DVD Review HTF REVIEW: Hellboy - Special Edition (1 Viewer)

[TrentT]

Sound and video on Hellboy was very good. Lots of LF and surround effects.
Movie itself was not that great. They didn't explain a lot of the characters very well (the dead(?)guy in the mask for example)nor the extent of the powers the characters have.
Also, details not consistant. Eg: Hellboy has enough strength to hammer fist a Jeep GC going at least 50 MPH, stop it dead and cause it to flip end over end, but in a following scene can hardly pull himself up onto a ledge with both arms. Hell, my Mom can do that. Then at the end, he effortlessly lifts overhead a metal gear that looks to weigh several tons.
I was looking forward to this movie based on the trailers. Little dissapointed for $26.00
Could have bought it used in a month for half that.
Was / is this a comic book too, or are they making a comic out of it ? I have heard references to a Dark Horse comic, whatever that is. Just curious.

 

[George_W_K]

Where are you buying your movies from? I got my copy at Wal-Mart for $15.87. If I paid $26 for a movie, I agree that it had better be one I am not disappointed in.

 

[Keith I]

Choice is always a good thing and it's very courteous for studios to announce multiple releases at the same time.

This is what would get me frustrated and I cannot recall offhand which title announcements fall or fell into this situation: You have a choice of the first release or the subsequent release(s) but there are features on both discs that you want that are not available on both discs, so if you want all of those extras, you have to buy both.

Another example I get frustrated sometimes is this: I enjoy most DTS soundtracks more than DD ones (over 90% of my DTS titles are preferable over the DD version if both are available in the same release). So when Superbits are announced for movies I really enjoy, I want the DTS version but I also want the extras on the original disc. But I won't spend more money to have two versions so I'll just stick with the original version. So that's my choice but I'm not happy with it because I want the best of both worlds but I'm not willing to pay for it! My loss. Ha ha.

As an aside, the ONLY time I'd double-dip is if the original release was non-anamorphic [fullscreen or letterboxed] and the new release is anamorphic widescreen. No wondering there. I'm upgrading!

From what I'm reading here, it sounds like everything on the first release will be on the second release (except the commentaries). That's nice except for people who like commentaries and want the Director's Cut. But part of your "choice" is to buy both, right? But if you don't like to double-dip, that choice is a lot harder to make.

But this is a thread about the new Hellboy DVD so to stay on-topic:

After reading the official discussion in the Movie forum, can anyone confirm the abrupt transition scene that does not make sense with many people (i.e., the fireball, then the characters held prisoner) on this DVD? Some people said they saw extra footage in their theater, some people said it was abrupt. I'm just curious.

 

[jason:g]

Those won't be missed.

 

[Sven Lorenz]

Very good video interview with del Toro regarding the Director's Cut DVD:

http://ugo.com/channels/filmTv/exclu...rticleID=12190

 

[Tim O.]

So the Director's Cut DVD won't have the commentaries by the cast and Mike Mignola? That's a pretty big omission for a DVD Guillermo del Toro's labeling as an edition for the true Hellboy fan.

Me, I've never read the Hellboy comic book, but I liked the movie...just thought the plot and characters needed to be developed more (especially the villains), which apparently th DC addresses.

 

[Matt Czyz]

You, sir, are buying movies at the wrong place.

 

[David Illingworth II]

Great interview! Thanks for the link!
And to the guy who wonders if he should pick this up, I really liked Daredevil, and also enjoyed Hulk, and I think this is another fine adventure comic movie. It does what it does very well. Kinda like X2 in that regard ... not as serious as X2, but it achieves its goals just like that movie does.
And I was not a del Toro fan until this movie.

 

[Max Leung]

There is an (alleged) certain country just north of the US border that sells DVDs at approx. 1.6 times the US price on average.

 

[Dax P]

Answering TrentT (though there are numerous references in the thread to it already)- yes, it's a comic book. From a company called Dark Horse, yeah. It's been around for ten years, an ongoing series of mini-series. Collected into five books (so far) by creator/writer/artist Mike Mignola (who designed the look of Atlantis for Disney, amongst other things), a couple books by various writer/artist teams (called 'Weird Tales'), and some side spin-off BPRD books (haven't read those).

I'm a fan of Mignola's art. Some of the stories have been good, some have been on the weak side.

Didn't see the movie in theatres (some friends liked it, some didn't, and some were mixed), but it LOOKED 'good' to me, so I blind-bought (but not entirely blind, since I'm familiar with the source material...) yesterday. Haven't watched it yet.

May double-dip if I like it enough, and the price of the 3-disc isn't too high.

 

[Sven Lorenz]

Regarding the interview - I really don't like the idea that

Myers won't be returning for the sequel.


Why introduce him as Hellboy's new "keeper" in the first movie and then drop him for the second?


There must have been some problem with the actor because in an earlier interview GDT stated that in the second movie it will be explained why Myers was chosen as Brooms replacement and that he will be a lot more important.

 

[Jim Barg]

Hm. $15.87 at Wal-Mart and no Mignola/cast commentary on the DC? Why not? Couldn't be that hard to shoehorn that in there. Jeez, I keep waffling back and forth whether or not to buy this...

 

[Dan Rudolph]

I thought the DC was going to have commentaries, just different ones as its a different cut of the movie.

 

[Travis W.]

According to Del Toro I'm not a hardcore fan of Hellboy since I bought the special edition...yet I plan on buying the director's cut.

I can't see the DC having much more than this special edition, I mean the 2.5 hour documentary satisfied me enough. Feel like I know that film inside and out.

 

[Keith I]

I rented it and the abrupt transition inbetween those two scenes is there.

 

[Gregory E]

Anybody see the hidden cartoons WASTING space on this disc? I don't know if they're available through any menus, but you can see them if you explore the disc on your computer.

Why are they wasting space with dumb Gerald McBoing Boing cartoons instead of giving us a DTS track?!?

Grrr.

 

[David_Blackwell]

You have something against Gerald McBoing Boing?!

I think those cartoons were on the dVD because they were ones that Hellboy was watching on TV during the movie.

 

[Gregory E]

Hmmm. Maybe. I never noticed. Still...I could think of other "extras" I'd rather have.

 

[Nick Sievers]

You're kidding yourself if you think the DTS track was left off in favour of the cartoons, Columbia only put DTS tracks on the Superbit discs.

 

[Jeremy Anderson]

Though that scene doesn't really flow well, that isn't what people complained about theatrically. What was happening was that the reel change happened during the fade-to-black after they find Myers passed out after Liz unleashes the fire. The problem was that SOME theaters were cutting to the next reel during the fade-to-black just before that, meaning you don't see the scene where they find Myers and take the grenades from him. So THAT was what people were missing in the theater.

Either way, the scene as it stands doesn't explain why Hellboy is suddenly in chains, so let's hope the director's cut fixes that rough transition.