If THAT'S your criteria, not a chance would SW or Indy be anywhere near the top of my list... IF ALL films were released on dvd at one time, I'd probably have purchased the LOTR EE's (all three of them), Kane, Singin in the Rain, The Godfather trilogy, Three Colours and a number of others before I even got around to considering Indy and SW. Hell, if the release dates had been the same, I would have bought TTT EE before Indy, no hesitation. Thankfully they weren't, so I bought Indy this week...

Would have to say the Matrix.
Different releases have had importance (T2 Ultimate, Fellowhip-Extended edition, Godfather trilogy, etc...) but I think this release will be considered the "grandfather" of them all.

He's talking about what would have been the top sellers. SW and Indy are obvious. Your picks, and others on this forum, aren't good representations as most everyone here is a movie enthusiasts.

Whats the top seller depends on joe six pack, who has much more mainstream tastes.

The question on the table is most important DVD release - not the best release.

Contact? I don't care about utilizing "the amazing ways DVD" can enhance the viewing experience if the film is so-so.

Vertigo? Non-anamophic and not a great looking release. North by Northwest is anamorphic, great looking, has nice supplements (including score-only option) and released at a price point much, much lower than Vertigo's.

12 Monkeys? Interesting film but I don't hear the cheers for this release being impactful.

Brazil? Certainly qualifies as a release that showed what is possible to do in a special edition. And it did it a while ago.


My answer to the question at hand is The Matrix. This was the film showing at Circuit City's across the country. The film we took home. The one we took out to show our buddies.

Others of note:

T2 UE. Was a flagship for special editions in the mainstream category. Many a consumer's first look at "home stereo" was with this disc in the player. Before many people even knew audio could have options.

James Bond Special Edition DVD Box Set One. With Goldfinger, The man with a Golden Gun and Goldeneye, this boxset reached three generations. For many this was the boxset that made boxsets a category and for many a collection must have.

Fight Club. I'm still tired about fanboys overkill on this release but let's give the DVD its due. Certainly one of the most talked about DVD releases of all time. Very impactful.

LOTR:FOTR EE. It has reached "say no more" status in less than a year. That's impact.

I'm well aware that we're discussing "the most important DVD release" but I'm addressing something that seems to be poping up as a sub-topic here in this thread: People saying that The Matrix is "the most important" because it was the greatest special edition of its time.

I'm simply addressing that The Matrix may very well be the most important release but not for the reason that these people are giving. It never was a superior special edition then or now. It's merely a popular release.

I also want to repeat myself from an earlier post: The online crowd on this forum, and our tastes, do not represent an average sample of society. Just because the Matrix is hot around here doesn't mean it is to everyone. My parents didn't buy a DVD player because of the Matrix.

I like your pick of The James Bond films, that's a great one. Also Disney, and of all the Disney's Snow White

I dunno if it supports or debunks your point but I neither own nor like Snow White and the etc or Wizard of Oz. I guess there's no accounting for ones taste huh?

I'm just curious but; did your parents buy their Dvd player because of Snow White or Wizard of Oz?

Dreamworks SKG was one of the Divx studios, and the last to release to DVD. I think the reason for that was that they had cold feet about the change in paradigm, and had taken a wait-and-see attitude.

One of my highly-placed inside sources at Divx told me that the day&date release of SPR was pulled on Spielberg's orders, and that was the last straw for Circuit City Chairman Rick Sharp, who then canceled the product. Thus, rumours that Spielberg had something to do with the demise of Divx are absolutely true.

At least one was: Amistad (it also had an extra in the form of a free-to-view featurette).

If you're interested, there's a list of titles released to Divx on my DOA site.

On topic, I think that Saving Private Ryan was one of the most important releases ever to DVD, because it was the first of Spielberg's A-list to be released to the format. It meant that he had come to terms with his concerns, and that eventually, his great blockbusters would one day appear (and they did). IMO, DVD became a genuinely mature format with that acceptance.

RD

You know, when I first started thinking about my "candidates", SPR was among the front runners, but, honestly, I haven't been able to figure out why. The only thing that I can think of is that it was the first DVD that, when I watched it on my big screen with the HT sound going, I really felt like I was getting a theater experience. I think that was when the potential of DVD's really sank in.

I think that is pretty important (to me, anyway :D ).

Saving Private Ryan was a big release for me, too, early on.

So was Shakespeare in Love, believe it or not. I'd show off the cool high-tech discs to friends who had never seen DVD and they'd say "Gee, that's pretty cool" but show them Gwyneth's nipples in crystal clear slo-mo DVD quality and they'll say "WOW!" and buy a DVD player and a copy of SiL.

So really Ms. Paltrow deserves some credit here, boys.

It wasn't so much the content that made the release so important, it was who it was coming from and what it was to them. Essentially, it was the first Spielberg A-title to be released to the format, which a crucial milestone in the format's acceptance.

The Matrix, on the other hand, was a Warner release, and Warner had been one of the biggest backers of the format since its days as a concept. In fact, the then-head of Warner Home Video is often referred to as the father of DVD, and thus that gives them a strong interest in its progress that other studios didn't have.

RD