JOE29

I don't believe it's in 5.1 surround sound. That's a shame because it would of been great. Although it's going to be great anyway, it just would of been better in 5.1. A Shot in the Dark is one of my all-time favorites so i'm looking forward to that one the most.

Rockybalboa

I would not imagine that a comedy from the 60's/70's would really have much of an active surround anyway, let's just hope anamorphic video with a nice overhall on the picture!

zaner

If anyone buys this, let me know if it's worth the $45...

InnocentBlood

if i'm not mistaken, the R1 release of this set is lacking something that's available on the R2 release... can't recall it off the top of my mind but if you were to do a search here, you might just call it up.

Steve Phillips

It's also missing 1975's RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER, since that one is owned by others. RETURN has been showing up in the $5.50 bin at Wal-Mart though, if anyone is looking to get a complete set of the Panther films that Sellers starred in.

ThatGuamGuy

I'd guess that's because it's not officially announced what, exactly, will be missing yet. They did, however, say that there was stuff in the international release that they couldn't get the rights to for R1, yeah.

Off-hand, I'd guess "The Unknown Peter Sellers" (which has a seperate release already), and possibly the cartoons (which would be likely to be released seperately and may even have various clearance hurdles) and commercials as well.

That said, I believe the initial announcement was that they'd be doing new docs rather than using the two (three counting 'Unknown') on the international, but I don't know if that was official or not.

El Kabong

But they're all anamorphic right?

RichDB10

They are indeed.....according to a review of the R1 set over on the HTF the R1 set is missing 3!! documentaries from the R2 set...also despite the lovely exterior packaging of the R1 set the interior is anything but....by all accounts the discs are overlapping...whereas the R2 set is in a long fold out digipack with each disc having its own holder etc.....something to bear in mind for potential buyers with region-free capability.

jough

Really? The print ads for the R1 set clearly show a big digipak foldout.

ThatGuamGuy

Let's get some perspective on that, though. These are the documentaries that are on the R2 set:

"The Pink Panther Story" -documentary (29min)
"That's Panthertainment" -documentary (47min)
"The Unknown Peter Sellers" -documentary (52min)
"Behind the Feline: Cartoon Phenomenon" –featurette (11min)
There's also a thing about commercials Peter Sellers did, but it's not actually a doc (from what I understand), it's a collection of a few commercials.

Now, 'The Unknown' is already on DVD, so we couldn't reasonably expect that to be on this set. (It'd be nice, but I don't think it's a reasonable expectation.)

Amazon claims this:
Bonus disc:
"The Pink Panther Story"
"Behind the Feline: The Cartoon Phenomenon"
Collection of award-winning original cartoons: "The Pink Phink," "Pink, Plunk, Plink," "Psychedelic Pink," "Pinkfinger," "The Ant and the Aardvark," "The Great De Gaulle Stone Operation"

So, okay, what got left off? "That's Panthertainment". This was an EPK doc produced at the time of "Revenge of the Pink Panther". Those sorts of things are almost always boring, and the reviews for that one didn't seem especially kind (other than the neat moment of Steve Martin being at the premiere, 'cause he's in the new one now). And the commercial stuff which doesn't seem like something we could reasonably expect from a studio, since no studio ever puts the money into getting stuff like that on DVD.

I'd say it sounds like it's still worth it. You may or may not agree, but now we know the full story, rather than the kneejerk reaction of "Oh my god, they took off THREE documentaries!"

[note: that's a criticism for the HTF folks, not you.]

BTW, what does "by all accounts the discs are overlapping" mean? I don't know what you mean by overlapping, can you explain that a bit? Maybe give me a point of reference?

Lamont

I'm fairly certain he means that the discs overlap each other while sitting in the case...which I see as no big deal if you get them in good shape and keep them on a shelf with little movement...shipping could be a problem creating a lot of floaters. I know I plan on opening it immediately after purchase to check for scratch free discs...
John

RichDB10

From what i have been lead to believe..what i meant is that the discs are stacked one on top of the other...sort of overlapping which means you have to remove the 'top' disc to be able to get to the one that is beneath it.
It sounds a lot worse than it is...apparently the discs don't actually touch....but it does make it a bit less practical and there could possibly be a greater chance of receiving discs loose off their hubs in transit i suppose.

