***Official The Incredibles DVD Discussion (merged) Thread*** (1 Viewer)

[Ernest Rister]

I'm perfectly happy saving my money for the product of another studio who has the brains to respect the casual consumer or understand the fundamentals of crosspromotion. Idiots.

I hate to sound like a broken record, and I know I'm a somewhat special case because I have an abiding interest in American character animation of all kinds (just picked up Chuck Jones' Rikki Tikki Tavi yesterday), but if you'd been buying the Disney animated films on DVD since the fall of 1999, you'd have the entire library right now, except for Cinderella which comes out this Fall. They've dumped everything onto the market in the space of 5 and a half years. Peter Pan has been released *twice* on DVD, the first was a bare bones release, the second a Special Edition which included a marvelous commentary track including the voice of Wendy (Kathryn Beaumount), Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, John Canemaker, and Roy Disney.

So, sure, I feel bad for people who arrive late to the party, but its not like Disney's video policies are anything new. Their "available for a limited time" policy goes all the way back to the mid-1980s, with the release of Pinocchio. That's why I do not wait when they are released.

As for the additional expense and hassle of buying from e*bay or the Amazon Marketplace, in some cases, you can buy the OOP discs for less than what they sold for when they were first released. The MSRP for the original Limited Edition titles of the Disney features in 1999 would make you gag today.

 

[Steve K.H.]

Whether the clerks give a damn or not about whether they were wrong and whether they give a damn or not about how snotty they were, after having read this story, I realize I have enough options available to me.

Why risk a similar experience... ultimately I'll NEVER set foot in a Disney store.

So... moral is... be careful what you do because someone might post a story about it on the internet.

 

[Herb Kane]

And what if he were a young twenty-something with kids and had family commitments, payments and expenses that prohibited him from the luxury of picking up a disc or two for his children? In the grand scheme of things, DVD’s don’t place very high when it comes to the necessities of family responsibilities – the very people Disney discs are likely to appeal to most.

Sure, their model works – sure their model has been in place for a long time but to the sizeable benefit of one party – Disney.

As for eBay - $100.00 bucks+ for The Ultimate Toy Box ……. I’d give it to charity first!!

 

[Ernest Rister]

"And what if he were a young twenty-something with kids and had family commitments, payments and expenses that prohibited him from the luxury of picking up a disc or two for his children?"

If that person is so strapped, why is he spending money on a DVD player in the first place? There are only a few real titles in question here, and all of these were available for many, many, many months. In all those months, if that person could not afford to buy that title, then he has much bigger problems than the Walt Disney Home Video release schedule. The Ultimate Toy Box in particular was around from Fall of 2000 until at least early 2003. If someone didn't buy it in all that time, then they either chose not to because they had higher priorities and responsibilities (like caring for children or ailing parents), or they chose not to because they couldn't afford it ($60 is not an inconsiderable amount of money to a teenager or college student), or they chose not to because they didn't want to and they chose to buy something else instead, or they hadn't chosen to buy into DVD in the first place.

In all of these case, these people will have the opportunity to buy the titles again when they become available again, and maybe when they are released, it will be at a time in that person's life when they may be able to afford it, or have decided that the title is worth owning and not worth delaying the purchase in favor of other titles.

At this point, other than Cinderella, I'd probably be waiting for the HD versions anyway. The next time the Toy Story films come to market, there is a good chance they'll be in a High Definition format.

 

[Neil Joseph]

This thread is now designated the Official Discussion Thread for "The Incredibles" DVD. Please, post all discussion comments to this thread.

All HTF member DVD reviews of the "The Incredibles" should be posted to the "HTF REVIEW: The Incredibles -- INCREDIBLY RECOMMENDED" Thread.

Thank you for your consideration in this matter.

Neil Joseph

 

[Jim Ogilvie]

deleted

 

[Jon Martin]

Well to them, since you said all the copies were fullscreen, the other version didn't exist. They aren't running Disney's DVD division, they are just working in a retail store (as mentioned, not even owned by Disney anymore) and telling you what they have in stock. Like the Wal Mart retailers always pushing fullscreen, they just don't know the difference. They aren't in the DVD business, just in the scanning the product, taking your money, and giving you change business.

