, can anyone explain to me why they will do that / have done that?

Thanks,

Jan
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post #6 of 365
8/10/04 at 6:58am
Thanks for saving me the cash, as I'll now pass on this set which I was very much looking forward to owning.

Buy a clue, Lion's Gate!
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post #7 of 365
8/10/04 at 7:24am
Well, I, too will take a "pass" on this set.

Even the first run of the show on Odyssey (now Hallmark) had uncut episodes.

If this is the sort of BS we can expect, the set should be recalled.
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post #8 of 365
8/10/04 at 8:02am
Thanks for the warning. I was going to get the set, but now I can save my money.

We all need to send a loud message (mostly by not buying it) to the studio that this kind of thing will not be tolerated.
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post #9 of 365
8/10/04 at 8:09am
Thread Starter 
JanM,

no subtitles at all, only English closed captions (which require a closed caption reader).

Chris
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post #10 of 365
8/10/04 at 8:29am
Quote:
We all need to send a loud message (mostly by not buying it) to the studio that this kind of thing will not be tolerated.


No, actually if you want to send a message, dont buy the set then TELL them why. If you just storm off in a huff and sulk in the corner, they will just attribute the poor sales to "There are no Alf fans".

If you pass on the set *AND* tell them, then they'll get the message.

If you care - really care - send a real physical piece of mail to Lion's Gate.
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post #11 of 365
8/10/04 at 8:40am
Their address:

Lions Gate Entertainment
2700 Colorado Ave., Suite 200
Santa Monica, CA 90404
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post #12 of 365
8/10/04 at 8:46am
Another thanks for the warning. How very disappointing.
I will pass also.
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post #13 of 365
8/10/04 at 9:11am
I just called and cancelled my order. I'll transfer my off air network masters instead. Thanks for the heads up.
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post #14 of 365
8/10/04 at 9:24am
Glad I haven't opened mine. Returning it as we speak!
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post #15 of 365
8/10/04 at 9:55am
Too late for me. I opened mine in the car just to verify it was free of floaters - it was the only copy at Best Buy that didn't have something rattling around when I picked it up.
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post #16 of 365
8/10/04 at 9:58am
Well I opened mine before I found out I wonder if DDD will take it back
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post #17 of 365
8/10/04 at 10:34am
I wonder if DDD will take it back

They should. It's false advertising on the part of the studio.
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post #18 of 365
8/10/04 at 10:44am
The box states that the running time is 616 minutes. Does this include everything or just the 25 episodes? If it is reffering to just the 25 episodes, each should be 24.5 minutes long. If so, this is really false advertising! the box also states that they are "Newly Remastered" so they took the time to remaster the syndicated versions?
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post #19 of 365
8/10/04 at 10:57am
It's not something I really needed to have, but now I'm definetly crossing this off my list!

I never was too impressed with the Cover Art they decided to go with. I guess I was right, it's as much of a Slobby Job as it looks like.
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post #20 of 365
8/10/04 at 11:49am
What type of case is this? Are the discs overlapping each other, or do they have their own pages? My local Best Buy had about 20 copies, but every one was a "rattler". Now I find out about the episodes being edited. That sound Artisan just heard was $30 being folded and placed back into my wallet.
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post #21 of 365
8/10/04 at 12:02pm
I was on the fence, but I just fell off.
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post #22 of 365
8/10/04 at 2:03pm
Well this sucks but I'll still get it. I love Alf and finally having it on DVD is awesome cuts or no cuts. I saw ALF as a kid and loved it but it wasn't until 2000 when it came back on tv in Canada on the Family Channel that I finally got to see this show again and loved it. The synndication cuts were probably there as well and seeing those as the ones I saw it won't really make a diffrence. Shows shoulden't be cut and it sucks it happened to ALF and should be fixed in the future. I'll defintly write them a letter and see if they can get it right next time.
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post #23 of 365
8/10/04 at 2:25pm
They put out the Will & Grace episodes too.

Some of those were cut.
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post #24 of 365
8/10/04 at 2:59pm
Would you buy a novel if you knew 10% of the pages were missing?

Me neither, that's why Edited TV shows on DVD won't cut it...
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post #25 of 365
8/10/04 at 3:00pm
Gord/Dave, someone.

Please explain this atrocity!
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post #26 of 365
8/10/04 at 5:15pm
I assume they were given copies of the masters to work with, since they don't own the show. They probably had no idea what they were working with.

Unfortunately I'm rarely impressed with the sets from Lions Gate. The Dead Zone sets are great, and Boomtown was nice (except they should have released the 6 season 2 episodes in the set), but everything else is pretty lame. Cheap packaging, sloppy jobs on authoring and cut episodes. Their QC department either doesn't exist, or is busy doing something else.

Gord
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post #27 of 365
8/10/04 at 6:38pm
Thanks for the heads up.. definitely wasn't a "must have", so some money saved to burn a hole in my pocket!
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post #28 of 365
8/10/04 at 6:46pm
Matt - the discs are overlapping each other. The hubs are on the inside of each side of the case (2 discs on each side).

They had about 9 copies on the shelf at Best Buy. I found one that didn't have loose discs. I stopped by a Target to pick something else up and checked the Alf sets there - they only had 3 on the shelf and one of them was good.

They need to seriously reconsider this package design in the future.
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post #29 of 365
8/10/04 at 6:56pm
Quote:
Unfortunately I'm rarely impressed with the sets from Lions Gate. The Dead Zone sets are great, and Boomtown was nice (except they should have released the 6 season 2 episodes in the set), but everything else is pretty lame. Cheap packaging, sloppy jobs on authoring and cut episodes. Their QC department either doesn't exist, or is busy doing something else.


And I thought Columbia TriStar were dingbats! Lions Gate makes Columbia TriStar look like a group of professors.

Can we rise as one and slay them?

We need to bring lawyers into a case of questionable DVD practices!
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post #30 of 365
8/10/04 at 6:58pm
With the money they made from the Fahrenheit 911 they can afford not to cut corners.

It amazes me to no end that a relatively small company like Shout! Factory can put out good work but larger companies like this and Columbia fall flat on their faces. Oh well, the bigger they are...
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