ThatGuamGuy

If I'm understanding you correctly, that does sound a little nuts. Or, at least, needlessly complicated. (Thanks a lot, all you people who complained about the fold-out cases!)

Any pictures or anything?

jeffkjoe

If anyone wants to wait til 2006, maybe they're come out with "IN THE PINK: THE DEFINITIVE PINK PANTHER" and it'll contain:

The Pink Panther
A Shot in the Dark
Return of the Pink Panther
The Pink Panther Strikes Again
Revenge of the Pink Panther
Trail of the Pink Panther
Curse of the Pink Panther (with Ted Watts)
Son of the Pink Panther (with Roberto Benigni)
Birth of the Pink Panther (with Steve Martin)

db27

I kinda like the look of the packaging, however its not very functional because the discs overlap for about an inch and a half or so. Thus you can remove one disc without removing the other.

We got them in at work and they weren't shrink-wrapped so I opened it to check it out..

The exterior is a black slipcase with artwork, the the "book" slides in to that and the dvds are contained within the "book"

I use the term book because that is what it resembles the most, and it'sa kinda soft vinyl like cover to the "book"

Rockybalboa

All that matters to me, nice anamorphic transfers, nice trailers, the rest is fluff.

jough

Ugh. This is awful. From today's Video Business (again, please excuse the quick and dirty digital camera photos):



Also, if you'd like to read the interviews where the geniuses try to spin this as a good decision (not posted here because they're huge images):

http://jough.com/dvdfile/pinkPage.jpg
http://jough.com/dvdfile/pinkPage2.jpg

ThatGuamGuy

I was under the impression that this set included "Inspector Closeau" with Alan Arkin as well, and was being released to *promote* the Steve Martin one, not to include it.

However, that set always sounded a little *too* complete to me. I'm not that interested in the ones where Sellers was dead (although I was thinking I might want them in the same way that I want outtakes and deleted scenes on DVD anyway, since that's all the movies are), or the other ones that didn't have him.

Also, how can they put 'Return' in there? I don't think that's true at all.

jough - "ugh" is right. But thanks for the pictures. It's actually slightly better than I was picturing in my head, only because I was thinking all six were stacked in one row; at least it's only two at a time stacked together.

RichDB10

Absolutely!...regardless of minor 'quibbles' this is all that really matters at the end of the day.

steebo777

That is some odd packaging design, but we'll see how it is. I know I'm still buying it

jough

Well, packaging doesn't matter until your discs arrived too scratched up to watch. Then it doesn't matter how good the transfer is if the discs skip like a spastic while you're trying to watch the film.

El Kabong

Has anyone seen the Artisan release of Return? My preorder is going into shipping & I added that one to have them all. I saw it's widescreen, but probably not anamorphic. Is the transfer any decent? It was under $8.

ThatGuamGuy

Yes.

A wise choice. 'Return' is my personal favorite, because I think every moment of Sellers in that movie is pure gold. ('Shot in the Dark' has *more* Sellers, though, and in that sense might be said to be better; I'm not looking to start up the debate.) Though it has a bit too much of Charles Litton.

Nope, not anamorphic.

It's pretty good. I'd gotten so used to watching the horribly pan-and-scanned version (I've never seen a 1.85 movie with worse pan-and-scanning; when watching the P&S version, I assumed it was 2.35 just because of how much scanning was going on) that it was almost a revelation to me. But, realistically, it's just a "good" transfer. Nothing wrong with that, though; the movie's not look heavy, and it looks absolutely fine. (I've read a review or two that didn't think that highly of the transfer, and says that it's actually slightly over-cropped, at approx 2.15:1, but I can't confirm that as I don't have the disc in front of me.)

young

anyone know when the Shag prints will be available?

DrOBoogie1

Got my PP box set today and it looks good.

But I have a question: Does anyone know the name of the style of art that is used for the animated figures and scenery in the box set itself? It is a style that was used a lot in the 50s and 60s, but I don't know what it is called. Anyone?

Thanks in advance for any info!