Frozen 3D Bungle?! (2 Viewers)

[RolandL]

I've written to Disney about this but not expecting anything more than a form letter, good to know they read messages here. I told them that they did a great job promoting 3D at first so it's very distressing to see them not offer a 3D edition of Frozen now, and doing that will just hinder 3D adoption. If their 3D titles haven't been selling as well as they'd like (someone on another board said that Disney is "very unhappy" with the sales numbers so far), it's probably because they've been pricing them too high! I've bought almost every 3D release that's been out so far just to show my support for the format, but most of the titles I DON'T have are from Disney simply because I haven't been able to get them at a decent price! Has ANYBODY bought Mars Needs Moms at $35???

3D has been getting bad press since this year's CES, there's improvements on it still to be made but I certainly don't want to see it given up on.

Mars Needs Moms $19.72

 

[RolandL]

Indeed. Let me add to what Ron said: As someone who has not yet adopted 3D in the home, moves like these make me wary of doing so. I didn't go high def til the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray wars were over, and I'm not likely to get 3D at home until there is regular availability of titles.

Amazon has almost 1000 3-D titles

 

[Greg_D_R]

I'll import Frozen, if the 3D release is a UK exclusive. Strange move by Disney.

 

[Paurian]

I also wrote to Disney and their response was that they didn't have any "tentative release date set" then provided a link to the disneydvd release calendar "to view [their] release calendar".

I signed up an account for amazon.co.uk and pre-ordered a copy immediately after the email.

I'm guessing this was a form letter response because I warned them that not releasing the 3D blu-ray package in the United States by the time they release it in the UK would encourage a justified sense of piracy.

There have been times that I've purchased discs on eBay that ended up being copies of the original (though the sellers did a heck of a job trying to make them look official) and I've walked out of theaters in DC to bump into a stranger in a trench coat filled with pirated discs to sell. In one case, I just blew it off because the product I wanted (Mickey Mouse in Living Color Volume 1) was really difficult to find used under $80. This guy had it for $40 and as long as I didn't need subtitles I was fine (they were all in chinese or cantonese or something like that).

The bottom line is that Frozen is a situation of artificial scarcity based on location, invoked by the studio - not even a scarcity based on limited editions which I can understand. Nevertheless, I anticipate the same type of thing happening: Jerks will get loads of cash. Disney will get none. Buyers beware, because there really isn't another option.

When there's such a closed market on such a hot commodity, they could only expect bad to come from it. Everyone loses.

 

[McCrutchy]

I suspect that this is more of a release date issue than anything else.

Release dates are pretty much useless in the United States now, as everyone expects the Blu-ray (or Blu-ray 3D) version of any new release film to be pre-orderable mere days after the theatrical release, irrespective of whether there is an actual release date. They probably get myriad pre-orders right away, since the film is an fresh on people's minds as it may ever be--like a sort of "set it and forget it", just with movies.

I'm sure Disney was more then ready to allow the pre-orders for all editions to go up immediately if the film only did well or did poorly, but because it has become a surprise hit, I'm sure Disney now wants to step up their home video release plans with exclusives, and the 3D edition is the perfect scapegoat for this.

I bet Wal-Mart jumped the gun early, and is being punished for it now.

As for it being available in the UK, it's also available elsewhere in 3D right now, Germany and France to name two, and others will have to wait their turn based on the staggered theatrical release anyway. The United States is a home video cash cow compared to everywhere else, so I'm sure that's why Disney has let the international editions go up for sale--I doubt exclusives are as lucrative for Disney abroad as they are here.

I expect all that needs to be done here is for Disney to work out exactly who will get what and when, and then we will see the US 3D pre-order. I can't imagine that the Blu-ray 3D version would be permanently exclusive, either. At worst, perhaps a timed exclusive, but I'd be shocked if it did not go on general sale eventually.

 

[Jason_V]

"Eventually" is the key term. By having the 3D version be a retailer exclusive or come out later, Disney has got to understand the sales figures will be that much lower. And then, in their infinite wisdom, they can say that no one is buying 3D...especially when the release week deals on the general release will invariably be not as good as if all editions came out simultaneously.

