Movies and DVD

[HugoFuchs]

I moved this so I could rant in a more Topic related area.

Speaking of Harry Potter, the second movie is closer than the first one to the book. WAY too much was left out of the first movie. Huge chunks of character introduction and development. Also one of the characters that plays a major part in later books. Guess they'll just alter those sections.
Also I love the Phoenix stairs. Now that's a spiral staircase.


Also a personal peeve. Why isn't there an option on the movie menus to play the movie with the 'cut' scenes added rather than having to view them seperately. *ARGH!* Also if making a movie from a book, why not film the whole movie, clip it down to fit in the theatres and then release an un-cut version on DVD. Hell I'd buy several movies on DVD in addition to seeing them in the theatre if they'd do this. They just don't know how to take advantage of the alternate features of DVD. I also would like to see the alternate view angles used more often.

[ZOMBIE USER 6611]

Also a personal peeve. Why isn't there an option on the movie menus to play the movie with the 'cut' scenes added rather than having to view them seperately.

Two guesses. One: The movie, as released, is a copyright work and additions to it would cloud copyright protection issues, already sensitive these days.

Second, and more "practical". The movie would have been scored as released, and so the reintroduction of the cut scenes would have them rather abruptly appearing without background music.

[HugoFuchs]

Hmm, I'm not so sure on the copyright, since the original is held by the author with Warner Brothers holding some or all of the movie rights. If they hold all the movie rights then it presents no problems. Those rights can be subdivided by the original owner (author) so it could be only for theatrical release, only for release as DVD, whatever. But my guess is that at least the first one was for everything, and they got that one for a song. I'm sure they had to pay through the nose for the second and further ones(they have rights to the next two as well). Though I wonder who will pay Dumbledore now that Richard Harris has died.

As for the more practicle, since those scores are generally scored post production, it could easily be modified for the fits. There are some DVDs with scenes that have the same music as the later cut-down scenes do.

Mostly a matter of price, the chance that it as a marketing device might flop, etc.

If I filmed a movie it would probably be filmed so that I could cut it up and make a PG-13, R or NR version, releasing PG-13 to the theaters and a video of the movie, a DVD with extra scenes (able to be played in, or excluded as the theater was), a gold director's cut rated R with more cut scenes, and then a special platinum NR version with nothing cut. You of course don't explain to anyone that there will be later versions of the DVD. You couldn't do that for every movie b/c then people would just sit and wait for the platinum release. All kinds of things to deal with.

[ZOMBIE USER 6611]

I was impressed that "Monsters, Inc." was released in thirty different languages, and the "actors" redid every one of the lines to actually be speaking the language in question. Not just a dub; some scenes were momentarily longer or shorter to accomodate the different cadence of German versus Japanese, for example. The critters can be reasonably lip read in each language.

Few human actors have fluent command of thirty languages!

[Matt Trepal]

Also a personal peeve. Why isn't there an option on the movie menus to play the movie with the 'cut' scenes added rather than having to view them seperately.

I agree with LevelHead, but only after I read his comments (I wouldn't have thought of those myself). But I also think that as more and more films are produced digitally, like Attack of the Clones, this will become more possible and likely. That's not to say that every movie will be made that way, but right now filmmakers aren't necessarily seeing the full potential of DVD. Compare it to webcomics: the "industry" is in its infancy still, despite the vast number of contributors out there, and very few of us (yours truly excluded) actually take advantage of what the World Wide Web allows us to do. That will probably change as time passes.

[Daniel Cougar]

Also a personal peeve. Why isn't there an option on the movie menus to play the movie with the 'cut' scenes added rather than having to view them seperately.

Two guesses. One: The movie, as released, is a copyright work and additions to it would cloud copyright protection issues, already sensitive these days.

Second, and more "practical". The movie would have been scored as released, and so the reintroduction of the cut scenes would have them rather abruptly appearing without background music.

Yet Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Rings Special Edition did it exactly the way that Hugo requested.

