Why So Blu?

One Sad Day: When Blu-ray Go Bad

Life is full of disappointments.  They can range from not getting a promotion you were up for, or your favorite restaurant closing down.  However, few things in life can match the eye rolling anger that one gets when a favorite movie comes out on Blu-ray and disappoints us at every turn.  It’s almost like the Chicago Cubs making it to the post season… you just can’t believe it.

Everyone knows about The Firth Element and how that debacle had become stuff of legends.  But here we are, nearly eight years into the format hitting the mainstream with it’s inclusion into the PlayStation 3 video game console and we are still having to suffer through horrible transfers and awful releases.  And I’m not talking about a small independent film company who probably can’t afford a pristine remaster or lots of extras – nor am I talking about movies like 28 Days Later that unfairly gets slammed for a bad transfer when it is the film’s original source material opted by the director as a narrative choice.  This is aimed squarely at the Big Boys who should know better and have the resources to do better.

Here is a brief list (in no particular order) of some of my biggest disappointments in the world of Blu.  Be warned though, as a horror fan, most of the ones I focus on are genre releases.

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Silent Night, Deadly Night: 30th Anniversary Edition (Anchor Bay, 2014): Nothing toasts my cookies more than when a movie gets reissued in an “Anniversary Edition” in a new format, but adds little to nothing new in comparison to the previous format.  Disney is notorious for this with bare bones “Anniversary” releases of movies like guilty 80’s pleasure Adventures in Babysitting.  But I expect more from Anchor Bay than a barely upconverted-from-DVD transfer of Silent Night, Deadly Night – one of the more notoriously controversial horror films in the mid-1980s.  The picture looks nearly identical to the DVD, including the washed out quality of the reinserted “unrated” scenes, and it’s only new extra – a commentary track – is pretty bland with people who seem either uninterested in being there or have little memory of specific details of the movie.  No trailer, no new documentary, no nothing else. I’d rather have a spouse forget my anniversary altogether if I’m going to get turds like this one.

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A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (New Line, 2012): For reasons completely unknown to me, New Line/Warner has stubbornly refused to release an unrated cut of the movie on any format past VHS.  The film is a stinker anyway, but I’d like to have the two extra minutes that have been elusive in its multiple DVD releases and, now, its Blu-ray High Definition inclusion in the otherwise stellar A Nightmare on Elm Street Collection boxed set.

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Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (New Line, 2013): Speaking of unrated cuts, the most bafflingly odd omission in recent memory has to be the R-rated-only version of the ninth Friday the 13th movie in the Collector’s Set.  Not only did we not get the unrated version but also the fun and informative commentary track went with it.  It could be a rights issue, but given the unrated is readily still available on DVD, its absence taints this collection.

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Full Metal Jacket (original release): Good thing this got a Collector’s Edition treatment, because the original release was atrocious. It was so grainy, I could have ran it through a strainer.

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Halloween: The Complete Collection (Anchor Bay/Scream Factory, 2014): For a collection that has 10 or 15 discs, depending on the version you get, this collection is not 100% complete.  What’s missing is the theatrical versions of both Rob Zombie remakes of Halloween and Halloween II.  Some alternate takes from the theatrical version are included in the deleted/alternate scenes for 2007’s Halloween, but is not present as an entire movie – which is the version most people have seen.  The ending of the theatrical version of Halloween II is so vastly different from the Director’s Cut and it is nowhere to be found in the set, and has actually never been released on Blu-ray (although can be found on DVD).  Don’t get me wrong, I love this box set to death and there is stuff contained in it that I never thought would see the light of day… and I assume the theatrical cuts weren’t included because these discs were Sony releases just included, unaltered, in the box.  But, truth be told, the set is not actually “complete.”

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Superman II (Warner, 2007): This movie has been on Blu-ray since the days of the format war with HD DVD.  Both formats got the “Richard Donner Cut”, but neither got the theatrically released version.  While I appreciate the ability to have finally seen the version that was rumored about for so long, I would still like to have the other version – which, in my opinion, is the better movie with a better ending that didn’t feel like such an awkward retread of the original’s conclusion.  Where is this version?  Probably left out on Krypton.

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Cabin Fever: Director’s Cut (Lionsgate): I just picked this up from Best Buy since everyone trots out horror movies this time of year and I was pretty stoked.  The picture is great, but the disc is sorely lacking the theatrical cut – and therefore, the five awesome commentaries that were on the DVD.  Containing only the director’s cut, which does improve the movie’s quality, it has a new commentary with director Eli Roth and cast, but there are multiple references to “other commentaries” that are no where on this disc since the other version is not present.  With all the data a Blu-ray disc can hold, I feel it could have easily been included and nothing would have been sacrificed.

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Gladiator (original release): Nothing more needs to be said than this movie’s transfer was such an eyesore that Paramount offered a free replacement program.  Which is more than what is currently being done about:

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Twin Peaks: The Complete Mystery (CBS, 2014): Finally, one of my all-time favorite television series has come out on Blu-ray! And in it’s complete format, which includes all episodes aired on television, plus the 1992 movie prequel and 90-minutes of deleted scenes!  But the set must have taken a trip through the Black Lodge because it came out not entirely intact.  The early DVD episode commentaries are still missing, as are a lot of extras from the DVD Gold Box Set.  But the worst part is horrible audio syncing errors that are present in numerous deleted scenes and in the Fire Walk With Me movie itself – so bad that it makes it nearly unwatchable.  CBS is “aware” of the problem and have been since August, but nothing has been done to appease buyers of this not-so-inexpensive collection.

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There are many others worth mentioning, such as Scream (lacking a Director’s Cut which was released in North America on laserdisc but never on DVD or Blu-ray), V for Vendetta (soft, almost fuzzy PQ), Evil Dead 2 (noticeably worse than the THX-approved DVD), anything released by Echo Bridge Entertainment (multiple movies on a single disc with horrible picture quality and no extras), and Jeepers Creepers (no extras whatsoever from the DVD).

Blu-ray is, by far, my most favorite format of for movies. I initially wrote off high definition as not being that big of a difference from DVD as DVD was to VHS back near the turn of the century.  But I stand corrected.  And that is perhaps why I am harder on Blu-ray and its releases than I was with DVD.  It has taught me to expect more, so when a movie or series comes out that isn’t up to snuff, it is almost like a personal insult.  I love this format and I want to see it succeed, especially in the battle it is in with streaming and mobile devices – something DVD didn’t have to contend with.  Blu-ray should be the highest of the high as far as the way to watch movies, so I think holding it to a higher standard isn’t being picky – it’s wanting the best for it.