http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/...177734,00.html

great article in it the following is stated

Tony is still here, two years after Kubrick died and was buried in the grounds behind the house. There may be no more Kubrick movies to make, but there are DVDs to remaster and reissue in special editions. There are box sets and retrospective books to oversee. There is paperwork.


I wonder if this means kubrick films could be getting the 2 disc warners treatment

I only own two Kubrick films - 2001 and Clockwork Orange - they are the remastered versions and I am very happy with them. They look great for their age.

Yeah, but A Clokwork Orange is not 16x9 enhanced.

Not only A Clockwork Orange, but Eyes Wide Shut, Full Metal Jacket, and The Shining all need widescreen remasters. Now that Kubrick is long gone, perhaps we will finally get to see these films on video the way they were presented in theaters. Enough of the this fullscreen nonesense.

(Release the hounds!)

I thought they were shot in fullscreen originally?

"...But I suppose your preference should trump that of the director's.

(Release the hounds!)

(. . .s*i*g*h . . .)

. . . . . .

Is it still nonsense if they were shot in Fullscreen, like the Shining, Orange and FMJ?

Or maybe it's nonsense that Kubrick himself preferred 1.33:1?
The only one of the above in a theatrical WS ratio was FMJ, but certainly it was matted that way from the negative.

But I suppose your preference should trump that of the director's.

a) They've already had 3 versions of most of the Kubrick films, and b) he shot them in 4x3. A 16x9 transfer is what was done on a few of the early versions, and it pissed fans off so much that they discontinued those monstrosities. Just see them the way Kubrick wanted you to.

Interesting article though, but I think the reference "DVDs to remaster" was something the writer threw in as filler, because if they release another version, I doubt many will double-dip. Probably not a good move for WB.

That's not exactly true. 16:9 wasn't the issue. The outcry was over the use of LD-era transfers and shoddy dirt removal, not to mention terrible compression work. Warners tried to cover their asses by saying, "Well, Kubrick approved them." Yeah, he approved the LD masters years before the advent of DVD. Unfortunately, he never got around to supervising their re-transfer onto DVD before he died.

I wouldn't mind seeing Fear and Desire on DVD. But since Kubrick hated that movie so much, I suppose we'll never see it. I saw it on a bootleg video, and while it certainly is the least impressive of his movies, I didn't think it was terrible.

All the threads on this board consist of two arguements:

1. Such and such title isn't on DVD yet. I can't wait for it to come out!

2. Such and such title is already on DVD so any discussion of a rerelease, remaster, improvement, addition of special features, etc. is a bad idea because I'm cheap and/or discouraged by the prospect of buying a film a second time when I already bought it once.

I really hate when I hear comments like, "I doubt many will double-dip. Probably not a good move for WB." If you don't want updated discs with more supplements that's fine, don't buy them. But don't bother publicizing that it would be a bad business move and WB shouldn't bother. Of course they should bother.

Ideally I'd like to see a set of Kubrick films that featured commentaries by critics and admirers. There's no reason that Spartacus should be the only Kubrick film available with a commentary track

Scorsese on Lolita and Johnathan Rosenbaum on The Shining would be two I'd love to hear.

And Terry Gilliam on Paths of Glory

There is indeed a reason why Spartacus is the only one with commentary, and that's because it's not a WB movie, its rights are held by Universal, and then Criterion got ahold of it (I'd go ahead and hypothesize that this will not ever happen to any of the WB Kubrick movies, and Spartacus appears to be the only Universal title). I would also like to see these commentaries, but you're just dreaming. The only thing WB has done with all 3 generations is give a slightly improved picture quality and different sound options. If they rereleased Shining or 2001 or FMJ you think there would actually be commentary on there? Stop dreaming pal; we'd all like to hear Tarantino comment on The Killing, etc but it ain't gonna happen. If they re-released, it would be a bad move because it would be a loss for them, which might make them up other prices to recoup. Basically, they should bother if they actually wanted to include extras worth buying, but judging by the 3 (EDIT: accidentally counted the re-package, apologies) editions of most of the Kubrick films that have been released, there isn't much hope of any commentary being included. WB is only interesting in giving extras to those will to shell out $100+ for a box set, at least in the case of Kubrick films.

never say never

I can understand why people are hungry for Special Editions of Kurbrick's work. You wanna know about the behind-the-scenes goodies, how shots were set-up, why it took so long to make the movies, how meticulous he was, and what was he thinking. That sort of thing.

You know what? I don't wanna know. Magicians don't reveal their tricks and the Kubrick estate shouldn't either. Just leave the films as they are and enjoy them and what they represent, true pieces of art. And all this talk about widescreen and anamophic and that junk doesn't matter. The films are masterpieces and just leave them at that.

... in a 4x3 grave, which he preferred to the traditional 16x9 plot.

First it was three editions for "most" Kubrick DVDs. Now it's four?! Since Kubrick made 13 films, 12 of which are on DVD, would you please list seven or more titles that have been reissued on DVD four (or hell, even three) times?

The only Kubrick DVD I count having so many releases is Columbia-TriStar's DR. STRANGELOVE, the last of which, by the way, was a special edition.

We have already received the best Kubrick DVDs we are gonna get, at least until the HD-DVDs.

Cartman: "STOP YER BITCHING!!!!"

Who actually has the final say in regards to re-releasing these films with a widescreen aspect ratio? Warner Brothers or the "Kubrick Estate," assuming there is one that maintains some authority over his films?

I could say the same thing about "ruining the magic" in reguards to several filmmakers who are arguably better than Kubrick (Bresson, Tarkovsky, Bergman, Antonioni, Hitchcock) and all of them have commentaries on their DVDs that illuminate the work and don't ruin a thing.

Thanks for illuminating the intricacies of DVD releases. Do you really think I need that explained to me?

If Criterion and Sony can release Kubrick DVDs with quality supplements than I don't see why Warner can't. And Warner does frequently have famous critics do commentaries on releases where the director is dead or unwilling to co-operate. Ebert, Schikel, Behlmer, and Bogdonavich have all recorded scholarly commentary for Warner discs.

P.S. On an unrelated note there was a time when people said that 20th Century Fox would NEVER, NEVER, EVER license anything to Criterion...and now look.

If we all thought like you then Warner Bros would certainly never bother.

The fact is that these will get top treatment some day. It might be 30 years, but we'll see interactive scholarly supplements annotating these films eventually. As long as there's money in our pockets.

Kubrick died in 1999. So it's probably safe to assume the events in this article occurred in 2001, i.e. before the remastered Kubrick discs came out (May or June of that year, IIRC). In other words, "special editions" almost certainly refers to the remastered discs that have been out for some time. No smoking gun here.

Yes, the article is definately referring to the remastered versions Warner released a couple years ago.

Excellent point. Lots of commotion over nothin I s'pose.

Will the special editions have the sentinel monoliths digitally altered to be 4x3?