[Kellogg]

Compare it to webcomics: the "industry" is in its infancy still, despite the vast number of contributors out there, and very few of us (yours truly excluded) actually take advantage of what the World Wide Web allows us to do. That will probably change as time passes.

I've seen very few who really take advantage of the Web, and I don't
think that the talent has collectively wrapped it's head around just what
the web is capable of doing, nevermind having the talent required to
fully exploit it.

Think of it this way: doing a comic strip requires that the cartoonist
be both a writer and an artist. I've seen plenty where the writing
isn't up to the talent of the artist and vice versa.

Most comics are done by one person, or maybe two.
To find someone who is a writer, artist, programmer, animator, voice
actor, director, producer, and has the time to study the technology and
actually keep up with the advances and be able to take advantage of
each one as it comes out...?

That's tough to find in one small, underfunded person.

As for DVD recordings of movies:
Right now the movie industry is where the Recording Industry was
with CDs about 20 years ago. They can charge $15-25 prices
for DVDs that cost about $1 to manufacture, ship and distribute.
A huge profit margin over Video cassettes. Right now, they're so
happy with all the money rolling in, there's no need for them to
bother thinking about what else they can do with the technology.

I was disappointed to find out that not all DVDs have closed
captioning. Closed captioning can't cost all that much to add.
Until *that* becomes standard, I don't expect to see that many
extras that actually cost real money packed onto DVDs:(

(Of course, I'm one of those guys who wonders why the Department
of Education pays for the closed captioning on Star Trek. Is
Star Trek considered educational TV?)

Scott

[Mako]

Yet Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Rings Special Edition did it exactly the way that Hugo requested.

Indeed, although they did that from the inception of the movie and had budget carved out for it from the get go.

For those that care about such things, I posted a mini-review of the LOTR: Fellowship - Extended Version DVD on my Livejournal the other night.

CYa!
Mako

[HugoFuchs]

1) Now I have to buy the LOTR Special Edition DVD

2) Yeah, you do have to put money in the budget for it, but if you have a more expensive release called oh .... special edition, then you can do have all kinds of extras built in. I personally wish they'd spend less on big name stars and more on producing good movies. Of course getting good movies into the theatres is difficult, there are alot of movies that are better than much of the stuff in the theatres that goes to waste b/c it didn't make the cut.

[Mako]

1) Now I have to buy the LOTR Special Edition DVD

2) Yeah, you do have to put money in the budget for it, but if you have a more expensive release called oh .... special edition, then you can do have all kinds of extras built in. I personally wish they'd spend less on big name stars and more on producing good movies. Of course getting good movies into the theatres is difficult, there are alot of movies that are better than much of the stuff in the theatres that goes to waste b/c it didn't make the cut.

1: Cool, I think you'll enjoy it a lot.

2: The good news is that they almost certainly have the same idea (extra scenes) for the up coming Two Towers and Return of the King DVD releases.

The actors for Fellowship weren't big ticket items. That of course has almost certainly changed for Towers and Return, but as long as they don't muck it up, everyone will make quite nice residual filled income off the movies for a looong time.

Sheepdog bought the DVD, and left me a comment on his impression of the movie, to which I responded in my LJ. Click over to read all that so we don't spam up Scott's poor forum too much

CYa!
Mako

[Quill]

The actors for Fellowship weren't big ticket items.

CYa!
Mako

Huh?? Since when is Christopher Lee not a major actor? I don't think Liv Tyler or Cate Blanchett or John Rhys-Davies or Ian McKellan come cheap either.

[Nebulous Rikulau]

The actors for Fellowship weren't big ticket items.

CYa!
Mako

Huh?? Since when is Christopher Lee not a major actor? I don't think Liv Tyler or Cate Blanchett or John Rhys-Davies or Ian McKellan come cheap either.

But they're not Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, and Sean Connery either.

[Quill]

For trivia fans:

"[Christopher Lee] is listed as the Center of the Hollywood Universe by the Oracle of Kevin Bacon web site at the University of Virginia , because he can be linked to any one in Hollywood on average in 2.59 steps. That is less than either Heston, Charleton or Kevin Bacon himself."

Thank you, IMDB.com.