DARK SHADOWS 1991..to be cropped? (1 Viewer)

[Robert Ringwald]

Unless people make their voices heard.

3 Years ago "Roseanne: The Complete 1st Season" would have merely sold poorly... and Anchor Bay would have assumed Roseanne wasn't a hit on DVD.

Thanks to people e-mailing anchor bay and making a noise... they knew it was because of the syndicated episodes. So season 2 is set for Dec, uncut. Perhaps sales will increase now.

If people make it well known that the cropping is the reason for not wanting to purchase DS... they'll put some of the blame for poor sales on that. My friend was a huge fan and was very disappointed to find of the cropping and is NOT going to buy this set. He'd buy anything DS...

 

[David Williams]

Okay, UPS dropped this off about an hour ago and I've had a look at episode 1 up until the first commercial break (about 15 minutes in... when the hand reaches up out of the coffin) and the opening titles of episode 2. I'm very impressed with the pan & scan job done... the only time you notice that you aren't watching a film is when the camera goes in for an extreme close-up (the hand scene) and only then, did the bars cut a small portion of Jim Fyfe's chin off. The other 15 minutes & 55 seconds were fine... everyone was wholly present in the frame.

I hate p&s crap with a passion, but in a moment of weakness I bought this (it's literally my favorite show of all time) and I'm glad I did now. The changes are so minor, you'd swear it was filmed in Super 35. They also windowboxed (I think this is the right term) the main credits to preserve them in their entirety. The end of the credits fade to black and then everything comes back in 1.78.

The only real downside is that there was no restoration or clean-up done and the show looks every one of its 15 years (but it beats my 15 y.o. OTA EP recordings), though the sound was quite good. There is also some minor artifacting in scenes with lots of fog (could be a problem, since there is a lot of fog in the eps).

 

[Ethan Riley]

Thanks for being our first guinea pig on this dvd...! I'm still on the fence about it. And I certainly hope cropping doesn't become more popular...bah! Can you imagine them cropping something like Bonanza, or the Avengers? Or any classic hour-long drama, really. The fact that DS had little restoration bothers me, too. Probably the VHS versions remain the way to go. If only there weren't 12 of them; I'd probably have bought them years ago, but I just didn't want to make room for 12 more VHS tapes, and they were very expensive at the time.

Did anyone else get this yet?

 

[AndyMcKinney]

Yeah, MGM might blame it on poor sales. Part of the point of my post was that, perhaps a few years down the road, MGM, seeing little worth into hanging onto the video licence if this sells poorly, may let the title go out-of-print and might be willing to lease the series to MPI once again a few years down the road.

MPI (and Jim Pierson, et al) I think have enough common sense to know that poor sales of the MGM set could be in large part because of the cropped image, lack of additional footage or featurettes and lack of restoration. They're on a much smaller sale than MGM and would, IMO, do the show "right" in a few years (maybe when they're done releasing the 1960s pre-Barnabas episodes), even taking into account that MGM has already released a (poor) version.

 

[John_S]

I too wanted to own this for quite some time, but resisted the high price (and storage space) of purchasing the vhs tapes. My DVD's arrived today and I've spot-checked them, and although I'm not thrilled with the lack of restoration and certainly would have strongly preferred the proper aspect ratio, I don't expect a 1991 single-season show to be re-done again any time soon. If I'm wrong, $28 isn't the end of the world-- I'll re-purchase this again.

I realize this attitude is heresy to some here, and I understand the viewpoint that i'm rewarding the release of inferior product- but I believe that if noone buys this, it will be chalked up to lack of demand for a series that was cancelled in one season over ten years ago---- and we'll probably never see it again anyway.

As far as the quality of the presentation, David's comments are right-on-- it could have used some restoration, the cropping isn't as bad as i'd feared, and the audio is decent.

 

[VictoriaWinters]

This is the flip side of the argument. One that created quite a dilemma for me. However, I resolved it on the side of not purchasing until it's in the bargin bin.

