Sam Peckinpah Westerns Collection is Here, But! See Post #81 (1 Viewer)

[Sergio A]

I also received the box set from Amazon.com and the glitch is there on The Wild Bunch - I also have had real problems playing the Pat Garrett DVD.

I must say, the cropping of the 2005 cut is very hard to understand, from 2.35:1 to about 2.2:1 and the decision to not really investigate the different versions through a visual comparison is quite bewildering.

Also, to my mind, the documentaries that accompany the entire set, are really distractingly shot and poorly edited - why the need to change shot every five seconds and interrupt the flow of the interviews? And why have the cameras been placed so unflatteringly when it comes to the female interviewees in particular? I ended up really wishing that Laurent Bouzerau had been handling the interviews - at least they're lit properly and the talking heads are illustrated with clips, stills and music - here all we got was jangled and disconnected editing and several slightly out of focus shots.

And they weren't even anamorphic despite being 16:9.

The set is still wonderful because the films are - PAT GARRETT though is something of a wasted opportunity - any one that has seen the Region 2 DUCK YOU SUCKER disc can compare its treatment of its varying versions in the 11-minute featurette that DVD Savant edited which is a model of its kind.

Great films in the main very well transferred - apart from THE WILD BUNCH though the extras are really quite disappointing, especially in terms of presentation and content.


Sergio

 

[Jay Gregory]

Eric writes:


After seeing Mark Zimmer's post (#178) sometime Friday afternoon, I contacted Amazon via the Returns Center.

My replacement copy is scheduled to be delivered via UPS on Tuesday, and I've yet to actually take my box with the defective disk to the post office. (I plan to do that tomorrow.) I assume the replacement copy might have arrived Friday if I had requested a replacement on Wednesday.

It seems unlikely to me that you would have to wait a month for a replacement.

For what it's worth, the new box is shipping out of Lexington, KY instead of Cincinnati. (But isn't Cincinnati relatively close to Lexington? ??) And, of course, there's no proof yet that my replacement box might not have come from the "bad" pile.

Amazon remains a class act. Note that this is in stark contrast to Buy.com where I'm still waiting on a replacement for an item that was received crushed in early December. The defective copy was shipped back to them 12/9, and I've received no acknowledgement that they've received the bad one, or that they will ever ship a replacement.

 

[Eric Peterson]

Jay,

Thanks for the information. I assumed that they would wait until receiving my return copy which is postage paid via "Media Mail" or "The Pony Express".

If they ship out ahead of time, that's good news. As long as the disc works this time.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

Yeah, just contact Amazon and they will send the replacement, without you sending back in the old one first. You have 30 days for them to get the old one, or they'll charge you for it. Very flexible policy but it works REALLY well for these box sets where you've verified all well but one disc. Just move the bad disc into the new set and you're good to ship it back.

 

[Jay Gregory]

The Wild Bunch disk two in my Amazon replacement box set plays fine.

Thanks for all the reports.

 

[CraigF]

^ Same here, looks like it was just the original stock of boxes.

 

[Eric Peterson]

0/2

DAMN!

My second box had the exact same problem.

I'm going to try and contact WB, and see what I get.

 

[Ruz-El]

for what it's worth:

I got this from Amazon.ca yesterday, no problems.

 

[Gonzalo Merchan]

I've watched the new 2005 cut of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and I have to say like many others that I disagree with a number of the changes made. Most glaring to me is the mangling of the original opening credit sequence, certainly one of the best in any Peckinpah film. The freeze frame title sequence, a signature of Peckinpah’s style, has been completely done away with in favor of a clumsy movie of the week style photo montage. The new editing of the chicken target practice/Garrett death sequence has transformed the graceful evocative suggestion Peckinpah made that violence breeds an ugly inescapable legacy into something of a much less subtle nature, with painfully obvious hit you over the head cut backs between Billy shooting and Garrett falling. Ouch.

Another unfortunate loss is the drastically cut version of Peckinpah’s cameo at the end of the film, one of my favorite moments of the whole picture, now reduced to a blink and you miss him single line of dialogue. Overall the cut does seem tightened, but to my taste this drains much of the lazy melancholy of the 1988 cut which has always been one of the films strengths, not a weakness. One of the charms of the 1988 version is that it seemed a product of the environment in which it was made, it gives the feeling of a film shot through a hangover.

Although some have called the scene between Garrett and his wife ‘essential’ for me it added little to the film, which is first and foremost a movie about the bond between hardened men of violence. Seeing Garrett squabbling with his wife about when he is coming home for dinner seems hardly to illuminate the character or themes of the film and instead becomes a pointless detour and distraction.

Additionally, I can’t believe the glaring audio warbling in the music on the soundtrack during the final scene. It is obvious much more care was taken with the 2005 cut, but this seems almost spiteful negligence. I really hope this will be addressed in future versions. Although the 2005 cut does present an interesting but probably misguided 'what if', I wish more care had been taken with the 1988 version.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

I like the '88 cut much better than the '05. The scene with the wife is not at all essential; you learn everything you need to know from the way he opens the gate.

 

[John Hodson]

Neither added scene may be 'essential' but the extended Ruthie Lee scene makes much more sense of Garrett's insistance that she be sent to his room. TBH, I'm not as outraged as I thought I would be by the 2005 cut - it's still one helluva movie.

One piece of scuttlebutt is that Warners were reluctant to include the '88 at all until they were persuaded to do so by the Peckinpah posse - how true that is I dont know.

Yes, I would have liked pristine versions of both, and as I've said before, the original theatrical cut too (it would help those that know the film less well understand its lukewarm reception way back when). But I'm pretty pleased by what I have.

 

[Eric Peterson]

I finally got someone from WB on the phone.

They are going to allow me to return "The Wild Bunch" only through the mail and they'll send me a new copy of the separate release.

Hopefully this will fix my problem.

 

[Anthony*B]

hey all...I got the Peckinpah box from Deep Discount DVD & my disc 2 of the Wild Bunch is trash, so it's NOT just the Amazon boxes...neither of my set top players will play it properly & the dvd rom in my computer wont display anything at all...sigh, don't really know what to do at this point...this is the first time I can ever recall getting a bad disc believe it or not...what should I do? REEAAALLY dont wanna ship it back to DDD...

 

[Eric Peterson]

Anthony,

WB has a customer complaint line that I called. I however did exchange my set once, and they might require you to do that before they'll do anything.

818-977-6065

Good Luck!

 

[Simon Howson]

I bought my copy of the Peckinpah box from DVDPacific.com. Disc 2 of The Wild Bunch has the following problems:

1) If I select to play the "An Album In Montage" documentary, the deleted scenes start. If I select to play the deleted scenes, the Album In Montage documentary starts.

2) The Album In Montage documentary begins playing 55 seconds from the start. I am unable to scan back to the start, trying to do so either kicks me back out to the menu screen, or crashes my DVD player (Samsung HD-747).

3) There is a 5-second glitch at about the 2 minute 20 second mark when playing the excerpt from "A Simple Adventure Story".

Very annoying!