HTF REVIEW: The Wizard Of Oz - Three-Disc Collector's Edition (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED). - Page 10

Thanks David, Thanks Doug

Im still a little miffed about the seemingly lack of detail in the new edition as reported by more than one HTF member

Ill pick it up anyway due to the extras, etc.

But the older edition will be right next to it on the shelf.

OK, I got sucked in. I've just finished watching the 2005 Ultra-Resolution version of the entire film . Without a doubt I've fallen in love with this transfer. It is so rich and lush, with such deep blacks and vibrant color, that the older transfer pales (pun intended) in comparison. The scenes in the forest with the Cowardly Lion, in the haunted forest on the way to get the witch's broomstick, and the rescue of Dorothy at the witch's castle are just spectacular! Even if the older transfer has more detail, this new Collector's Edition is just a revelation! SUPERB! I can't wait to dive into the extras.

Also, I have to say what a brilliant, brilliant film The Wizard of Oz truly is. How amazing that it still casts such a spell so long after its initial release. It will never be duplicated. Perhaps my feelings are rooted in the childhood memories I have of this movie, but I think it's just perfect.

We'll be watching the new edition tonight... my stepkids have NEVER seen it! 7:00 p.m. can't come fast enough....

The older version doesn't have more detail, just more aperture correction. If you really want the same look in the new version and you have an HTPC running TT or ZP and ffdshow, just crank up the ol Lanczos luma sharpen contol to max. Same effect....

Ted

Every 2-disc I had seen was WITHOUT a slipcover as well...until tonight. I was at FYE and all their copies DID have slipcovers. It looks just like the Amaray cover except that it has all the specs/features on the back. However, all the other local stores (Best Buy, Circuit City, Wal-Mart, Target) had copies WITHOUT slipcovers. Very strange. I picked up the 3-disc, so it makes no difference to me, but I thought it was intersting.

I could find none of the three version sets Tuesday at Best Buy, FYE or BJ's Club. I bought the 2 discer at Best Buy, but have not opened it yet, I'm thinking that one may be a gift...



After I bought the 2 discer at BB I did indeed see the double discers at FYE with a slipcase!

Ric

My 2-disc amaray has specs and features listed on the back. (Ric: I got mine at Best Buy/Crossgates...without a slipcase.)

BUt, interestingly, I found this scan of a back cover from DVD Empire and find that it is different from mine:



Mine has an image of Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Lion (no Glinda). They are holding hands on the yellow brick road. The contents of Discs 1 & 2 are the same...but are aligned differently. Most everything else seems the same...except, of course, there is a sku.

EDIT** Also...under the box listing the contents...just under the listing of movie credits...my copy has similar credits for the Angela Lansbury doc: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: Making of a Movie Classic...directed by Jack Haley, Jr.

I'm late to the party, but I love the quality of this new release, to a point. I'm one of the lucky Canadians that rushed out to pick this up, only to discover that the cartoon is missing! Is anything else missing on the Canadian 3-disc set? I've opened this so I'm stuck wih it, and I don't really want to import it just for 8 minutes of content. But if I'm missing anything else, I just might.

I'm emailing Warners to complain about the missing cartoon.

If Warner took the costly step of pressing separate discs for the Canadian market, you can bet that they had a real reason for it. So I'm not telling you not to bother contacting them, but I doubt they'll be doing a correction and exchange program for it.

DJ

Nothing's missing except for the cartoon

Odd. Marco says it's a rare, hard-to-get cartoon, and he knows his toons. Is there anything "extra" on the 3rd Canadian disc that may not have left room for the cartoon (language track)? Is it a space issue I mean. Seems weird to leave off an (apparently) public domain feature otherwise, because as was said, there are additional costs to make different discs for a "small" 3-disc set R1 sub-market.

A friend of mine is an "intellectual property" attorney, and has told me in the last few months that the whole "public domain" issue has more holes that most pieces of Swiss cheese.

As it relates to the matter at hand, he told me long ago, that just because a copyright may not have been renewed in the U.S., doesn't make a property P.D. in other countries, and that includes Canada. That may be the reason why the Canadian version of the 3 disc set is without the cartoon.

