Any chance of a Adventures of Baron Munchausen Special Edition? (1 Viewer)

[Joe D]

Hi,
I bought Criterion version of Brazil a while back, and I absolutely adore it, and I'm planning on picking up the Time Bandits Criterion version and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen release from Columbia.
Is there any word on a Special Edition of this film anytime soon, especially since The Holy Grail and Jabberwocky are getting SE treatment this year.
Or is it safe to order it?
Thanks.
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Joe Dahlen
"Take hold of the flame, you've got nothing to lose, but everything to gain."

 

[SteveGon]

I don't have the disc myself so I can't comment on it, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for an S.E. It would be nice, though...
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He thought on homeland, the big timber, the air thin and chill all the year long. Tulip poplars so big through the trunk they put you in mind of locomotives set on end. He thought of getting home and building him a cabin on Cold Mountain so high that not a soul but the nighthawks passing across the clouds in autumn could hear his sad cry. Of living a life so quiet he would not need ears. And if Ada would go with him, there might be the hope, so far off in the distance he did not even really see it, that in time his despair might be honed off to a point so fine and thin that it would be nearly the same as vanishing.
-- Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain

 

[Keith Paynter]

If i recall, Criterion made a laserdisc special edition, and Columbia shortly aftwards put a stop to licencing their catalogue.
The film has been a tremendous money loser for Columbia Pictures, and the most recent video/DVD release was hardly worth the effort financially.
It is a difficult film to stay with - I've only survived it completely twice, and I have a lot of patience for Terry Gilliam's films. Brazil, however is another story.
I don't think Columbia is going to make any further effort to throw good money after bad on this title, so don't hold your breath for a special edition unless Gilliam buys it back himself.
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"Fearless Freep?! That's mmma boy!"

 

[Joe D]

Thanks for the replies. By the time I almost finished my monthly DVD shopping, I had your replies. I guess I'll order it not then.
That last sentence is supposed to read, "I guess I'll order it then."
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Joe Dahlen
"Take hold of the flame, you've got nothing to lose, but everything to gain."
[Edited last by Joe D on September 15, 2001 at 10:29 PM]

 

[Keith Paynter]

Joe, to paraphrase, one man's trash is another man's trash, so I may suggest if your local BB (unclean, unclean!) has it, rent it first and judge for yourself!
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"Fearless Freep?! That's mmma boy!"

 

[Joe D]

I ordered it with the rest of my septemeber DVD's, so when I get it at the end of the month I'll report back to you guys and tell you what I think of it. I've got an Amazon.com credit card, so I basically got the this and Time Bandits for nothing due to the points system that it has.
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Joe Dahlen
"Take hold of the flame, you've got nothing to lose, but everything to gain."

 

[Jeremy Conrad]

If i recall, Criterion made a laserdisc special edition

You would be correct. I was lucky enough to snag a copy of the LD brand-new for only $10 (back when a certain MAJOR retailer was clearing out all of their LD stock for $10 per disc - you should have seen the Disney boxed sets vanish!). Here are the features:
Terry Gillam audio commentary
4 deleted scenes
Effects compositing with outtakes
Trailers and ads
Sketches, paitings, models, costumes
Script analysis and storyboards
Detailed accounting of the production w/ interviews
History of Munchausen
The disc was CAV.
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Jeremy Conrad
Editor, IGN DVD
Link Removed

 

[Graeme Clark]

What's the Commentary like?
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[Joe D]

It would be pretty sweet if Criterion did a DVD of Manchausen, it would be fitting since Time Bandits and Brazil have Criterion versions, but with Columbia not renting their films to Criterion...
I would also like to know how the commentary is on the Laserdisc.
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Joe Dahlen
"Take hold of the flame, you've got nothing to lose, but everything to gain."

 

[Coressel]

Gilliam's commentary on the Criterion Munchausen LD is fantastic. Every bit as interesting as his Brazil talk.
I adore Gilliam's films, and would love to see the Criterion release of this film come to DVD. I saw the LD of it a few years ago (a friend of mine showed me his copy), and it is, like Brazil, the criterion of Criterion's work.
[Edited last by Coressel on September 16, 2001 at 05:43 PM]

 

[Mark-W]

When was the last time Columbia let another DVD
(I am not talking about LD here, which Criterion
got to do many studio's SEs.)
distributor release SE's of their catalog films?
I am asking because I don't know, but
I suspect not in a long long time, if ever.
It seems like most of the studios do it themselves
these days. Buena Vista will let Criterion do
some of their non-animated catalog stuff, and
Universal seems happy to let Criterion release
SEs of their catalog films...but other sources
for Criterion seem to have dried up at the major studios.
Mark

 

[Scott Weinberg]

I'd buy a CC version of this movie in a heartbeat. I adore this one.
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Scott
Check out my Movie Reviews at Epinions. Help support my debilitating DVD addiction!
AOL IM: TheAngryJew29

 

[Bryant Frazer]

Just for the record, I recently got to ask Gilliam whether anyone at Columbia Tri-Star had approached him about special editions of Munchhausen or The Fisher King. The answer was no, and he seemed to think the prospects were dim.
-bf-
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Bryant Frazer
Deep Focus
www.deep-focus.com