And with THE INCREDIBLES, with it in every retail store, grocery store, gas station to purchase, I'm sure it will sell well no matter what the clerks in the Disney store say.

As far as the discussion of Disney and the vault titles go, I also think it makes a lot of sense. I guess since I'm old enough to remember when they used to rerelease the films theatrically every seven years, I can understand why it makes sense to pull the DVD from distribution. Make the films an event DVD release, rather than out there on the shelves gathering dust after an initial release.

Roy and others at Disney were totally against releasing the films on VHS to begin with, but agreed to it after a while and it became VERY successful for them.

For me, I've missed out on buying a couple of the titles, but will pick them up on the next go round. Seven years isn't that long to wait. And, if you absolutely have to see it, head to a video store, or go to Ebay. In the 70's, you'd have no way to see it. If you were a family and wanted to take your kids to see one of the Disney classics, you were out of luck.

 

[Ernest Rister]

When I was a kid, the closest I ever came to the Disney animated features were storybook LPs and 45 rpms of the songs from the films. I only saw four Disney animated films - Robin Hood, Bambi, The Jungle Book, and Pinocchio - in my childhood years. I could only read about these films and listen to their soundtracks. It wasn't until high school - when I could drive or older friends would drive me - that I began to see these movies when they came out in theaters with regularity. It was in high school that I saw Sleeping Beauty, Song of the South, Fantasia, Snow White, The Rescuers, The Black Cauldron, The Fox and the Hound. When the video releases became available, it was such an immense privilege to be able to own these films and watch them at your leisure. Here in the 21st Century, after multiple home video releases, that particular bloom is off the rose and younger people in their teens and even early 20's have no clue what a great privilege they have right in front of them.

Funny story.

I was at my best friend's house last year, and his middle-school-age daughter was moping on the couch. I asked her what was wrong, and she answered how bored she was, that there was nothing to do.

She has a 5.1 surround sound system and a 60" HDTV in her living room with a library of 200 titles on DVD, most of which composed of the most entertaining films of the last 60 years. Upstairs, she has her own peronsal PC, access to the internet, a PlayStation 2, a full-size electronic piano, CD burners, and on and on it goes. Nothing to do? When I was her age, if I wanted to tape a movie, I had to hold up a radio shack cassette tape recorder to the mono speaker of my family TV set and tape the dialogue, and then listen to it later. We didn't have a VCR, no home theater, no internet, no CD burner -- and we certainly didn't have a nearly complete library of the films of Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Walt Disney, etc. just sitting within mere feet of our TV set.

I wonder what she is going to be telling her own kids when they become mopey teenagers.

"When I was your age, we couldn't just download every movie ever made to our HD-Cinerama 20.4 HT systems, we couldn't chat on the WetNet with bionic brain implants, we didn't get to go vacation at Disney World - Beijing and Disney World - Baghdad, we didn't have clones to clean our houses and do our yardwork, and Michael Dell hadn't bought the Moon. Now take your Stummies and cheer up."

 

[Herb Kane]

Your response (and it’s a rather compassionate one…) would be accurate for those poor and disenfranchised souls living in cardboard Frigidaire boxes under your local interstate overpass, but it makes very little sense, at least from the perspective of a HT forum and those of us who frequent it.

My comments were based on average individuals like you and I, young parents who have obligations and payments that may be greater during certain times of the year or parents of children needing substantial dental work etc etc etc. Such obligations might be enough to preclude the average mom or dad from a buying a disc…. Perhaps in a couple of months, they’ll be in better shape – perhaps in a couple of months that title will have vanished.

Either way, their model spells gouge… and does very little for the average consumer. Sure, the release is “an event”, interest remains higher for a shorter amount of time, the price never drops and those who can’t/shoulda/didn’t pick it up suffer the consequences by either going without or paying some entrepreneur on eBay.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Grumyp Old Man voice- "And we liked it. We loved it!"

Just a note, I did the same thing with a cassette recorder.:b

 

[Ernest Rister]

Perhaps in a couple of months, they’ll be in better shape – perhaps in a couple of months that title will have vanished.

