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Bare bones blu rays (1 Viewer)

battlebeast

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I'm perplexed. As you may or may not know, I am collecting all the Best Picture Nominees on Blu Ray. In going through my collection of movies, sorting them and shelving them, boxing up the DVDs and shelving the Blu Rays, I've found that many Blu Rays lack the same bonus features that DVD editions have. Titles such as Crash (was this the very first Bluy Ray ever?!), A Soldier's Story, The Graduate, Chicago, Master and Commander and Rocky, among others, leave off the bonus features that the DVD edition had. In the case of Rocky, I bought the Blu Ray and stuck in the bonus feature disc from the DVD. Then they cmae out with a remastered edition with bonus features.

Does this bother any of you? do bonus features even matter to you?

They sure do to me. When I am forking over big $$$ for a Blu Ray, I want the best edition possible... and the bells and whistles. Not porting over the bonus features, to me, is just being lazy and/or greedy. I can't understand why they do this, it makes no sense.

Thoughts? ..
 

AnthonyClarke

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The extras have to be really great for me to think about giving them a second viewing.
But sometimes there's the terrific doco on Judy Garland which came with some DVD editions of 'Easter Parade' (missing from other issues) and that should have been included in the Blu ray -- but I think there were rights issues with PBS which prevented that.
Of course some commentaries are indispensable, such as Shirley Jones's chat accompanying 'Oklahoma' and the terrific director/writer comedy double-act accompanying 'Charade'.
But sadly, these things are the exceptions...
 

Douglas R

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Yes it absolutely annoys me if all the extras aren't carried over from the DVD to the Blu-ray. It never makes any sense to me either and it doesn't encourage me to get the upgrade. And instead of saving space I end up having to keep the DVD as well.
 

AshJW

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For me it depends on the film.
Is it importent to me?, so will be also the bonus. Is it not than the bonus is just a nice to have.
 

Jari K

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It's pure BS when the old extras are dropped from the BD. Whether you like extras or not is irrelevant question. There are no rational reason to drop the old extras.Like I said in the other thread, e.g. WB includes the old extras in most of their BD releases. Then again some others don't. Why? I have no idea.With the smaller labels I understand that they don't always want to pay extra for licensing the extras, but I would assume that it's often a "package deal". You get the film + extras.
 

atfree

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Extras mean very little to me, and certainly don't impact my decision to purchase a BD. I rarely, if ever, watch extras (I have watched a few of Bond extras) and I never listen to commentaries during the film. And the "big" collector's editions don't carry any weight with me at all. Out of over 400 BD's, I have 5 (Univeral Monsters, Bond 50, the LOA anniversary package, the Ben-Hur anniversary package, and the Wizard of Oz DVD collectors edition (to which I added a single disc BD edition)), and all of those were Christmas presents I received from my wife. I'd never have bought them on my own. I collect films, not discs or memorabilia. Just personal preference.
 

cineMANIAC

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Extras don't impact my decisions to purchase Blu-rays either but they're always nice to have. Having said that, I don't usually rewatch an extra unless it's an interesting and in-depth analysis of a film I'm in love with. I enjoy most of Laurent Bouzereau's documentaries (Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind). Charles de Lauzirka also produced some really good docs and other extras. I'm talking about the days when DVD was at it's peak - not now. All we get today are fluff pieces and sloppy interviews disguised as featurettes. Commentaries are useless IMO unless they're organized and moderated. I'm also a sucker for collectible packaging. I think I like those more than extras :)
 

ScottHM

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battlebeast said:
Does this bother any of you? do bonus features even matter to you?
Not much. I find it difficult enough to find the time to watch the films I have, never mind the time it would take to watch bonus material. Just give me a bare bones disc with an excellent transfer of a good film and I'm happy.

---------------
 

gruagach

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In my early DVD days, I watched extras. Could never get into commentaries. In time, I drifted away. The film itself is all I'm interested in.
 

CraigF

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I mostly watch the extras, at least once and sometimes more. If it's just an obvious puff-piece, then I skip to the next extra.

I've encountered a lot of extras that are better than the feature. And sometimes the best stuff is cut to make a "lower" rating, sometimes explanatory stuff is cut to make the movie seem more "obtuse" and thus more intellectual/deeper/thoughtful/adult/etc. than it really is... i.e. not just for timing reasons, which seem to not matter so much these days. I also like the technical extras, some show the amazing lengths and expense, not to mention innovation, they went to to get certain scenes in the film; see a lot of those lately. Make me appreciate some films that I didn't even particularly like...

Generally speaking though, unless it's some kind of true collectors DVD of truly limited supply and in high demand, the DVDs are just about worthless (here). I always stick them in with the BD, or just as often, stick the cheaply-packaged BD in the better DVD packaging (if it in fact is nicer IMO).

