Are studios purposefully being misleading with double dipping?
 

I have a feeling DVD buyers are a pretty smart crowd, for the most part, and even the average Joe (and even Joe Six Pack) will catch on to certain tricks DVD companies will play. I think it's safe to say people don't give in as easilly to "double dipping" as they once did, and I am noticing a new trend among DVD companies to mislead people into buying a double dipped title.

X-Men relabled as X-Men 1.5. Of course the average customer knows the movie can't be X2, but they still think it has to be different from X-Men since the movie is being marketed that way. And all it leads to are returned movies and digruntled customers.

And now I see the There's Something About Mary SE is called There's Something More About Mary, with an emphasis on MORE. Again, it's marketed as a sequel, or at least to the untrained eye, the average person shopping for DVDs who doesn't keep up with DVDtalk and other websites to let them know the ins and outs on these titles.

We've ranted in the past about Director's Cuts, Special Editions, Ulitimate Editions, Collector's Editions, and probably about 30 other editions, but give me these "editions" again over movies that are the the same as the previous version but have a different name to make it look like a sequel. One has to wonder by the time Lion King 1 1/2 hits home video if people will be burned this renaming bug that they will think it's a souped up SE of Lion King and pass on it?

Sometimes, I am aware of some titles that will potentially receive the SE format later. For example, I am buying Star Trek Nemesis tomorrow. Although it does have some special features, its missing quality documentaries and the trailers (hello!), so I'm guessing that it will get a 2 disc edition like the earlier Star Trek films. So, although I imagine that Paramount will release another SE, I still want to get the disc tomorrow.

I guess it just depends on the title. Some movies, I could care less about future editions, while certain titles should definetely receive the SE treatment from the getgo, ie SW ep 4-6.

I just wish that the studios would aim for releasing the SE of a film within a couple of months (or sooner) from the original release. There are some titles that were released bare bones in 98 and they still haven't received a SE treatment.

Studios will market their dvds in anyway possible to maximize sales. It's the customer's fault if they don't find out what they're buying before laying their money down.

Oh, silly me.

Now I know that I have to do extensive research beforehand every time i feel like buying a DVD. -rolleyes-

It's your choice on whether you want to be a smart shopper or J6P.

"Extensive research"? :hscratch: It takes 2 minutes to look it up online, to look at the packaging of the dvd, or ask a clerk.

Whether you research it or not, ask a clerk or not, that is irrelevant. I think if the movie is called X-Men then all versions on DVD should be called X-Men. If the movie is called There's Something About Mary, then all versions on DVD should be called There's Something About Mary. There is no movie called X-Men 1.5, nor is there a movie called There's Something More About Mary.

:confused:

It takes 'extensive research' to look at the disc's packaging and/or read online to figure out that it's not a sequel?


I definitely agree with D-Ball. Unless a company is being blatantly deceptive (and I don't consider X-Men 1.5 or any of the other examples to be this), it falls to the customer to actually understand what they are buying. There's enough hand-holding in our society as it is.


This reminds me of the eBay customer who purchased a 1940s film from me and then demanded a return because it was black-and-white.

Did you refund his money? Did he leave negative or neutral feedback? Did you call him names for being an idiot?

And there almost always seems to be at least one thing on the first release that didn't make it to the 2nd or 3rd release. Interesting.

To play devil's advocate though, what if people complain they can't distinguish between the versions. I mean there are numerous movies, popular and not that have multiple versions. Some are easy to distinguish. The Memento SE is very different from the original. However, unless you're more careful one would easily mistake the new Hunt for Red October from the older version. At least with a different name, people wouldn't have that problem. They can distinguish between the versions easier.

That being said, who buys a movie they never heard of? I mean I've doubt things I haven't seen, but if I never even heard of the film, I can't really fault someone for buying it. It's just being stupid. Even if you think X-Men 1.5 is different from X-Men, you still have no idea what X-Men 1.5 is, so why would you buy it without at least finding out what it is (in which case you would probably find out it is indeed a SE of X-Men). I'm not for protecting people from their own stupidity.

:thumbsup:

It's my opinion that it is the stupidity of the market consumers in general that keeps our economy flowing....

Studios will continue to milk as much money out of a product as they can. This means that they will release a DVD of a movie as quickly as possible. Even if they know that 6 months later they'll have documentaries edited, DTS track prepated, and an appointment for director to do commentary, etc.. They know that they can release the DVD asap and make money off of it. Then when they get the extras for a SE ready they can release the SE version.
The studios aren't screwing anyone over. Its not their fault people buy the early DVD and then decide that's just not good enough and go to buy the SE. Personally I avoid buying a DVD unless I'm sure I'll be happy with the movie quality (I don't care about extras much). If they re-release later with better quality then I usually don't buy it as long as I'm happy with the first version I bought. I don't require "perfect quality", just good quality. It has to look better than TV, VHS, and preferably Theater.

It's going to be very difficult to resist buying the theatrical version of The Two Towers in August and wait for the extended cut in November. I managed to last for FOTR, but it almost killed me.

Brad

if someone is careless or too lazy to do the research, then I'm so sorry, but they deserve what they get. you cant hold everyones hand and nurse-maid them into making the right choice. but even though I know better on some titles....I sometimes double-dip because I feel like it. I like back-up copies.

no inserts, big-headed coverart, double-dipping....the craziest things are focused on when the only thing that should matter is the quality in which the discs are pressed and manufactured with.

If you pick up X-Men 1.5 and think it's a sequal, yeah, you're dumb.

If you buy Children of Dune without knowing there's a SE planned in future, you're not dumb because you have to sometimes do a lot of research to find out about something like that.

What does it mean if you can't spell sequel?

It means that I mispelt it at the time. My opinion is now invalid, and people are free to make whole posts devoted to it.

:up:

But i don't see what the big deal is about double dipping for the most part. If you don't want to do it, then don't. I mean, it would be one thing if they released one edition in May, announced it was the only one they will ever make and then put out an SE in June. But i don't think that's happening. I'm going to buy Adaptation this week. If one year from now they put out another version of it with tons of cool stuff, fine. I spent $19 and got to enjoy the movie over and over in the privacy of my own and if I so choose I can buy the next version and enjoy it too. Its not like I have to give back my old version and buy the new one just b/c it's out there.

There is a song in the broadway show Barnum that goes "there's a sucker born every minute, and I'm referring to the minute you were born."

Market guys/gals do see us coming and it is silly to expect marketing folks not to act like marketing people.

In some ways DVDs are like films, just show up at the theatre without hearing the word of mouth or critic's review and you deserve what you get.

However to your point about manufacturing - the Wall Street Journal had an article about a year ago that said that if invested just two more cents per disc they could create a substantially improved disc that would resist most mishandling and wear.

I'm hoping that that oversight will help some of the consumer activist cases when copying consumer owned discs come through the court systems.

Aw, I was just joking. I agree with you.

What research is there exactly? Where is the official announcement of the Adaptation SE? I just bought the DVD today and never heard anything about an SE except for a couple posters on this forum. Where's my Resident Evil SE, that I had heard so much about, or that The Rules Of Attraction DC that's supposed to be coming out? When I'm at the store, I try not to wonder if the DVD in my hand will be upgraded in a few months, its just frustrating.

'Mispelt'?

Ahem, this is a strange discussion. Anybody ever heard the phrase 'buyer beware'? I don't pity the fool who doesn't check out what he's buying.

Yes, that's a little less obvious, I should have used "missplet"

There will be an Adaptation SE, although it has not been officially announced.

Just decide if you want to buy the movie now and be happy with that, upgrade or not later, or wait for the SE.