Look, we're only talking about the Disney Platinum line, which is ten titles out of close to 45 animated features (if you want to throw in the Pixar films, then we're talking about 12 titles out of almost 50, and if you want to get really picky, then we can throw in collector's editions like Tarzan: CE or Atlantis: CE as well), but there is no such thing as a Platinum disc or a Pixar title that was available for only a couple of months. It has never happened.

Look at The Lion King -- there are copies of that all over the place, and that was released in Fall of 2003 "for a limited time". Eventually it will be hard to find, but in the meantime people will have had at least two years to pick that title up -- at Wal-Mart, no less!

If you're looking for Snow White or Beauty and the Beast, or in the case of the young person above, Peter Pan -- you're not going to find those today, but you had years to buy them. Peter Pan was actually released TWICE in the last five years.

I understand that most American homes are two-income households with both parents forced to work outside the home to sustain a decent standard of living and provide for their families, and I recognize that sometimes, life kicks us in the balls and we can't make the expenditures we want (Diapers or Lion King...Diapers or Lion King...?). But if you can't find the $19 to buy the Lion King in two years, then you probably don't really want the Lion King, or it really just isn't that important.

*******

Look, let's take a hypothetical scenario. Let's say you wanted to build an entire Disney feature animation library from scratch, and like the rest of us, you were willing to do so over five years.

Here is what you could buy right now:

1. Dumbo: 60th Anniversary
2. Bambi: Platinum Edition
Victory Through Air Power (Walt Disney on the Front Lines)
The Reluctant Dragon (Behind the Scenes at the Walt Disney Studios)
3. Saludos Amigos
4. The Three Caballeros (censored, but that's another rant)
5. Make Mine Music (censored, but that's another rant)
6. Fun and Fancy Free
7. Melody Time (censored, see above)
8. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
9. Alice in Wonderland
Ward Kimball Space Films (Walt Disney's Tomorrowland)
10. The Sword in the Stone
Mary Poppins
11. The Aristocats
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
12. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
13. Robin Hood
Pete's Dragon
14. The Rescuers
15. The Fox and the Hound
Tron
16. The Black Cauldron
17. The Great Mouse Detective
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
18. Oliver and Co.
19. The Rescuers Down Under
20. Aladdin (still available!)
The Nightmare Before Christmas
21. The Lion King (still available!)
22. Pocahontas (new 2-disc edition this May)
23. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
24. Hercules
25. Mulan
26. Fantasia/2000
27. The Emperor's New Groove
28. Dinosaur
29. Atlantis: The Lost Empire
30. Lilo and Stitch
31. Brother Bear
32. Treasure Planet
33. Home on the Range

Now if you want to talk about a hit on your wallet. Try buying all 32 of those animated features and the nine other films I mentioned, PLUS:

P1. A Bug's Life
P2. Monsters, Inc.
P3. Finding Nemo
P4. The Incredibles

...try buying all of those titles right now. Every single one of them can be found new, without premium mark-ups, either at a B&M or on-line, if you were to act today that is.

What you could NOT buy in Region 1 in a B&M store right now:

Snow White
Pinocchio
Fantasia
Cinderella (available this Fall)
Lady and the Tramp (due Spring 2006)
Peter Pan (probably 2008)
Sleeping Beauty
101 Dalmations (due in 2007)
The Jungle Book (due Fall 2006 or sometime 2007)
The Little Mermaid (due Fall 2006 or sometime 2007)
Beauty and the Beast
Tarzan (not a Platinum title, but OOP all the same)

Now if you started collecting right now, all you'd have to do is make sure you got the essential titles that were already OOP but still on shelves (The Lion King, Aladdin), and titles that were certain to go OOP in the future (Bambi, the Pixar titles, the Walt Disney Treasures). Then, at your leisure over the next FIVE years, you could buy what you wanted from that giant list, while keeping an eye out for the remaining Platinum titles, and re-issues for Toy Story 1 and 2.

It has taken the rest of us five-six years to complete our Disney animated feature library on DVD. If you started right now, it would probably take you the same amount of time.

