Rant Information

Author: EVula

Date: 2/1/03

Rating: G

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Rants: My DVD Rant

by EVula

First and foremost, I apologize for the crappy title; I couldn't think of anything else to call this Rant, and since it is a pretty general rant about DVDs in general, I figured it was the best I could come up with ("What I Like and Dislike About DVDs" is a bit too much).

For those of you who don't know, I recently got a PowerBook (667 Mhz w/ DVI graphics, in case you care). It came with many things, but most importantly (to this Rant, that is), it has a DVD player. This means that I've been buying up several DVDs, just because I could. Hurrah for impulse buys!

Some of the movies that I've gotten were worthwhile ports of the movie into the DVD format, taking advantage of all that the format can do. However, most of them are just "we need this movie on DVD, so put it on DVD. Here's $10 for the interface" types of DVDs. I dislike those types of movies, mainly because if I'm going to pay for something on DVD that I already have on VHS, I should be getting a bit more than the exact same thing in a different format.

However, I have gotten a few DVDs that were quite good, as far as bonus features are concerned. For example, the Terminator 2 Ultimate Edition DVD has two discs; the first disc has the movie (three different versions, actually) as well as some cast and crew biographies, but the second disc is absolutely full of supplementary information, such as production notes from the technical advisor, storyboards for the film, all of the trailers (both the US ones and the Japanese ones), as well as (literally) hundreds of pages of text on various aspects of production for the film. Truely a DVD that takes full advantage of what the DVD format has to offer as opposed to VHS.

Basically, here is what I think should become standard on all DVDs released from this day forward:

  1. Movie Trailers
    These are, more or less, standard on new releases for recent. That's the way it should be. However, older movies should have the trailers on there, too; it's interesting to see the average trailer "style" over the years.
  2. Bloopers
    Bloopers, dammit, add some freaking bloopers! The Back to the Future DVDs "have" blooper reels on them; it consists of about two minutes of bloopers, all low quality, and are over before you realize it. C'mon, its a two hour movie! I know that you guys scewed something up more than two times in only five scenes in the entire movie!
  3. Director's Cut // Deleted Scenes
    In the aforementioned T2 DVD, you had the option of watching the theatrical release or the special edition (there was also an extended special addition, with one extra scene and an alternate ending). The special edition had about a dozen new scenes that didn't make it into the movie; a big perk for fans of the movie (such as myself). The Back to the Future DVD had a handful of poor-quality deleted scenes, available in a seperate menu; either way is good, as long as the extra scenes are there for those people who would like to see them (although the option of seeing them as they were intended to be scene is preferred).
  4. Concept Art
    Concept art for costumes and/or sets can be quite cool, especially for historical or science fiction movies. Movies set in modern day generic settings probably don't have any concept art worth seeing; I suppose they could be exempt from "EVula's DVD Law". :)
  5. "Behind the Scenes" Features
    This is something else that is pretty standard for any new movies, as these things are done as part of the massive PR push that almost every movie has these days. Older movies, well, they can't do this either, since it's hard to film behind-the-scenes footage well after the movie has been made... *shrug*
  6. Interviews, Director's Notes, etc.
    These are something else that are becoming standard on major releases, which is good. It's nice to be able to get into the director's head about the movie that is being watched, to find out what aspects of production were especially memorable and/or difficult, stuff like that. Same way with the actors.

Anyway, yeah, that's what I think all new DVDs should have on them. So Hollywood, and I know you're reading this, get to it. :)

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