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Just to put the matter into FOCUS (pun intended)...
That non SE Columbia version of Baron M. has a wonderful 16x9 transfer.
Both of those extras-riddles Criterion SEs...Brazil and Time Bandits...sport out-dated "video" looking 4x3 lbxed laserdisc transfers because Criterion didn't care enough at the time to do a proper transfer for the DVD and just wanted to "cash in" on the D1 sitting on the shelf.
I'll take a DVD that can throw a film-like image on a projection system any day over a low-quality transfer with every extra under the sun.
[soap box]Criterion does not have my sympathy in this. When they created that transfer for Brazil for the heftily-priced Laserdisc box set, other studios like Warner and Columbia were already mastering in 16x9 in expectation of the future of the DVD format. Criterion chose to forgo producing 16x9 transfers when many of us were already purchasing 16x9 DVDs from other studios. They hated DVD and publically spoke out against it because they feared it would undercut the niche-market of over-priced SE laserdisc box sets they were selling to collectors.
They finally changed their tune (thankfully) but not without a struggle from the HT community. On a personal level, it really ticked me off when "regular" studios were producing stunning film-like transfers that looked near-35 mm in quality on projection systems while these "videophile" organizations from our LD days (criterion, THX, etc.) seemed content with the quality of an NTSC world.[/soap box]
My hope is that if a studio chooses not to liscense its titles to a 3rd party for SE release, it is because they hope to provide such a release themselves. I don't care who makes my DVDs as long as they do them right.
-dave
[Edited last by DaViD Boulet on September 17, 2001 at 10:33 AM]

 

[Kevin Leonard]

Isn't Columbia working on a SE of Gilliam's first film, Jabberwocky? If they can bestow a SE on that small little cult film, I don't think a loaded version of Munchausen would be too difficult to believe. But the current movie-only DVD looks and sounds pretty good.
By the way, if anybody wants to know more about the film but does not have access to the Criterion LD (like me), I highly reccomend you pick up the book Losing the Light: Terry Gilliam and the Munchausen Saga.
Very well-written and done, with interviews from just about everybody involved with the film, on either side of the camera. I read the entire thing in one sitting. It's that good.
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Have you ever noticed anyone driving slower than you is an idiot? And anyone driving faster than you is a maniac!! - George Carlin
ICQ: 55259446 (or just search for "John Shaft"...can you dig?)
[Edited last by Kevin Leonard on September 17, 2001 at 12:18 PM]

 

[Bryant Frazer]

On a personal level, it really ticked me off when "regular" studios were producing stunning film-like transfers that looked near-35 mm in quality on projection systems while these "videophile" organizations from our LD days (criterion, THX, etc.) seemed content with the quality of an NTSC world.

"Near-35 mm" is obviously a relative term, because it doesn't describe any standard-definition DVD I've ever seen on any display. And Criterion did what it had to do to stay in business, which did not include bankrupting the company with new anamorphic transfers as it struggled to make the transition from laserdisc to DVD.
Anamorphic is not everything. Rabid videophiles might not appreciate it, but Criterion has made contributions to film scholarship that go way beyond the 16x9 screen. It's nice to have a 16x9 version of Raging Bull from Warner, but it doesn't replace the exhibition of an actual 35mm print. What's irreplacable is the tremendous commentary track that Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker recorded for the Criterion laserdisc, a historical document that has in fact gone missing as the studios have taken up the task of producing "better" video versions of important films.
-bf-
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Bryant Frazer
Deep Focus
www.deep-focus.com

 

[Dave Dugan]

I love that movie. I'd buy a good special edition...
-Dave

 

[Mark_TS]

...and while theyre at it...
I really hope that COLUMBIA will see fit to do a new transfer of TAOBM...the DVD is IMHO, lackluster.
I thought that they had the colors, contrast, and black levels PERFECT on their Laserdisc-which went largely unnoticed in the shadow of the CRITERION LD.
...it is one of my favorite films, and the golden Italian Renaissance
look that they captured on the LD just didnt make it to the DVD-which looks to me to be pale, murky and leaning too heavily to brown...
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[Edited last by Mark_TS on September 18, 2001 at 02:17 PM]

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Quote:

Yes, extras like that do matter. And I'll admit that an SD-DVD isn't a replacement for a 35mm exhibition.
But I can't afford to buy and project a 35mm print in my home of all the films I want to own. I can do that with a DVD.
So giving that DVD is the medium for home-delivery of films among the videophile community (for purchase, at any rate), shouldn't they reflect the integrity and resolution of the 35mm original as closely as possible? For a studio to chose otherwise (Titanic, Abyss etc) is a slap-in-the-face to those who want their DVD projection to look as film-like (be faithful to the source) as possible.
As far as all the valuable extras that are not appearing on "main line" studio DVDs...that's rarely an issue of the studio not wanting to provide them, but more a political issue of rights and the pride of the parties involved who often will not liscense those extras to the studio.
Obviously, we'd both agree that the perfect world requires no compromises.
I just have very little sympathy for a studio (criterion) who reponded to my emails requesting that they provide 16x9 transfers with statements like (paraphrased) 'since most people just have 4x3 NTSC TVs...we would rather optimize our dvd product for this market rather then risk downconversion artifacts for the 4x3 audience even if it means providing an additional 33% resolution for the videophile with the 16x9 display'. when I would respond with "but most 4x3 display owners who are videophiles also want their video library optimized for the highest resolution possible because they eventually plan on upgrading" the response was "who cares, since High-Def is better anyay".
I failed to see this logic since I am not able to choose to buy HD-DVDs as an alternative to the 4x3 lbxed Criterion was offering me.
My conversations with THX representatives were practically verbatum.
-dave