Those darn DVDs, Part the First

So that Steven’s head does not explode, I present the following.

I have written at great length here and here about special features, the DVD industry, and the insiduous marketing practices it employs.

I am a savvy consumer, and I check out my purchases (especially those online) thouroughly. Yesterday, one such purchase arrived at my door, a shipment from Amazon.COm containing the DVD release of Serenity, and the two-disc gift set of Ghostbusters 1 & 2.

Before you go off on a rant, I rather like the second movie. It’s not the comedy Juggernaut of the first one, but it is a more mature character study, the kind only possible in sequels and the first season of the X-files (inside joke, let it pass)

I already own “teh” Ghostbusters: the Collector’s Series DVD. This little gem has the complete, uncut movie, many featurettes, storyboards, and bonus features. Including a “live” commentary track from Ivan Reitman (director/producer), Harold Ramis (writer/actor) and another of the film’s producers. On the original disc, this commentary also had an optional video overlay, which has silhouettes of the three watching the movie, and visually calling out bits of the film.

It’s a quite enjoyable spin, and still available in stores. The disc carries the Columbia/Tri-Star Home video inprint, and was released in the theaters under the columbia label.

Since I like (love) the movie and it’s attendant DVD, I was looking forward to the visual improvements offered by the re-release. The special features named above are listed in the item description, as well as the knowledge that the film had been remastered for anamorphic widescreen and high definition sets (old cut was theatrical ratio). I was looking forward to handing the old disc off to someone, but then I did a spot comparison of the two.

They’re not the same disc, not even close.

The MST3K style commentary is gone, replaced by a standard audio track (the same one, but really, it’s not the same). Most of the special features that I liked were spun off into a companion booklet. It’s a nifty little coffee table piece, but I’ve already lost the one that came with the Constantine DVD, and I’m not looking forward to hunting this one down in a few days.

It does have the slim cases that I like so much (fans of Firefly know the ones I’m talking about), and they were in fact one of the selling points. But somewhere in the transfer process, 2 minutes were cut from the film. This happens frequently when you do a 4:3 pulldown for PAL tv sets, so I’m not going to freak out about it yet. But drilling down through the menus I discover that there are indeed some featurettes not included in the new set.

Damnit.

So now, instead of saving space on the shelf, I’ve doubled the footprint of Ghostbusters, in a display that already does not have enough space for my collection (it’s been a while since I updated ScottFlix, but I’m approaching 400), and my current home configuration cuts out 25% of my shelves.

It’s a little disappointing to be told that the disc you are ordering will have more features, and to discover upon receipt that it instead has different ones.

More later.