So I probably have whatever extras there are one way or the other. But yes, I would be annoyed if I was buying a title for the first time on BD and extras weren't there. This has happened a lot to me, because being in Canada, many titles come out via eOne and very often many or all the extras you get in the otherwise-identical (re the feature specs) U.S. release BD are dropped. [Most Canadians don't seem to even know this, or care, because I never see it mentioned by them in the BD forums.]
 

CraigF

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^ I know many people would consider Hearts of Darkness better than the film(s) it came with (if we consider HoD an extra, strictly by virtue of packaging). I like both...all.

I am one of the few people who can't stand The Fantastic Mr. Fox, the only Wes Anderson film I don't really like. I just don't get it, or find it amusing, etc. etc. I do like the extras though and I appreciate WA's well-known penchant for detail that they demonstrate. IOW I appreciate the skill and behind-the-scenes stuff that the extras show way more than the finished product; thus I would rate the film higher than my enjoyment of it would indicate.
 

battlebeast

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CraigF said:
I mostly watch the extras, at least once and sometimes more. If it's just an obvious puff-piece, then I skip to the next extra.I've encountered a lot of extras that are better than the feature. And sometimes the best stuff is cut to make a "lower" rating, sometimes explanatory stuff is cut to make the movie seem more "obtuse" and thus more intellectual/deeper/thoughtful/adult/etc. than it really is... i.e. not just for timing reasons, which seem to not matter so much these days. I also like the technical extras, some show the amazing lengths and expense, not to mention innovation, they went to to get certain scenes in the film; see a lot of those lately. Make me appreciate some films that I didn't even particularly like...Generally speaking though, unless it's some kind of true collectors DVD of truly limited supply and in high demand, the DVDs are just about worthless (here). I always stick them in with the BD, or just as often, stick the cheaply-packaged BD in the better DVD packaging (if it in fact is nicer IMO).So I probably have whatever extras there are one way or the other. But yes, I would be annoyed if I was buying a title for the first time on BD and extras weren't there. This has happened a lot to me, because being in Canada, many titles come out via eOne and very often many or all the extras you get in the otherwise-identical (re the feature specs) U.S. release BD are dropped. [Most Canadians don't seem to even know this, or care, because I never see it mentioned by them in the BD forums.]
As a fellow Canadian, I DID NOT KNOW THIS... this makes me angry. VERY ANGRY INDEED!!I'm paying for the darn thing, I should get THE SAME PRODUCT!!I definatly have angry thoughts about eone now that I know they do this practise...
 

CraigF

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^ Not on every eOne release, typically just on the releases of studios affiliated with the larger ones. They are accurate with the extras as outlined on the backs of the package, so you can compare with the backs of the U.S. package (you likely know where to find them, or just read the reviews re extras). But try finding a pic of the back of a Canadian release to compare...pretty hard, but there is the odd retailer here who shows them...certainly not amazon.ca, who are the absolute worst for accurate or useful or complete info for just about every kind of media.

Edit: I also find that eOne (re-)authors their own BDs much more "professionally" and better than Alliance/AA used to. Simply, but well.
 

Josh Steinberg

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As a collector, I have a hard time getting rid of bonus features once I have them, there are a bunch of DVDs that I've since upgraded to Blu-ray, but I don't feel like I can get rid of the DVD since it has the extra content on it. I don't have a ton of extra room so it sure would be nice not to have to hold on to two or more versions of a title. It's even worse when 99% of the bonus features did carry over, but the one I like the most didn't. For example, on the Bond Blu-rays… most of them include the textless versions of the main titles that are on the Ultimate Edition DVDs… but a few of the movies don't. And I absolutely love the Bond title sequences, so I feel like I can't get rid of those DVDs. A shame to have to hold on to the DVD box set with the Blu-ray box set for one tiny bonus that should have been ported over with everything else. I mean, why decide to port over the entire DVD for like 12 films in the set and then not for the other 8?
 

bigshot

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To be honest, aside from the occasional director's commentary or interview, I really don't care about supplements at all. The only supplements I can think of that I found worthwhile was the documentary on the German release of The Innocents, Ralph Bakshi's commentary on Wizards and David Lynch's interviews on the European Lynch box set (or was it Elephant Man?). The Keaton and Chaplin disks have had additional documentary features that I might watch once or twice, but that's about it.

I really only care about the movie. I can google commentary.
 

atfree

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CraigF said:
I've encountered a lot of extras that are better than the feature.
If the extras are better than the film, I wouldn't buy it (or would sell it on Ebay asap)! Not talking about you, but I do think some extras attract "collectors" of stuff rather than just fans of the film itself.
 

Worth

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cineMANIAC said:
...Commentaries are useless IMO unless they're organized and moderated.
They're pretty useless if they're new, as well. There's nothing more boring than hearing how wonderful everyone was to work with. The only ones I've heard worth listening to are those in which the participants were already retired, and were completely honest about their experiences.
 

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