Bill & Ted Thread (1 Viewer)

[Nick Graham]

Just picked up my copies ($8.19 a piece with my employee discount, woohoo!) and figured I'd drop in my two cents. After watching various scenes, "Excellent Adventure" has a fairly mediocre transfer (though it's better than the old standby P&S VHS tape by a long shot). Audio is clear but limited to the front soundstage. All in all, doesn't really exemplify the benefits of DVD (aside from the mediocre but still better than the old VHS picture), but if you're a fan (whether you admit it in public or not) it's not at all a bad buy for the $10 you can snag it for.

As for Bogus Journey, the image and sound improves quite a bit (though once again, audio-wise things seem fairly focused on the front sound stage). One thing that's weird, though you can access both the "theatrical trailer" and "teaser", the trailer is the exact same as the teaser only with much better vidseo quality....very odd. Basically, both of these discs are worth picking up, despite a lot of the criticism going around. You can't beat a couple of fun movies (not to mention good old nostalgia for us children of the 80s) wrapped up in a fairly nice A/V package for $10 a pop.

Oh, I almost forgot..............

SAN DIMAS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULES!!!!!

I can't believe I made it through this post without slighting Ron for the criticisms he leveled against "Excellent Adventure" as a film after heaping praises on a certain Reese Witherspoon chick flick which shall...oops, too late.

 

[Barry S]

I'm very excited about these DVDs being a rabid Bill and Ted fan, especially since I will be able to see them for the first time in OAR!! I wish the picture quality was a bit better, and some extras would be nice though. Are both discs anamorphic?

 

[Jeff Kleist]

I thought the transfer was darn good considering B&T was shot on a very low budget, and has been moved from studio to studio to studio. I'm pretty happy with it.

Haven't watched Bogus Journey yet

Now that I have the disc in hand, I can finish my proper cover for the title and replace that abomination

 

[Derek Miner]

Same here, Jeff...
But if you're going to mimic the MGM spine of Excellent Adventure, make sure you include a picture of Keanu Reeves instead of two identical pics of Alex Winter!

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Yes, both of these discs are anamorphic and look darn good too given their age and low budgets! I watched 'B&TsEA' the other day, and it was my first time laying eye's on this film in it's OAR of 2.35:1 since I saw it in theaters back in 88, and it looks wonderful!
That short dead dude Napoleon cracks me the hell up!

 

[Ron Eastman]

I picked up both discs today and have watched Excellent Adventure. Video quality was acceptable though there were frequent film based artifacts. The surrounds seemed to activate only once for a directional effect (after Ted fell down the stairs in the castle) but they were used frequently for environmental ambiance. I only have one complaint; the layer change during the Ziggy Piggy scene was very bad placement. It was right smack in the middle of the scene when ambient noise was present in the restaurant. Couldn't they have put it at a scene change? Bogus Dude!

 

[Seth Paxton]

I believe you will find that the Teaser and the Trailer on Bogus are slightly different, though very similar. And I'm pretty sure that the "teaser" runs longer than 1 minute, which I found odd.

Quality on both discs is lacking in terms of the source material, but I'm not surprised that no special effort went into these films at this point.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

I thought these were better than average catalog releases from MGM. They are rarely big on the cleaning up of film artifacts, so my expectations were somewhat lowered in that regard. I thought Bogus Journey looked and sounded great. The scenes with heavy optical effects stood out as grainier than the rest, but it's kind of self-explanatory why this would be.

I also thought it was extremely non-heinous of MGM to give us dual layer releases with superbit-like bitrates rather than wasting disc-space with a pan & scan layer or side. Also, they included English subtitles and inserts for both releases. They appear to be turning the ship around slowly but surely.

Most Excellently,

 

[Jeff Kleist]

I just hope that high sales will convince them that we need Bill&Teds Excellent Edition
3 disc set baby, documentaries on the historical figures, commentary you name it
The 2 scenes I thought most benefitted from the proper AR were the scene in the future and the report. They really looked A LOT better!
And of course, it's no longer Bill OR Ted's Excellent Adventure

 

[Sean Conklin]

And of course, it's no longer Bill OR Ted's Excellent Adventure

I just picked up B&T EA at Wal Mart for 9.44 (surprise, I thought it was going to be a lot more!)
But I didn't see Bogus Journey, does anyone know if WalMart will carry this one? Or will I have to drive 100 miles to Best Buy, or get it online?
Anyway I'm watching Excellent Adventure tonight!

 

[Scott-C]

Why, why, WHY did I put these two DVDs on my Christmas list? Now I have to wait until at least 12/25 to view them! Most non-triumphant!

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Gee, didn't MGM say they were going to include pan and scan on everything from now on?
I don't know why anyone would choose to watch these in pan and scan given the choice; "Excellent Adventure" looks just awful on my VHS copy; not even the laserdisc was in widescreen!

 

[Charles J P]

I gave these movies on my X-mas list to my future in-laws and my fiances mom will be seriously pissed if I buy them, but I cant wait to see them.:frowning:

 

[Ron Eastman]

Charles - Send them over to Nebraska Furniture Mart to get them where they are $8.99 each this week. Or better yet, just go buy 'em and tell the family these are off your list.

 

[Nick Graham]

I wish all furniture stores carried DVDs, it seems in Kansas the ratio of worthless furniture stores to video stores with good selection is about 4:1.

 

[Charles J P]

Yeah I thought about that, I also have a gift card at best buy that I need to use. They shop pretty early, and I think they may have already bought them. I also think I already screwed up, because I put The Postman on their list and then bought it. I think I better just let this one slide. BTW, I used to have a cat named Socrates which I always pronounced so-crates with just two syllables like in the move.
Edit: Yeah, otoh, I heard today that Nebraska Furniture Mart is opening a store in KC

 

[Sean Conklin]

Oh boy! B&T never looked so good!! I love it, the picture looks GREAT, considering the budget and age! Heck it looks great PERIOD! Well whatever, this disc is beautiful, and it was MOST EXCELLENT watching B&T in OAR!! and the 5.1 is good too!!

Thank you MGM, Way to go!!!!

 

[Ron Eastman]

Nick - The Nebraska Furniture Mart that Charles mentioned will be near the Kansas Speedway. I doubt they'll carry DVDs though as I would assume that's more geared towards NFM Mega Mart (their electronics store). I think the focus at the Kansas Store will be on their furniture operations.

I watched Bogus Journey last night and was even more impressed than I was with Excellent Adventure. The surrounds were appropriately active and the video was nearly perfect except for the scenes with heavy optical effects that Ken mentioned. From what I saw I would guess that MGM cleaned up the print in the digital realm. They probably didn't do much with the scenes that had these effects because the program would mistake smoke and color filters for artifacts. That's my best guess at least.

 

[CharlesD]

I must say that I thought the transfer on Excellent Adventure was most non-triumphant. Very dissapointing. I can understand the flaws & dirt in the original elements, but compared to many recent transfers I thought it looked quite bad. Maybe this is a warmed over older transfer?
In any case it was most excellent to finally see this movie in its OAR!
Party On Dudes!

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Charles, this has to be a new transfer. There was never a widescreen transfer done by the US rights holders.
The problem is that this movie has been sitting in a vault for 12 years, and was very low budget to begin with. it's not huge enough to warrent extensive restortion, so this is what we get. Personally, I'm very happy with it
Of course, I'd be MORE happy with and Excellent Edition