And if you did not want to wait that long, all of these are available on e*bay and the Amazon marketplace. If you think this is such a hardship, climb into Sherman's way-back machine and go to 1992, and then try to find a copy of Lady and the Tramp on VHS. Today, it takes a few clicks of the mouse. In 1992, you were S.O.L.

 

[EricW]

i was just watching this and noticed something kinda weird in a particular shot - near the end, in the scene where the Ball Machine is about to stomp the 2 kids by the van, Violet puts up a shield and stops the foot. while the shield's up, the Ball stomps a couple more times harder and knocks her out. now while her shield is up, at the bottom of the screen the field gets all squigly, but not naturally. i don't know if this has been discussed before...

 

[Nathan Phillips]

I usually advance order things online, but this is the first time I can remember that my most-anticipated DVD of the year was everyone else's as well, and I wanted it right away, so I drove to Best Buy. There were ambulances in the parking lot for a reason I never determined, and a couple of guys trying to get funding for an "independent film" came up to me to sell me a rap CD or some candy. I felt like I was being tested or something, but I was ready to walk through fire for this one.

"The Incredibles" was, aside from the Toy Story box, the best Pixar DVD release yet in my opinion, which is appropriate because it is their best film easily (and I love them all). I really, really hope Brad Bird works with them again. This is his best work to date also -- I dug "The Iron Giant" but this improves on it in every conceivable way. I sometimes feel a bit silly about how much I'm overwhelmed by "The Incredibles," so I'm glad I'm not alone. There are so many animated films I adore, but this one really does stand above nearly all of them for reasons I'm still contemplating. It's also something I looked forward to ALL of last year -- I requested the day after the opening off so I could go see it -- and it surpassed that many extended expectations. I put my old ticket from Carmike in the DVD case. Very cheesy, I know.

The disc: The extras were meatier than usual. I liked the less-than-polished portrayal of the involved parties in the making-of, and I found the technical stuff more engaging than I normally do. I thought the CE of "A Bug's Life" was a great package, and "Monsters Inc." was a pretty good DVD (though I don't actually remember anything about the supplements), but the extras on "Nemo" disappointed me. It was nice to see a return to the less dumbed-down stuff.

Best Buy had widescreen and P&S copies divided equally. Widescreen was outselling P&S easily. I work at a grocery store and we've turned into sort of a very poor man's Moviemax lately, with our service desk overcrowded by DVD displays, one (of course) of "The Incredibles." Unfortunately, we only have fullscreen copies. We've only sold two. (But we only sold three or four copies of "Bambi," and we were even giving away a plush Bambi with it!)

Anyway, I have to agree with Jon Martin that this title would sell (except at my store) regardless of format. I'm lucky enough never to have met anyone who cares about "black bars" and I don't see a lot of that, so maybe I'm naive, but I think the person who grabs this on impulse from a grocery store or something for the kids really doesn't care about 2.39 or 1.33. I doubt it's as much of an aggression against widescreen as some people make it out to be, and if it is, hey, at least it's their choice to make and we don't have to agree with it.

"I didn't get the Ultimate Toy Box and now I'm pretty much hooped."

I don't know about that -- I got mine in November for $80, not too far above the original MSRP, just by watching half.com like a hawk.

I was a late-bloomer for the DVD format, and for the first year I had my player -- my senior year in high school -- I had very limited income and all sorts of personal problems. I think I bought something like twelve DVDs the first year compared to almost 150 this past year. Additionally, I didn't have the passion for movies I do now, blah blah blah.

So I was tempted on any number of occasions by "Snow White" and "Toy Story" while they were still in print, but other interests took hold and I never got them. In essence, I agree that the Disney "vault" policy is quite annoying.

Now I have a major interest in animation and Disney in particular and I'm slowly gathering a lot of the OOP titles. While they certainly cost more on average than the other things I buy, it's usually worth it, and I get reasonably good deals... I'd say if you look around long enough, you can find what you're looking for without paying something insane.