This exclusive game has gone on long enough. Target apparently has an exclusive with bonus featurettes. Fine. I'll stick wiht my Amazon pre-order because I have much better things to do with my time that track down a version of a movie the studio clearly does not want me to have.

You would think, or at least I would, that Disney would want to keep pushing the 3D format. But, as we mentioned earlier in this thread, it feels like everyone is trying to kill it.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

And then, in their infinite wisdom, they can say that no one is buying 3D...

They're already saying that now, since many of their 3D titles are selling poorly due to being priced higher!

 

[RolandL]

Did any of you see this film at a theatre is 3D? If yes, how was the 3D?

 

[Brandon Conway]

The 3D is pretty much the same high standard, but not extremely creative use of the tech that you see in most of the digital animation releases.

The 3D on the Mickey short Get a Horse! was excellent, however.

 

[FoxyMulder]

They're already saying that now, since many of their 3D titles are selling poorly due to being priced higher!

Reminds me a little of the BBC here in the UK, they dropped 3D last November and claimed people were not watching the programming in 3D, the thing is this, they never showed a single movie in 3D, all the content they showed was the Olympics, Mr Stink, Dinosaur Planet and Doctor Who, 4 things in 2 years and all except the Olympics were badly advertised, not exactly a great attempt at promoting 3D and then they gave up, the sad thing is that the BBC actually utilized the technology extremely well, the 3D in Mr Stink and Doctor Who was superb, it had depth and popout.

I don't think they really wanted a 3D channel and were looking for excuses to drop it, they needed bandwidth capacity for BBC 3 and 4 and BBC news and CBeebies to go HD, dropping 3D was essential for this plan, hopefully Avatar 2 will help give 3D a much needed boost in a few years, until then Disney and other filmmakers could give their own boost to the format by actually shooting live action films in native 3D and using depth AND popout in all releases instead of just boring old depth on it's own.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

The 3D on the Mickey short Get a Horse! was excellent, however.

That is what I keep hearing.

The 3D on that short is supposed to be phenomenal!

 

[Ronald Epstein]

They're already saying that now, since many of their 3D titles are selling poorly due to being priced higher!

It's very hard to buy a 3D Blu-ray combo priced at $30 and above.

I don't know how often the Disney combos come near $24.99 when they are released. That should be the
target price for these packages.

I am discouraged when the Warner and Image 40-minute IMAX 3D Blu-rays are released at $30+ apiece.

3D has been around for a good few years. Perhaps the studios can make better sales with more attractive pricing.

 

[RolandL]

Frozen 3D from Amazon.UK is about $32 total including shipping to the US. But I usually wait for sales or buy on eBay.

 

[Jason_V]

With release week deals and coupons, no 3D combo pack should be more than $24.99. Now, if you buy outside of release week, that's a totally different story.

It shouldn't be that way, but like all things, if you strike early, you usually get a deal.

 

[Mark_TB]

I loved this movie, and promptly ordered the 3D combo from Amazon when the pre-order first went up. But now that they are playing games with it, I'm losing interest. I'm sure I will eventually pick up a 3D copy, but after the Oz fiasco, I'm tired of playing their games. Life's too short.

 

[Ejanss]

I loved this movie, and promptly ordered the 3D combo from Amazon when the pre-order first went up. But now that they are playing games with it, I'm losing interest. I'm sure I will eventually pick up a 3D copy, but after the Oz fiasco, I'm tired of playing their games. Life's too short.

What "games"? I'm still in the camp subscribing to the "Faulty disk mastering hushed up" theory (especially in the wake of fans blowing up Little Mermaid's disk error in their faces), and believing we'll get the "fixed" version later--Probably in tandem with another 3D release, or a new Pixar re-render, for promotion.

And Oz was their new experiment in what disgruntled fans had been hounding them for years: Does every single 3D release have to be an "Ultimate 5-disk edition"??
The same experiment that eliminated the Digital Copy hard-disk in favor of their new UV-code system, and now has them looking at dropping the DVD copy for 3D editions. Now, all we wanted was for them to complete the Oz experiment, and realize that fewer disks usually means a lower price than stufffed-to-the-gills 5-disk editions, and they don't HAVE to release them at $35-45.

