'Loaded with extras'

[capncnut]

Now I have a bunch of DVD's that rattle on about being 'loaded with extras' (I made a joke about this in the Survival thread) but when you take a close ganders, there's actually fuck all on the damn thing. I'm not talking about any specific DVD, hence why this is in General Discussion, but how many times have you seen this... Theatrical trailer Stills gallery Chapter selection Interactive menu 'DVD company' showcase reel Links For a starters, chapters aint a fucking extra. It's a convenience. Interactive menus are well... would you buy a DVD with an uninteractive menu? Showcase reels are just a bunch of unrelated trailers, and Links can be anything from the company link, or just a screen displaying the company link. Hardly see how these things qualify as 'extras'.

[krakenslayer]

Vipco were the worst for this. Their packaging screamed DIGITALLY REMASTERED which, translated, meant "copied verbatim off a dusty, scratched old bootleg VHS tape Michael Lee found in his basement using an beat-up VCR and a DVD writer", and their "Special Features" never included anything more than "interactive menus", "scene selection", "trailers" (for other films), "stills gallery" (screenshots from the film that you could just get for yourself if you knew how to use the pause button). I think they released one (ONE!) DVD with a commentary and that was City of the Living Dead which had some interesting insights from Catriona McColl and Jay Slater, but that was it. Apparently, Slater used to send Vipco various odds and sods off his own back, for free, in the hopes that they'd use them on their discs. For example, he made a supposedly fascinating and hilarious commentary for Zombie Creeping Flesh, with him and some journo friends getting drunk and discussing the movie. Vipco, however, were much too lazy to even bother including this totally free material on any of their releases.

[bassman]

I know exactly what you mean, but I don't see too many of these barebones releases anymore. Seems like they kinda faded away around 2003 and the releases AT LEAST had a 15 minute making of. I remember when I first jumped on the DVD bandwagon I thought that the interactive menus were pretty cool. The NY skyline in Ghostbusters with stay puft walking down the street was mind blowing to me. Now if I purchase a favorite film I make sure of all the features. There's nothing I enjoy more than a long or feature length making of doc. I could watch those things all day long...

[Tricky]

I always buy the most stripped down version that contains just the film if I can, I dont mind a few deleted scenes or alternate endings, but im really not interested in ruining future viewings for myself by seeing how they did certain effects, how long the actors sat in make up everyday, watching them act against blue screens or having the directors commentary waffling away through the whole film, all im interested in really is the finished product & some nice menu presentation! I accept that people who are interested in film making will salivate over as many extras as they can get their mitts on, but buying 3 disc box sets with the film on one, then two discs loaded with extras or whatever doesnt interest me. Although I did like it when I bought the Predator special edition 6 or 7 years ago & it came with a demo of the AvP game for the PC

[Craig]

I'm a bit like Tricky I think, special features don't really enter into my buying decisions. I can totally understand why people would want them though, I do watch a few extras here and there, mostly on TV series/comedy DVDs I think.

[Danny]

i saw one once that was just a burn of the movie that instantly plays and restarts at the end the "special features?" "plays in ANY dvd player!"

[darth los]

I know exactly what you mean, but I don't see too many of these barebones releases anymore. Seems like they kinda faded away around 2003 and the releases AT LEAST had a 15 minute making of. I remember when I first jumped on the DVD bandwagon I thought that the interactive menus were pretty cool. The NY skyline in Ghostbusters with stay puft walking down the street was mind blowing to me. And that's the bottom line. Once you give the consumer "extras" that is now the standard. The bar has been set. It's like dating regular chicks your whole life and one day this bombshell comes and turns your world upside down. How can a man go back?

[MinionZombie]

ha! I know what you mean. Those aren't special features by any stretch of the imagination. I'm a DVD extra whore. I love proper making ofs (not the EPK-like puff pieces that are about 10 minutes long and tell you fuck all), stuff like "30 Days In Hell" (making of The Devil's Rejects) is superb, and 2.5 hours long. I still really wanna see the 4.5 hour making of for RZ's Halloween. I was well pissed when I bought the normal 2-disc DVD only for that 3-disc to be announced a couple of months later ... hence why I'm holding off on purchasing H2. Yeah, you heard me right. Fuck you.

