Which studio has butchered the most of your favorite films? (1 Viewer)

[Bob Black]

I think Universal has ruined the most movies I would have bought otherwise. Twins, Kindergarten Cop, The Jerk, Parenthood and all the other pan & scan abominations. Then, of course, there's the Scarface fiasco with the worst transfer imaginable (and a $35 price tag)!

What are your favorite films that you refuse to buy until the studios get it right?

 

[Paul_Scott]

MGM is my personal villan.

Jean De Florette/ Manon Of The Spring
Who'll Stop The Rain
Chocolate
The Apartment
Elmer Gantry

and a slew of others all look at least poorer than they should and in the case of a few (like WSTR and Manon) look absolutely awful.
which hurts all the more because
1) they are modern classics.
and
2) so many films of much more dubious merit ( esp. the entire lineof midnight movies) have excellant transfers
-the Dunwhich Horror is right up there with any superbit i've seen in terms of PQ.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Miramax

They habitually slice anywhere from 1-40 minutes from foreign films, rescore them and leave out the original language track

 

[Patrick McCart]

While I don't have any problems with one studio from what I own, Disney has sucessfully kept me from buying around a dozen on their DVDs. (Their Fantasia DVD is a like a big hairy carbunkle on the Mona Lisa in my collection.)

Thanks to their revolutionary marketing tactics, I have not bought:

Melody Time
Make Mine Music
Saludas Amigos
The Absent Minded Professor
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

and that's just to name a few. I could actually have ALL of Disney's DVD product from the late 1920s to the late 1940s. By the way, I'm enjoying the uncut and OAR/original B&W DVDs from Columbia, Warner, MGM, and Paramount.

 

[James L White]

Columbia Tri-Star and some very early Warner DVD's are MAR only

 

[Jason Hennigan]

Disney!

Disney easily leads the pack, being that they REFUSE to release a Hong Kong film without screwing around with it.

All they need to do is a nice transfer and subtitles. Instead they edit, rescore, and dub over all of these films.

 

[Chris Sypal]

Manga Entertainment. Horrible work on Wings of Honneamise, bad layer changes on Patlabor. And those are the ones that I own. There's been problems on Macross Plus, the Evangelion movies.

I just quiver in fear over how they are going to screw up R.O.D. and Giant Robo.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

It's true that Mangle can't release a disc that doesn't suck in some way

 

[Eugene Esterly]

My answer would have to be Disney. Disney has a lot of movies on DVD but very few are in their OAR.

Studios such as MGM, Paramount, Warner, Columbia Tristar, etc have released certain DVD's in MAR but they have also released many movies in their OAR.

IMO, Disney, worst studio when it comes to DVD's. There are many Disney DVD's which I want to own but I will not purchase them becuase they are not in OAR.

 

[Angelo.M]

How about moving this thread to the Polls section?

 

[Jeff Adkins]

Miram-axe. They cut and dub most of the foreign language films they release.

Jeff

 

[Matthew Brown]

Disney/Miramax/Dimension.

For all the reasons stated already. For more details, go here http://alliance.hellninjacommando.net/ .


Matt

 

[Randy Korstick]

Disney/Miramax:

Disney for not releases catalog titles in their correct aspect ratio.

Miramax for continually butchering Hong Kong and other foreign films by not releasing them in the original language, shortening them and re-doing the music soundtracks.

 

[Matt Pasant]

Paramount:

Top Gun

Sony:

Karate Kid

 

[DeeF]

What's wrong with Fantasia?

 

[Mark Zimmer]

Warner is on my shit list for not releasing movies at all, and when they do half the time they're P&S only. Stupid, fat Warner. We hates it, we does.

 

[Travis_W]

Universal comes to mind with the terrible Scarface DVD which has a horrible transfer and it's non-anamorphic to boot. They also have prevented me from buying The Shadow and Happy Gilmore.

The only other studio I would have a real problem with is Disney since they keep releasing their titles in full frame only. I'm planning on buying Tom and Huck when it comes out but I think it will be pan & scan so that's some more money from my wallet that Disney won't get. Their Miramax division as well since they do horribly butcher their foreign films. Jackie Chan's The Accidental Spy (who knows what it was called in it's original title) had an hour cut out of it because of a terrorist sub-plot.

Oh yeah and Sony since guessing whether their titles will be widescreen is a gamble anymore.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Travis: It IS actually called The Accidental Spy

And it's only 20min (only!) that were cut. You can get an R0 version from HongKong that's non-anamorphic,b ut at least it's unbutchered

 

[Paul Arnette]

Surprised I haven't seen Artisian mentioned. Worst "major" DVD studio by a mile, in my opinion.

While not "personal favorites", The Quiet Man, Rambo trilogy, and the ever debatable Reservoir Dogs immediately spring to mind.

 

[Seth_S]

(please delete, double post)