The Fugitive, Season Two Volume 1 - Reviews - Page 7  

Originally Posted by Sam Favate

CBS very much pulled the wool over our eyes on this one. They could have announced the music substitutions before the release came out. They chose not to, and in so doing, intentionally misled customers. This is also a bad business decision. One of the first rules of business is "know your auidence." CBS should know that hard-core fans of The Fugitive aren't going to accept this quietly, and that they're making their customers dissatisfied with their product.

Originally Posted by bmasters9

FOX was also guilty of that, Sam Favate, at least where the first season's worth of "The Fall Guy" was concerned. Granted, I, for one, should not have spent $60 at Borders on this so-called "complete" first season's worth of "The Fall Guy," but then to purchase it, open it, and then later discover that Paul Williams and a band were blurred off in the pilot, and that several songs were replaced, and that there was a host of other editing-- all that gave me a cold chill. What made it worse was that FOX (at least on the box) never told me or other purchasers about the editing, therein making us think that it was as originally aired in 1981-82. I probably should have rented it first from Netflix to test-drive it prior to blowing off $60 on a bastardized copy. This, I believe, should also have been done with these bastardized "Fugitive" discs-- that way, the purchasers wouldn't have been out what they paid for bastardizations.

Originally Posted by Tim Tucker

Originally Posted by David Von Pein

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I'm glad to see this thread re-opened, but I'm a little confused by a portion of the above comment written by Ron Epstein.

I think a word was left out of the mix in the above comment (right?). Did you, Ron, mean for it to say (as I think you must have meant):

..."took it upon themselves to write nasty emails to a Paramount employee..." ??

You surely aren't suggesting that Fugitive fans are in the wrong for e-mailing Paramount Home Entertainment and voicing their extreme displeasure in general (i.e., through the proper channels of contacting the studio via either e-mail or snail-mail). Correct?

Because, IMO, fans of "The Fugitive" have every right to be very upset about the total destruction of the soundtracks of all 15 shows within a DVD set that Paramount, btw, is charging $3 more for (MSRP) than its previous non-altered Fugitive volume.

I, myself, sent off an e-mail to Paramount yesterday (no response from them as yet)....and I think it was a well-constructed mail that voiced my concern about the issue while remaining respectful at the same time.

I'd even like to post that e-mail message here, but I hesitate to do so for fear of saying anything of a negative nature about Paramount after seeing Ron's post quoted above.

BTW and for the record -- Prior to reading some of the posts in this thread yesterday, I did not have the slightest idea who the Paramount employee was who was being (evidently) sent some hateful e-mails. And I fully agree with Ron, et al, with respect to mails of that nature being sent to an individual employee of a studio -- that's just wrong.

But being able to voice concern and (to some extent and within tasteful limits) anger about something of this extreme nature (i.e., having every shred of music replaced on an entire DVD set) certainly shouldn't be looked upon as doing the devil's work, IMO.

If fans don't write e-mails and letters, how else can a studio take the true temperature of the people buying their products? Should we send up smoke signals?

Anyway, again, I'm guessing that Ron simply left out one single word that would totally change the context of the quoted passage above -- "employee". (I hope I'm right about that anyway.)

BTW -- I'd be happy to pay a "premium" price for a "fixed" Fugitive S2, V1 release. I'll just not buy one extra gallon of gas per week for one month (or even less). That ought to more than make up the difference in price.

Originally Posted by Cees Alons

I'm not sure about an entire underscore, but *something* like this has happened before indeed. The problem is this: older TV series and movies had contracts that didn't cover the "new publishing" that DVD legally appeared to be.

Back in 1997 and thereafter some studios lost one or two cases and then had to face huge demands by those who held rights to soundtracks. After that, they assured that newly produced TV shows (and movies!) had contracts covering the DVD as well, but obviously The Fugitive isn't one of those.

Now there are several possibilities. If indeed the legal situation stemming from the original contract is unclear, the studio tries to locate the current owner of those rights and starts negotiating a price. If that price is deemed too high (more than they think they can charge us for), they either can decide not to publish at all, or publish it with a different score. If the price is "right" they add it to the cost of production and determine the selling price.
If they can't find the legal owner, they cannot use it. It's as simple as that, because they cannot obtain the rights.

Originally Posted by ChrisCook

I've been following this thread since I saw one fan’s post on "Whats the last TV DVD you bought" thread the other day. Never imagined there would be music replacement and to such an extent with this one. I've been extremely vocal about "The Fall Guy" and about Fox and their treatment of Season 1. It even pointed to the possibility that for once they had secured the original broadcast music: the higher-than-usual price for the complete season 1 release; as well as releasing it in two split-volumes. Like "The Fugitive", it played an important part in the show. The sad thing is there's been no word officially from this studio about a second season release and about securing the music this season or acknowledging what transpired with the first season. What's even sadder is that I "googled" prior to street date and found out that this was coming with replaced music, which I posted on one of "The Fall Guy" threads here. As Ben said, it was so obvious what they did - they tried to cover it up and badly. Even going so far as to disrupt the bar fight scene in the pilot episode. I sympathize with "The Fugitive" fans and I hope CBS rectifies, if possible, this situation.

Originally Posted by MattPeriolat

2) Someday, somehow, a blanket law with a blanket "pay-artists-once-for rights-to-releases" payment is covered or this is just never ever going to work. I really wonder if all this is just the result of too many people on both sides are just being horrifically stubborn. Then again, the system is so complicated now that if they couldn't even find out who needed to be paid for background music for Fugitive, then it's already rotten.

I know I'm just restating a position over and over, but what more can be done? In the long run, what exists now will create no wins for anyone: studios, musicians or consumers.

Originally Posted by The Obsolete Man

It seems like Greed is at the heart of all the music problems, and for once, it isn't the studios at fault. Most music rights holders, it seems, have taken an all or nothing approach, and want vast sums of money, or you can't play with their toys. That seems stupid to me, because that way, no one makes any money, yet if the rights holders were willing to play ball, fans would be happy, and everyone would have a litle more money than they started out with.

I just don't get it.

Originally Posted by The Obsolete Man

It seems like Greed is at the heart of all the music problems, and for once, it isn't the studios at fault. Most music rights holders, it seems, have taken an all or nothing approach, and want vast sums of money, or you can't play with their toys. That seems stupid to me, because that way, no one makes any money, yet if the rights holders were willing to play ball, fans would be happy, and everyone would have a litle more money than they started out with.

I just don't get it.

Originally Posted by Harry-N

The second episode features Lt. Girard, and usually, whenever he makes an appearance, his Rugolo-composed-specific music would play. It's a loud, low brass figure with discordant high strings.