Superbit titles - bad movies??? (1 Viewer)

[Al Stuart]

Well looking at the available Superbit titles, I have always felt that Sony was only putting them out to boost sales of titles that are not selling well, and are generally not well received. I own 4 of them, 2 of which I had no choice (Adaptation, Punch Drunk-Love) and 2 of which I wanted an improvement in the surround options and and a proper dual layered tranfer (Gattaca, Deperado).

The rest of the options seem silly to me. From Here to Eternity? Mono sound and no anamorphic transfer because OAR is full frame. What's the point? Most of these movies are not very good

Other Superbit titles.

Charlie's Angels- Promotion for the sequel. Sony knows that, so they put a free ticket in the box.
Snatch-Don't understand the point of this. I didn't like the movie, but the 2 disc set seemed fine.
The Fifth Element-This is one of the few I can understand
MIB II-Quick before they catch on how bad the movie is!
Mask of Zorro- How many versions of this mediocre and forgotten movie do we need?
Dracula-I find it unwatchable, but I can see the point. Why they have not liscensed any of the extras from the different LD versions is kind of a puzzle.
Bad Boys- Another sequel promotion disc, another unwatchable movie with way too many versions (3?).
Legends of the Fall-A happily forgotten bore with nice photography. Who asked for a third disc of this?
XXX-A comment has no purpose, although I would assume that anyone who would like this movie (Ebert aside) wouldn't be interested in the extras anyway, let alone be able to communicate with someone above a 7 year old's intelligence.
Tommy-How much improvement could be done on the original disc, considering the age of the film.
Johnny Mnemonic-Umm. This movie is awful, and I don't know anyone who likes it, let alone can sit through it. Why we need a souped up version of Keanu as a robot whining about room service, I have no idea.
MIB- This is about the 9th version of this disc, and I believe one of the early sets even had a DTS track, so this seemed more than a little pointless.
Das Boot-I have the old disc, and I was happy with it,
Starship Troopers-This is a slap in the face to anyone who bought the recent remastering, considering most of the eaxtras were repeats from the original disc.
Panic Room- Just a stopgap until an SE comes out. As phony as a Superbit label can be.
The Dark Crystal-Not really much of an improvement, and losing the extras is a shame.
Hollow Man-An obvious way to try to sell more copies of a bad movie that did not sell well.
Labryinth-Losing the great documentary for a DTS track?
Seven Years in Tibet-No one even remembers this movie, which was drowned by the buzz about Kundun anyway.
A Knight's Tale-SLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOWWWWWWW. Why is this semi-amusing trifle almost 2 and 1/2 hours? This movie doesn't have enough fans to justify this release.
The Quick and the Dead-I like this movie, but I don't understand this.
The Patriot-A very funny movie, one wishes it were played that way.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon- I hated this film, but I can see the point.
The One-Undeniably bad and tame. Perhaps the DTS track makes it louder so you can drown out the dialogue.
Heavy Metal- How much can you improve an 80's animated movie that was just remastered a few years ago?
Heavy Metal 2000- Who asked for this?
The Big Hit- Huh?
Resident Evil- This movie is a slap in the face of people who liked to be entertained.
Air Force One-Entertaining at the time, but dated now. I'm not sure of the audience for this.
Vertical Limit-Why would you want to make the blue screen work even more obvious by improving the picture quality?
Anaconda-There's no defending this movie nor this disc.

 

[Jason Hennigan]

I thought that everyone knew that the Superbit line is there to make Columbia Tri-Star extra money? Isn't this common knowledge? The line doesn't exist to help preserve great cinema in the best way possible (ok, some would argue that Ice Cube's performace in Anaconda makes that film great cinema ).

Films such as The Panic Room and Adaptation were released as Superbits to help promote the line overall.

There's no good reason to release a Superbit of something like "The One", other than to make more money on a title which has seen its sales die.

Why make a "Vampires" Superbit? There's no good reason, other than to make more money off a title in their library which currently isn't making money. And I'll be the first person in line to get the Vampires Superbit.

 

[Eric Peterson]

I've always thought that the Super-bit line was a joke and was amazed at how many bad movies were released in this line. I just bought my first title the other day "Punch Drunk Love". I would be interested in picking up "Adaptation" someday, but would rather wait to see if an SE is in the works. Up until then the only other title to even remotely spark my interest was "Bram Stoker's Dracula", but I already have the original disc which is damn good and couldn't see upgrading for a marginally better picture and anamorphic enhancement when I don't even have a widescreen TV. Plus, there had been rumors of a Dracula SE for over two years and then all we got was the lousy Super-Bit.

 

[Christian Preischl]

I just bought my first title the other day "Punch Drunk Love".

Same here. And upon adding up the content of both DVDs I found that everything (7.82 GB) still would have fit on a DVD-9. But of course if they put extras on the movie disc they couldn't call it a SuperBit DVD.

I wonder how many people on the forum wouldn't have bought PDL as a Single Disc SE, rather waiting for an eventual SuperBit release.

Chris

 

[Carlo_M]

I do not understand why HT magazines review movies for sound, picture, & extras but not for the quality of the movie.

Just browsing around the movie reviews here at HTF...I understand completely why reviewers don't review the "quality" of a movie. Picture and sound can be quantified (black level, picture noise, print damage, etc.) and even those are disputed (EE levels, naturally film grain vs. grain added by the transfer)! To throw their hat in as to the quality of a film is just to ask to get filleted publicly!

I think it's fine that most reviewers of DVDs don't mention the film quality. If you're thinking of buying, chances are you've seen the film and have your own opinion. If not, there's a plethora of film critics out there that are easy to find. DVD reviewers should try to concentrate on the DVD aspects, IMO.

 

[Dave Mack]

The "Dracula" SB is a NOTICEABLE improvement. If you didn't like the flick, I understand. But I think it's great. Gary Oldman chewing, (biting...?) the scenery, the costumes, the cinematography, the wonderful music, (1 of the BEST surround tracks).

D