It's only a hypothesis, but perhaps that cartoon still has legal copyright protection outside the U.S.

Any other legal eagles out there with more info on this?

Meanwhile, let me once again say, this release (even without the cartoon!) is a marvel, and raises the bar for presentation of a great film on DVD. I've never seen ANY release get such unanimous praise from the bona fide press.

Truly remarkable in every way. I just bought 5 more tonight to give as Xmas presents, as I fear there may not be any around by the time people start doing their holiday shoppping!

Good point.

My (vague) understanding is it is quite inexpensive to renew a copyright, that is just the renewal cost, not any subsidiary legal ones. What I don't understand is why it's not done then. Must be some tricky legal things as to just who can renew it, because I'm often surprised as to U.S. copyrights that have lapsed...must be the legal issues surrounding who has ownership of the CR, and would cost too much to resolve that so it goes PD. Just a guess...

Otherwise, copyright in Canada be damned, I want the U.S. one, can't have been just forgotten about on things like this.

I watched most of the film last night, and I have to say that I don't see what many of you are seeing. This transfer is fabulous and although I don't have a calibrated set (Mitsubishi 55" RP), I found the colors to be perfect and nothing like the screen captures from earlier in the thread. Dorothy's dress was a perfect blue, and at times I could even see a hint of pink in her blouse (The acutal color she wore). The detail in the scarescrow's makeup was almost alarming. I went in somewhat pessimistic due to some other comments in this thread, but I have to say that they are completely alleviated.

There are only a couple small disappointments. I wish they had kept the original commentary from the LD as well as the new one. I would've taken this over the effects track which I highly doubt that I will ever listen to. I was also disappointed that the interface for the audio archive wasn't better. I hate to say it, but I think the interface is actually better on the old disc, and it came with a printed guide that details all of the tracks which is completely missing from this release. So in the end, both titles will remain on my shelf.

I felt like a little kid watching this, and could barely contain my emmotions.

Of course after Friday I'll have much more to say (after our official viewing/comparison), but my first-impression is that the new disc is the one to watch.

Colors, as Patrick said, are velvety and film-like. This looks much more like real "film"...and kudos to Warner for leaving in all the natural fine-film grain. That was a decision that took some guts given modern expectations for everything always looking squeaky-clean, and it preserves the "bloom" that really preserves a film-like presentation. I'm sure some digital cleaning could have left a sharper, cleaner, more "pristine" looking result that many may have preferred...and maybe one day we'll be able to switch video versions on a single Blu-ray disc as easily as we do audio soundtracks to enjoy an array of options...but for now this is best decision I think they could have made--preserving as much of the original film character as is possible in the DVD format.

Colors are perfect.

I'll say that again.

Colors are perfect.

They have the natural warm-tone that the film ought to have. The 1999 version, while still pleasing in many ways, looks artificially cool--like everything is lit with flourescent lighting. On my calibrated display the 1999 version had fleshtones that were objectively too cool.

The 1999 version is still a beautiful representation of the film, and I can understand some folks preferring that presentation given the range of tastes, display systems, and calibration issues...but I do feel this new version comes the closest to the way this film is "supposed" to look. The 1999 version won't be leaving my library however...I like having both presentations ready to suit my fancy at a moment's notice.

More to come...


p.s. There WAS a problem that I had...the dialogue was noticably out of sync with the video...though I'm using the OPPO DVD player which can have issues with this (they usually can be corrected by setting the audio delay but even at 50 miliseconds the delay was still distracting). I'm trying to see if I can fix this before Friday...either by updating my OPPO firmware or figuring out if I can delay on the B&K processor.

I guess no one has theories as to the "missing word"

ScottR and his missing word...



Sorry Scott, your info posted here in this thread was the first I'd heard of the missing "Toto" line. Is it missing on both the old and new DVDs? Exactly where does this happen in the film?

