I looked through the archive and the most current thread relative to this topic I could find was 2005, so I thought it would be more appropriate to start a new one than dig up a discussion from that long ago.
In a matter of days it will be 2012, widescreen TVs are much more commonplace now than back in the early days of DVD, and the studios have largely moved on to Blu-ray. So why, when taking stock of my collction, are there still movies that I would like to own which aren't even available in widescreen on DVD yet?
Specifically, "Matilda" was recently adapted into a stage musical now performing in London, and a friend will be seeing it next month and will bring me back a copy of the CD for it. That got me eager to revisit the book and the Danny DeVito movie, which I was fond of as a kid, and when I looked it up on Amazon, I found out that Matilda has never received a widescreen DVD release despite having two releases to speak of from Sony. Nor has The Witches, another Dahl adaptation which is owned by Warner Bros.
I could go on with a list of other second-tier titles which still need attenton too (Balto, George of the Jungle, A Goofy Movie, varous catalog titles from several studios.) And in an issue which is not as severe but still very present, I do actually own a few very early titles which, despite being in the original ratios, are non-anamorphic but have never been revisited with a superrior transfer. ..Evita from Hollywood Pictures, owned by Disney, Marvin's Room from Mirimax which was until recently owned by Disney, and, probably most shockingly, Hercules from Disney. Disney has gone through almost their entire animated catalog twice over, but Hercules is still stuck with the same transfer as it had on its 1999 Limited Issue release, which was simply repressed as the Gold Collection version in 2000 and still available today. I know Hercules isn't one of Disney's mammoth sellers like Lion King or Snow White but still, I would buy an anamorphic release of it and suspect a lot of other people would too.
Instead of creating a new thread (or digging up really really old ones) to address each of these issues individuall, I would just like to observe how unsettling it is that these types of releases still have not been corrected this late into the DVD era. I would atually like Blu-ray releases of every movie I've mentioned in this thread, but at this point I would even setle for new DVDs. My "wish list item" for 2012 is that as many discs of this nature get new releses as financially possible. I understnd that something like The Witches is probably not going to be a big seller for Warner, but what would be the harm in releasing it in OAR, even as a Warner Archive MOD title if need be, for example?
It's just surprising that certian things like original aspect ratio releases are still a problem for some less-than-bestselling but still notable catalog titles such as these. I am sure there are others besides the ones I've mentioned which matter to other people here even if these don't. This is just an observation. I hope someone might notice it. Thanks for listening.
Edited by JakeLip - 12/24/11 at 6:23pm
In a matter of days it will be 2012, widescreen TVs are much more commonplace now than back in the early days of DVD, and the studios have largely moved on to Blu-ray. So why, when taking stock of my collction, are there still movies that I would like to own which aren't even available in widescreen on DVD yet?
Specifically, "Matilda" was recently adapted into a stage musical now performing in London, and a friend will be seeing it next month and will bring me back a copy of the CD for it. That got me eager to revisit the book and the Danny DeVito movie, which I was fond of as a kid, and when I looked it up on Amazon, I found out that Matilda has never received a widescreen DVD release despite having two releases to speak of from Sony. Nor has The Witches, another Dahl adaptation which is owned by Warner Bros.
I could go on with a list of other second-tier titles which still need attenton too (Balto, George of the Jungle, A Goofy Movie, varous catalog titles from several studios.) And in an issue which is not as severe but still very present, I do actually own a few very early titles which, despite being in the original ratios, are non-anamorphic but have never been revisited with a superrior transfer. ..Evita from Hollywood Pictures, owned by Disney, Marvin's Room from Mirimax which was until recently owned by Disney, and, probably most shockingly, Hercules from Disney. Disney has gone through almost their entire animated catalog twice over, but Hercules is still stuck with the same transfer as it had on its 1999 Limited Issue release, which was simply repressed as the Gold Collection version in 2000 and still available today. I know Hercules isn't one of Disney's mammoth sellers like Lion King or Snow White but still, I would buy an anamorphic release of it and suspect a lot of other people would too.
Instead of creating a new thread (or digging up really really old ones) to address each of these issues individuall, I would just like to observe how unsettling it is that these types of releases still have not been corrected this late into the DVD era. I would atually like Blu-ray releases of every movie I've mentioned in this thread, but at this point I would even setle for new DVDs. My "wish list item" for 2012 is that as many discs of this nature get new releses as financially possible. I understnd that something like The Witches is probably not going to be a big seller for Warner, but what would be the harm in releasing it in OAR, even as a Warner Archive MOD title if need be, for example?
It's just surprising that certian things like original aspect ratio releases are still a problem for some less-than-bestselling but still notable catalog titles such as these. I am sure there are others besides the ones I've mentioned which matter to other people here even if these don't. This is just an observation. I hope someone might notice it. Thanks for listening.
Edited by JakeLip - 12/24/11 at 6:23pm
