Sony appears to be releasing SUPERBIT titles from the newly acquired MGM catalogue. DVD EMPIRE lists MAD MAX and the remake of ROLLERBALL coming out Jan. 10th.
I can't think of two films which could hardly need the SB treatment than those two mentioned. Mad Max is an ok film, but Rollerball is one of the worst films I can remember. Its on par with Batman & Robin, IMO.
If its true, they obviously seem to be continuing the trend of releasing mediocre or undeserving films with the Superbit treatment. As with the other releases, SB does not mean better quality in A/V at all, and I doubt they will change their approach to MGM titles.
I was thinking the same thing. Rollerball I couldn't give a shit about and The Mad Max SE is perfectly acceptable. The Australian soundtrack in 5.1 and mono and a wonderful transfer.
It would be great if Sony actually lost money by producing these Superbit discs. The concept is utterly ridiculous. "We could give you the best possible transfer with both DTS and DD and commentary tracks, instead we're going to split the release up in two. We're also going to decrease the transfer quality for the standard release to justify the Superbit release. The money we're making from these relases are going into... ehmmm... um... development. Yeah, that's right, development."
Isn't Superbit irrelevent by now? Just grabbing an old transfer and cranking up the bitrate and using less filtering just doesn't excite me. A new transfer does though.
The newest edition of Robocop looks alright. Just needs less EE and contrast.
Message to Sony: If you must re-release existing MGM DVDs, start with those that have non-anamorphic, open-matte or pan and scan or just plain crap transfers and create all-new HD-sourced anamorphic transfers. For instance:
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) (non-anamorphic) Kiss Me Deadly (non-anamorphic) Midnight Cowboy (non-anamorphic; generally crap transfer) Rob Roy (crap) The Apartment (non-anamorphic; crap) Bound for Glory (1976) (non-anamorphic; crap) Exodus (fucking horrendous, non-anamorphic transfer) The Graduate (non-anamorphic) It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (needs to be restored in one way or another) The Knack ...and How to Get It (non-anamorphic) The Long Riders (crap?) The Night of the Hunter (needs a SE) On the Beach (non-anamorphic) Paths of Glory (generally good transfer, but seeing as Warner are doing new Kubrick SEs...) King of Hearts (1967) (non-anamorphic) Fellini's Roma (non-anamorphic) Sweet Smell of Success (non-anamorphic) The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (non-anamorphic) Theatre of Blood (non-anamorphic) Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (non-anamorphic) Tom Jones (1963) (non-anamorphic; needs a digital restoration; day-for-night shots re-timed) The Train (1964) (generally good, but is non-anamorphic)
One could add Moonstruck to the list as well. Current disc is p&s.
Interesting/annoying but I suppose not surprising that Sony is doing this last call/money grab of SBs of MGM titles despite their first Blu-rays being hopefully about 8 months away.