When Dorothy is putting Toto in Miss Gulch's basket, according to the Continuity Script she says "Oh, Toto. Don't..." This was in every video, ld, and the first dvd from MGM. It was cut in 98 because WB thought it was an edit stutter and that she said "Toto" twice. It's not on the mono track or the stereo track. I was just wondering if maybe it was accidentally added to the film in 39. It occured during a reel change.

I got my copy today. The first thing I checked was the shot of the house with the witch's feet sticking out. The house didn't look blue or red tinted like the screen caps....it was white. Nice. Screen caps are very misleading...

If your BB or other store appears to be sold out, ask a clerk if they have more stock in the back. I did this yesterday at the South Bend BB when I found the rack empty where the 3-disc version had been. Sure enough, they had more in the back that hadn't been brought out yet

Good point Damin, it's just such a kick in the balls that the Canadian release is missing a Canadian cartoon. I'd rather they left it off all of the sets, so I wouldn't feel ripped off!


Not really, I'm not THAT selfish! I'm still going to send them a politley worded email explaining my dissapointment in the omission.

The other thing with it is, I haven't seen any Canadian ads saying it is excluded, the only way I found out is when I got home and opened it up.

And admittedly, I'm making a bit of a mountain out of a mole hill, I'm not writing off the whole set, it really is pretty great and I can't wait to watch it. But I'm also not going to eat the $40 bucks I paid to order a second set from the states to get a feature that I should of had, based on the packaging.

Danny, the computer inventory at several BBs I went to showed that nearly all the BBs in the West LA/Greater LA area were out. There won't be any "in the back" if the computer says "0" because that means they've all been sold.

I have had a scenario where a particular title was not on the shelf, but the computer said they had several in stock, and so going "to the back" helped find them, but not when the computer says they have zero stock.

Someone really screwed the pooch, whether it was BB's ordering manager, or WB's distribution channels/policy.

This is a gorgeous package and release. I just wish it weren't so disparately priced from the 2 disc release.

The main thing you're paying extra for on the three-disc is the hard copies of the original program reproduction, stills, etc.

Has anyone else noticed an error in the stills section? If you go to Costumes and Make-Up tests, the first slide says "Part One" but there is no corresponding "Part Two." The stills appear to be a direct port from the Ultimate Oz laserdisc, yet they apparently skipped over the (admittedly small) Part Two section. Odd.

I'm so happy with this release! I was never a fan of the '98 restoration. It was too hazy. Fans of the film should pick up Munchkin Coroner Meinhardt Raabe's new autobiography "Memories of A Munchkin." It goes into great detail about the making of the famous scene. I saw him at the Oz fest in Indiana back in September and he signed my copy. The audio glitch I noted before does sound like it was inherent in the original. If it was, I'm glad they corrected it. Go for the 3-disc guys....it's beautiful!

I picked up the 3-disc set and I could not be more impressed. WB has nailed it with this one. The Wizard of Oz is an alltime favorite of mine. My parents taped off TV in the early 80's when they got their first VCR. As a 4-5 year old kid, I was mesmerized. When I popped this new release into my DVD player, I experienced the same thing. I have not yet jumped into the extras yet, but I cannot wait to start going through them this weekend. Wow, with this Oz set, the classic War of the Worlds Tuesday and the '33 King Kong in a few weeks, this fall is a great one for classic film.

Thanks Warner Bros. for another outstanding release!

They probably wouldn't care anyhow. It seems that Canadian releases are becoming worse and worse. I've complained relentlessly about it. Any movies from now on I'm actually interested in buying I'm ordering from a US site online. They'll be cheaper that way too.

It's just ashame that the studios have forced me to, with ugly bi-lingual covers, edited content and artificially high prices.

This may sound bananas, but I've just read a post at the forums of the Laureate website (a UK based DVD producer) by Laureate boss Ken Barnes who insists that another 'Ultimate' version of The Wizard of Oz will be released next year.

Now, please don't shoot the messenger; I just pass this on because, being in 'the business' you'd think he knows of what he speaks, but quite frankly, how much more 'ultimate' can this get?

See the discussion here.

I don't see it happening, unless, it's for the High Def format. There is nothing else that Warner can include on this current format that will cause me to buy another dvd release.