 

[sleroi]

I think the studios are being rather impatient about 3-D. 3-D required a new 3-D TV, Blu, and audiowise a new receiver. When 3-D was pushed, a lot of people had just purchased new, perfectly good non 3-D HDTVs. I purchased my first 3-D TV in the Fall of 2012. It was another year before I had upgraded my player, receiver and purchased enough glasses for the family. During that time, both Best Buy and Frys (which had an awesome 3-D section) virtually eliminated their Blu ray shelf space. What confuses me is the push towards Glasses free 3-D. Sounds cool, but if not enough people invested in 3-D Bluray, how many are going to be able to afford glasses free? Especially with UHD, OLED and a lack of specifics about HDMI 2.0, color gamut, etc. I dont think the masses will be upgrading to much with enough numbers to satisfy the studios.

 

[Mark_TB]

What "games"? I'm still in the camp subscribing to the "Faulty disk mastering hushed up" theory (especially in the wake of fans blowing up Little Mermaid's disk error in their faces), and believing we'll get the "fixed" version later--Probably in tandem with another 3D release, or a new Pixar re-render, for promotion.

And Oz was their new experiment in what disgruntled fans had been hounding them for years: Does every single 3D release have to be an "Ultimate 5-disk edition"??
The same experiment that eliminated the Digital Copy hard-disk in favor of their new UV-code system, and now has them looking at dropping the DVD copy for 3D editions. Now, all we wanted was for them to complete the Oz experiment, and realize that fewer disks usually means a lower price than stufffed-to-the-gills 5-disk editions, and they don't HAVE to release them at $35-45.

Unless things have changed, the 3D version of Frozen is being offered in other territories. This is the first I've heard of a "faulty disc mastering" cover-up. I would think they still have plenty of time to correct any problems like that.

The 3D version of OZ was movie-only. If you wanted a 2D version and the extras, you needed to buy the 2D version as well. It would have cost twice as much as the normal combo pack. I call that "playing games." (And yes, I know that Disney eventually came up with a mail-in offer for the 3D disc, but that was only in response to complaints. Clearly, it would have been easier to offer a combo-pack in the first place.)

 

[MatthewA]

I predicted no good would come from them turning home video into just another division of Consumer Products.

I just cancelled my pre-order of the US disc and ordered the UK one from Amazon.co.uk (and picked up 101 Dalmatians on Blu while I was at it).

 

[Ejanss]

Unless things have changed, the 3D version of Frozen is being offered in other territories. This is the first I've heard of a "faulty disc mastering" cover-up. I would think they still have plenty of time to correct any problems like that.

I've heard a few other posters asking about the UK as not quite confirmed--Much like Target still had the US 3D on their sites, but only because their websites aren't quite quick on the uptake.
The UK edition is still hopeful vaporware at this point, but if Amazon UK mysteriously starts cancelling preorders...that would be the proverbial Things That Make You Go Hmm.
(And of course we "haven't heard" about any disk problems with the 3D release...Isn't the general point of a cover-up that we DON'T hear about them and raise a fuss like we did with the last one? Oh, sorry, the last two?)

The 3D version of OZ was movie-only. If you wanted a 2D version and the extras, you needed to buy the 2D version as well. It would have cost twice as much as the normal combo pack. I call that "playing games." (And yes, I know that Disney eventually came up with a mail-in offer for the 3D disc, but that was only in response to complaints. Clearly, it would have been easier to offer a combo-pack in the first place.)

No, I call it "covering up a big slip". Their big Oz experiment was offering JUST the 3D version for embattled folks who'd grown tired of buying 5 disks when they wanted one (and more damn power TO 'em, I say). What they discovered, rather embarrassingly, was that the 3D folks actually wanted 2 disks--the 2D Blu-ray included, don't for the life of me ask why--and that's why the solo-3D Oz blew up in their face, and they had to offer a last-ditch offer where you could special-order the 2D with the 3D if you wanted one.
Oh well, live and learn, science is always about the next experiment.