[Ghost Of War]

ha! I know what you mean. Those aren't special features by any stretch of the imagination. I'm a DVD extra whore. I love proper making ofs (not the EPK-like puff pieces that are about 10 minutes long and tell you fuck all), stuff like "30 Days In Hell" (making of The Devil's Rejects) is superb, and 2.5 hours long. I still really wanna see the 4.5 hour making of for RZ's Halloween. I was well pissed when I bought the normal 2-disc DVD only for that 3-disc to be announced a couple of months later ... hence why I'm holding off on purchasing H2. Yeah, you heard me right. Fuck you. I watched "30 Days In Hell" last weekend, probably one of the best "making ofs" I've seen. I loved the way it went right through from script, casting, first script reading, and shooting.

[Debbieangel]

I love watching the extra's on dvd's,the making of parts are the best! It makes me really angry when I bring a movie home and it says lots of extra's and then nothing...scene selection! pffft! I want to see how they do the cool effects and see the actors,directors talking about the movie. I feel ripped off if I don't get all that when I buy dvd's.

[MinionZombie]

I love watching the extra's on dvd's,the making of parts are the best! It makes me really angry when I bring a movie home and it says lots of extra's and then nothing...scene selection! pffft! I want to see how they do the cool effects and see the actors,directors talking about the movie. I feel ripped off if I don't get all that when I buy dvd's. It's also annoying when there are large differences between R1 and R2 DVDs - for example, the reason I haven't yet seen Fincher's latest, Benjamin Button, is because I want the 2-disc DVD with the in-depth making of stuff ... but it's only on R1, and all the prices are over the stingy-ass £18 import limit. And even then, £18 for a fuckin' DVD is ridiculous. I'm always so careful buying DVDs because of this, and that's why I've got so many R1 DVDs. I always use DVDTimes to find out about releases, and what the features are on R1 and R2. 99% of the time it hasn't let me down.

[capncnut]

Those cheap assed martial arts flicks can be misleading too. I got one that lists every language soundtrack and subtitle option as an extra - about ten in total.

[C5NOTLD]

I love watching the extra's on dvd's,the making of parts are the best! It makes me really angry when I bring a movie home and it says lots of extra's and then nothing...scene selection! pffft! I want to see how they do the cool effects and see the actors,directors talking about the movie. I feel ripped off if I don't get all that when I buy dvd's. I agree. .

[deadpunk]

I always buy the most stripped down version that contains just the film if I can, I dont mind a few deleted scenes or alternate endings, but im really not interested in ruining future viewings for myself by seeing how they did certain effects, how long the actors sat in make up everyday, watching them act against blue screens or having the directors commentary waffling away through the whole film, all im interested in really is the finished product & some nice menu presentation! I accept that people who are interested in film making will salivate over as many extras as they can get their mitts on, but buying 3 disc box sets with the film on one, then two discs loaded with extras or whatever doesnt interest me. ^This. I'll go a step further and issue a rather bold statement : I miss VCRs. Omfg...can I just pop in a movie and have the fucking thing play? Is that really too much to ask? I honestly just do not have the patience to deal with the hoops some DVDs want you to jump through just. to. watch. the. fucking. movie. And...you could always just FF through trailers for shit movies you have no interest in. Some DVDs force you to sit through that crap before finally dragging you to the menu (where you might have to select your language and viewing preference before you can finally hit PLAY.) And while I admittedly know jack-of about the film industry, I have to ask; would it really kill them to select trailers for movies that might somewhat remotely co-relate to the type of movie I'm watching? I think my favorite aspect of shopping on Amazon is the fact tha it also suggests: people that bought this have also bought this or this... If I buy The Ring why might I get strapped with a trailer for say, The Piano? That doesn't seem like a great marketing strategy to me. Yet...shit happens all the time.

[capncnut]

I'll go a step further and issue a rather bold statement : I miss VCRs. I don't. That's because I still use them! I have far too many obscure titles/taped concerts that are unreleased on DVD for me to get rid of my VCR. In fact, I have a shiny new Panasonic boxed and wrapped in case anything happens to my current one. Plus, if I want to play a film that I own on both formats just for backing sounds, I'll play the VHS. Picture quality don't mean fuckles to me unless I'm really in the mood for a one to one with the screen. Some DVDs force you to sit through that crap before finally dragging you to the menu (where you might have to select your language and viewing preference before you can finally hit PLAY.) Now that really does get on my thrupenny bits. Don't forget that jazzy car alarm of an anti-piracy trailer: "You wouldn't steal from your mum's purse, you wouldn't steal from a bank - film piracy is stealing!" Who are those clowns to assume I wouldn't steal from a bank, or my mum's purse for that matter?