I got "Snow White" last week for about $25. It wasn't sealed, of course, and the case was a little scuffed, but so what? And "Sleeping Beauty" is on the way for about the same price. You can find a lot of the gold edition titles (I'm eyeing "Pinocchio," "The Jungle Book," and "Lady and the Tramp") pretty reasonably anyway, and it's good to keep checking if not. The prices fluctuate wildly. (I checked on the single-disc "Fantasia" about a month ago and the prices were twice as high as it was this week.) Plus, I've learned my lesson. I bought "Bambi" the week it was released and I'm considering picking up "Cinderella" in the fall even though I'm not a huge fan of the movie.

Geez, sorry for blathering on about the whole universe there.

 

[Lou Sytsma]

The sequence when Dash lets go with his powers on the island is the cinematic highlight from last year for me.

 

[Dave Jewett]

Did anyone else have a problem with the audio for the Jack-Jack Attack short? I have a Pioneer DV-563A, and if I use the digital out I get nothing but LFE, and I get no sound at all when I switch to the analog outs. I can only get sound by telling the player to downconvert the DD track to PCM. The movie plays back just fine in full DD 5.1.

Dave

 

[Ernest Rister]

Nope. It plays just fine for me.

 

[Herb Kane]

Whether these titles are actually available weeks after or even years after is irrelevant. You know that, I know that and thousands of the members who frequent this board on a regular basis know that. But 99.9% of the average consumer interested in purchasing Disney titles don't know that.

The perception of these titles "going back into the vault" is enough to heighten or elevate the so-called urgency to quickly buy the title before it’s too late. When these Bambi ads were all over the place a few weeks back, even my 7 year old made a comment one night saying we’d better hurry up and buy it or else or it would be too late…

It might be a stretch for me to call their business model deceptive, but clearly it’s a gimmick - one that works in their favor, not ours.

 

[GeoffBr]

Also, the vault concept works to create a need to purchase a dvd for people who are otherwise on the fence about the idea. Because of the ready availability of most dvds, I (and, I suspect, the vast majority of more casual viewers) often wait to buy titles that are not must-haves until I have a particular desire to see them - treating it almost like a value-added Blockbuster. By threatening customers with lack of availability, Disney creates the artificial sense of urgency mentioned above and renders the ability to choose a non-factor - which is more likely to get rid of my purchasing complacency.

If I want to own Bambi any time in the next few years, I had better act now, or I'll be in trouble. Therefore, given a limited budget, I'll be more likely to prioritize Bambi instead of a title that will remain available for some time.

 

[Allen Hirsch]

It also means that you won't be picking these up someday in the $5.99 or $7.99 bins at BB, like many other releases.

The perceived limited availability keeps these DVDs at their original discounted MSRP, not ultimately at clearance prices. Just look at the pricing on eBay for DVDs that are "OOP".

 

[StephanieC]

Wow. Well, I'm not going to lie and said I read the entire thread but I skimmed it, and I'm pretty surprised that a lot of the conversation has turned so quickly. Kind of a downer.

I'm sure my two cents is worth nothing, but I just wanted to throw in how much I love this DVD! From the spiffy menus to little easter eggs I didn't look for but landed on accidentally, this was $17 well spent (well maybe more, since I was talked into a Best Buy RewardZone thing for a lithograth... )

The short films are probably my favorite inclusion, the commentary on the "early cartoon" was hilarious and the featurette about Bud Luckey was very sweet (when I saw the clip for "Ladybug's Picinic" I was really excited since that was one of my favorite Seaseme Street songs as a little girl) The deleted scenes were also breathtaking, I've seen animatics before but for some reason these seemed to have extra work done on them and were a lot of fun to watch, and I rarely watch deleted scenes on DVD anymore.

This was one on the VERY few DVDs were I watched *every* extra and enjoyed it, even down to reading the superhero bios and listening to the sound files. Pixar is obviously run by a bunch of talented geniuses, but they also seem to really love what they're doing, care about it, and have fun doing it and that really shows.

This presentation reminded me why I became addicted to DVDs in the first place and why I still love them so much. I've been fighting pneumonia the past few days and this has cheered me up and helped, and I'll definitely be watching it again with the commentaries. I hope negative past experiences anyone has had with Disney's whole "5 minutes then vault 'em" thing won't take away the fun you should be having with this DVD.