I'm also waiting on Amazon to get off their ass and ship the now "in stock" item to me.

I know, it's been over two weeks since I ordered it.

Wow that sucks guys.

I actually got impatient and bought this the morning of 10/3 at Target for 19.99 and cancelled my unshipped Amazon order. Guess I got lucky there.

I was at Target today & they only had the previous release. =(

Add one more to the list! It looks like someone at an Amazon warehouse mistakenly placed DVD barcode stickers on a bunch of UMD discs.

Unfortunately, the MP&HG:EDE set is currently OOS, so those of us who have encountered this problem may have to wait 1-2 weeks to get their DVDs.

Mine shipped yesterday, I must have gotten one of the last ones...

Rob

Well I damn well better not get a UMD, Amazon is pissing me off with this. They took off my shipping charges, but this is ridiculous.

Has anyone who ordered this from Amazon not gotten the UMD version?

I just really hope when my replacement arrives, it's not another UMD...

Rob

First shipment, UMD... Replacement shipment (from the same warehouse), UMD.

Amazon's latest response:

Thank you for writing to us at Amazon.com.

I am sorry that your replacement shipment was also problematic.

As it seems that the problem with this item is more widespread than
we originally thought, we are not able to send another replacement.
We will investigate and remedy the situation with the item; however,
I cannot guarantee when the error may be fixed.

I have requested a refund for the item, including associated
shipping costs. This refund should go through within the next few
days and will appear as a credit of $13.99 on your next credit card
billing statement. We do ask that you return the wrong item at our
expense.

That's what I was afraid of. I should have asked for a refund, I guess. :(

Of course, now I'll wind up paying more for it somewhere else. :mad:

Rob

Wow, what a mess. I guess I'll pick it up at a store.

Oh crap! I guess mine will be the UMD one too when I get it. It shipped Friday.

I think I should be able to send in my SE and get this version for free in exchange.

I bought the SE DVD in good faith and met my end of the deal, and the disc was not what it was presented to be.

No way in hell am I paying again though.

I wonder if it's a joke from the Pythons. The problem is, no one's laughing.

Aside from the subtitle goof, the SE was everything it was presented to be. I hope you didn't think the SE was supposed to be "definitive" in any way; studios are always going to find ways to tweak and re-release popular titles.

They finally updated my order with a 10-20 shipdate for this so we'll see.

It was not supposed to be the incorrect aspect ratio either.
And yes, I actually do think the subtitle thing is a big enough deal on it's own.

The SE DVD says right on the back that it presented the film in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1, which is correct:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071853/technical
http://www.dailyllama.com/spam/video/films.html

So it was as presented.

That is an issue that Columbia should've fixed on the previous pressing and shouldn't have waited for a future release to fix.

The item on its Amazon page now says:

Availability: In stock on October 23, 2006. Order it now. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.

Well now that sucks... I tried to get to the IMDb page linked above before buying the EDE, and it wouldn't load at the time. I basically trusted that the new aspect ratio was the correct one, so I never checked back. Is it true that this new release might look better on HD TVs, but it's actually the WRONG aspect ratio??? I just sold my copy of the SE yesterday!!!

DAMN! :brickwl2:

Okay, now I'm really confused. That second link (the one to The Daily Llama) takes you to a list of home video releases, and while the Criterion Laserdisc is listed as being at "the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1", the widescreen VHS is listed as "the original 1.75:1 aspect ratio", so which is it? I'm inclined to say 1.85:1, but I guess what we need to determine here is which figures are inaccurate?????

Hmmmm, this new AR controversy is indeed curious. As pointed out, this review clearly states:

"Back in 2001, the Special Edition's "new high definition widescreen presentation with pink frilly edges" sported a new master print struck from the original negative. Now this Extraordinarily Deluxe Edition cleans up that print even further, then gives it a new transfer that opens it up to a comfy-chair anamorphic 1.66:1, so we get noticeably more image than the previous anamorphic 1.85."

Also, Post #63 on this very thread has a comparison shot of the two versions.

Not necessarily the wrong aspect ratio, just not the original theatrical aspect ratio. I've read conflicting reports on what aspect ratio the letterboxed Criterion laserdisc was. Some people have claimed it was 1.66:1, although most reports indicate it was at 1.85:1, and this review claims an aspect ratio of 1.80:1:
http://www.dvdlaser.com/search/detail.cfm?id=25251

Criterion doesn't change anything without director approval, so 1.80:1 either is close to or is exactly the image Terry Jones and/or Gilliam prefer.

However, we don't know why Columbia comissioned a new transfer and a different aspect ratio.

It's doubtful that 1.75:1 is the film's OAR. Films are typically presented theatrically in three widescreen aspect ratios: 1.66:1, 1.85:1, and 2.39:1. Seeing as the new 1.66:1 transfer adds verticle image info, it's most likely that the film was shot open-matte and cropped to 1.85:1 in theaters, and not 1.75:1, although it's possible it was shown in 1.66:1 in Europe.

1.75:1 was used for the Columbia laserdisc, not Criterion, and for the first non-anamorphic DVD release:

http://www.dvdlaser.com/search/detail.cfm?id=21825
http://www.widescreenreview.com/

However, there's nothing to indicate this was the film's OAR or even preferred aspect ratio, and the review for the Criterion laserdisc mentions that the 1.75:1 image may be cropped.

Well yeah, but nowhere does it say what the original aspect ratio was, and even in places that do, they never back that up, it's just assumed to be gospel truth. The only thing I get from the post you quoted is that we're getting more of the picture. Well for that matter we'd get a LOT more picture if all films that were shot open-matte were released in 1.33:1, but more picture isn't what we're after here. That particular blurb doesn't even claim that the 1.85:1 transfer was cropped, although the articles that do call it "cropped" could be wrong because of course a 1.85:1 transfer is gonna be cropped if you assume it was originally 1.66:1.

I was really close to calling fye back and asking them to hold the SE I just traded in so I could buy it back, but I guess I'll let the missing subtitle be my excuse for getting rid of that version. It bothers me though that this new transfer could very well be a "fullscreen" version, albeit only fullscreen in terms of what would fill a typical HD screen. I wouldn't be surprised if THAT was the reason for the switch to 1.66:1 instead of correcting the aspect ratio. In fact, if you look at the two screen grabs, it kind of looks like the 1.66:1 transfer LOSES WIDTH in addition to gaining height.

Obviously the width should stay the same, so this really seems like the very first in a long line of deceptively-labeled DVDs, where you think it's OAR because it's anamorphic widescreen, but they've actually opened it up to accommodate widescreen TVs, since 1.85:1 still shows some letterboxing, even on widescreen sets. Seems to me that the folks who buy their HD sets at WAL-MART are just going to assume that spending big bucks on a widescreen TV is gonna mean no black bars whatsoever, and Sony just might be catering to those folks by making "Holy Grail" fit a standard widescreen set.

That's only speculation of course, but even if that's not the case here, I fear that finding OAR DVDs is going to become more difficult, since "fullscreen" will probably never go away. There's always going to be a contingent of clueless individuals who equate black bars with not getting everything they paid for, and if studios cave in to that, we'll REALLY have to know the exact aspect ratio of a film, since anamorphic widescreen could still mean it's not OAR. I'm reminded of Disney's "family-friendly widescreen", where it's widescreen, but the aspect ratio has been "opened up" (there's that phrase again) to minimize the "black bar" effect.

I could be wrong folks, but this looks like a disturbing trend.

That the new transfer shows more image vertically confirms nothing other than that the film was shot open-matte.