 

[Ethan Riley]

Good point, Victoria...! I might wait a year and watch the price drop down and down. But I wonder if there's any benefit to contacting MGM and requesting an alternate full screen version? I know fans carped and carped at Warners until they were given a widescreen Willy Wonka dvd. I know DS isn't as big a seller, but it couldn't hurt.

 

[VictoriaWinters]

I certainly was planning to write a letter to them eventually once some reviews come out. Nice to use quotations and what nots.

I am President of the Local DS Fan Club. I might be able to drum up a few signatures. But, most are originalists and won't sign because they don't care for it. I'll try to convince them it is the principal of the thing. None of want crap released to us.

 

[Randy Korstick]

As someone who owned the VHS tapes and TV recordings I have to say I am impressed with this release and think that the quality is being underrated here or maybe too much expected. Yes I would prefer the original ratio but as noted its not bad at all and I would have liked the extra scenes from the VHS release but the video quality made my jaw drop compared to all previous versions. Yes its still grainy but this show was always very, very grainy because it was filmed that way. Remember grain is not always bad. But the colors blew me away as they jumped right off the screen. Previous releases always had very dull and smeared colors but this release has great colors. No clean-up was down but it was remastered in high definition, which has made a difference.

 

[David Williams]

My comments were more toward the dirt, scratches and other things visible in the picture through out the first episode. The picture looks a lot better watching it my Panny than when I ran it through my computer's DVD player. The fog artifacting isn't as noticeable, but the dirt et al still is, unfortunately. But as I said in my original post, it beats the pants off VHS.

 

[Darren Gross]

I think for the best exposure to the cropping issue it'd be best to write letters to TV Guide AND Entertainment Weekly.

 

[VictoriaWinters]

That's easy enough to do Darren.

 

[Harry-N]

Old thread - back from the grave, as it were.

I picked this set up recently and decided to give it a viewing. I realized that I was viewing a fake widescreen the moment the show changed from the windowboxed credits, and I had to then instantly compare the framing to my old VHS tapes from the NBC airings. It's true that some info from the top and bottom of the frame is missing, but it's also true that a tiny bit more width info is seen in the DVD version.

I recall watching the series in 1991 and not being all that thrilled with it initially. I warmed up to it during its run, but wasn't all that devastated when it was cancelled.

Being a fan of the original series (though not all that willing to invest in any home video versions), I thought this might be a good stopgap measure while I continue to wait for the two DARK SHADOWS movies. I have them on LaserDisc, but I thought this revival series might be an enjoyable DVD diversion in the meantime.

I was right. After completing the viewing of all 12-13 episodes, I found the experience thoroughly enjoyable, despite the reframing. I didn't feel as though I was missing anything vital except for the cases of a few extreme close-ups. In fact, it felt more like a movie-like experience with the widescreen framing.

The grain didn't bother me - it usually doesn't. Film grain is a good thing. There were a few scenes that were probably shot in inadequate light that were excessively grainy, but they were few and far between and didn't last long.

I suppose the worst aspect of this DVD presentation is the day-for-night shots not being darkened enough. It occasionally looked like people were strolling about in bright daylight when the scene was supposed to be at night. But I forgave that aspect too, as the story kept me involved.

As I said, I didn't take to the casting/story differences in this version originally. I suppose that just twenty years between the old and new series wasn't enough. But now - in thirty-eight years, it all seems a lot better. I enjoyed the casting and the story variations, and the sets were a lot more realistic than the old TV series could ever hope for.

This series is currently being packaged rather reasonably in some two-fer packages, and is worth a look, even just as a curiosity.

Harry

 

[MishaLauenstein]

One of those "people" being A VAMPIRE!

It's sad that the Day-For-Night effect was missing on so many scenes. During some episodes, we spent more time making "Light Shadows" jokes than listening to the dialogue.