UAIOE

So I Married An Axe Murderer: Special Edition

Is the winner of this particular award.

"Austin Powers" has more extras on it and that disc was first released *IN 1997*.

londonhogfan

I double dipped "You've got Mail"

tsetse27

New York, New York
Godzilla (US version)

islandclaws

So I Married an Axe Murderer is the correct answer since it has NO bonus features, despite being billed as a Special Edition.

Beetlejuice is runner-up for only having episodes of the lame cartoon included, as is Poltergeist for a doc that has nothing to do with the film itself.

riotinmyskull

atleast these 2 upgraded from snapper cases to keep cases.

WMAangel

You can't say THE JERK is the most shameful, as at least it was upgraded to anamorphic widescreen, replacing the earlier full screen mess....
Also, while both BEETLEJUICE and POLTERGEIST may not have received any quality special features, both had new remastered transfers that greatly improved upon their long out of date 1997 releases....

I would vote for something like ANNIE, where they released a special edition but dropped the widescreen OAR version of film and only presented it in pan and scan! There are a bunch of Sony (Columbia/Tristar) DVDs like LAST ACTION HERO and THE CABLE GUY where they used to be dual sided discs with both widescreen and pan and scan transfers, and then Sony quietly began re-releasing them as single sided discs, dropping the superior OAR side...worst part was they didn't even bother to change the UPC codes on the package, so if you ordered them online you might get screwed!

One last extremely shameful double dip goes to THE CUTTING EDGE, where they actually downgraded the video to a non-anamorphic, converted from a sped up PAL transfer!!

ReduxGuy

I'm cool with Beetlejuice because it has an improved transfer and it came with some of the old cartoons I liked to watch.

Now, an example of double-dipping I hate is a release that cuts out substantial features and replaces them with dreck. The 10th Anniversary of Titanic definitely comes to mind. Paramount could have taken the time to fix the picture error on disc 1 and added some new bonus material (such as the infamous 4th disc the other regions did), and instead, they removed the 3rd disc.

NoirFan

What about MGM re-releasing The Last Man on Earth without Panic in Year Zero!, but charging the same price?

DJariya

What immediately comes to mind is The Bourne Identity: Explosive Extended Edition.

I did not originally purchase the 1st version that had Doug Liman's commentary (rented it initially), so I was kind of excited to see a re-release and a free ticket to see The Bourne Supremacy. But, the commentary was dropped along with the making of featurette. They added a bunch of short EPK featurettes instead.

Anyways, I dumped it and bought the original version used.

tylergfoster

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I am 95% sure that the "Lost Filmstrips" extra is NOT a deleted scene but something terrible crafted by Universal's home video department (the hints being that it's stupid, and Steve Martin isn't in it). I don't think there are any legitimate extras on that DVD other than the trailer/production notes.

matome

The Cutting Edge: Gold Edition

The Gold Edition actually DOWNGRADED from the anamorphic transfer of the original to a non-anamorphic transfer. And to make it even worse this new transfer is the sped-up PAL version which causes the same movie to to run five minutes shorter with chipmunk voices (check the different runtimes on the back of the cases). The only new about the original movie is a short featurette, while the rest of the special "features" are promos for the craptastic sequel.

ctyankee

You're close. The studio gets 100 percent of the profit at MSRP for the first two weeks of a new DVD (read: new UPC). Typically, a studio makes around 50 percent of their profits during the first two weeks of release. The retailers' split of the profits improves over the life of the release. Naturally, when the studio takes a price reduction the percentage is against a lower MSRP thus everyone's profit is reduced.

So, take a catalogue title, slap new graphics and packaging on it, maybe put in a new sad-ass featurette, give it a new UPC and it becomes a instantly improved profit maker (that is if the retailer goes along with stocking it). They normally will because the higher MSRP will give them an improved profit margin on the item from week 3 out until the inevitable price reduction on the new item.

sgnhcs

ANY re-release that does not include all of the features that past release did

NoirFan

I stand corrected - it's an ever lousier release than I had previously imagined. I hadn't bothered to unwrap/watch the disc since I got it, which explains my ignorance.

tylergfoster

Well, as mentioned, it does contain the remastered film in anamorphic widescreen and 5.1 with a trailer. As far as Steve Martin special editions go, since we're unlikely to get participation from the man himself, it is a pretty good DVD of the movie, compared to the FS one, if still a terrible special edition.

hasslein

Bubba Ho-Tep was the same only with an Elvis shirt slipcover, correct?

tylergfoster

Yeah, although that one for me was irresistible.

story

Maybe we need to decide what we're talking about when we say "most shameful double dip." To me, this would be putting out one version of a DVD and later putting out another version of a DVD with "can't miss" features that weren't on the first release, making those who purchased the first version really, really want the new one, too. I'm not sure all of the releases that have been discussed in this thread meet this criteria.

I remember my two-disc edition of Pulp Fiction came with a rebate if you already owned the bare bones edition. I can't remember if people knew the extended edition of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was coming out just a month or so after the regular edition. I know I definitely had the sense that the original, non-special editions of Star Wars were never coming out (although they never did actually say they weren't going to do it). The Evil Dead releases are insane. And I believe the worst offender in my collection is Criterion's second offering of Seven Samurai. Buying that first edition for $30 or so was a big deal for me, as that seems like a lot of money on one movie. Then the other shoe drops and I have $60 spent on one film. A great film, yeah, but the hefty price tags to begin with didn't help me pick up the second edition right away.

TomOpus

Yeah, that's pretty shameful. You'd think if they were just gonna promote the sequel, it would've been easier/cheaper to just use the transfer from the first DVD. To actually put some effort into releasing a downgraded version is a puzzlement.

Trevor

We have a whole thread dedicated to listing those. It sort of fell out of use, not sure what the interest is anymore.

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/dvd-talk/49...ried-over.html

paradicelost

Didn't they rerelease The Godfather films in the same fashion a year or two ago(a few years after the release of the boxset of all three films). Did people get upset at those releases being pointless double dips? I thought it was just a way for people to only buy one or two of the films, which is the same thing i thought about the BTTF releases.

MrSmearkase

I don't understand owning only part of a trilogy, such as BTTF. I can understand owning only certain titles in a given franchise (James Bond comes to mind), but I've always viewed the BTTF trilogy as a whole experience, not to be divided and enjoyed in parts. I realize that they initially had no intention on continuing the story past the first film, but I can't think of one of the films without thinking of it in terms of being 1/3 of a larger story.

davidh777

LOTR was definitely publicized as having an EE a few months after the TR but I don't know how many "normal" people (as opposed to folks like us) knew about it. And Seven Samurai depends on when you bought it: the new edition came out in 2006, and it was one of the first DVDs I bought in 1999, which doesn't seem so shameful (or shameless either).

UAIOE

I could understand 1 and not 2+3, but you can't own 2 without 3.

ctyankee

My kids (who would never be in a DVD site) told me about the EE versions of LOTR coming out, so the information was out there to "normal" people.

While I understand UAIOE's logic in 2 and 3 being somewhat joined, they are still different stories although continued. I can fully enjoy BTTF Part 3 without seeing Part 2. If the filmmakers release a film separately in the theaters, than it is a standalone work and valid to be viewed and enjoyed separately.

That said, I would agree that seeing The Two Jakes without first seeing Chinatown, one is not going to get the full impact of the film. The same would go for not seeing The Godfather Part II before first seeing The Godfather Part III or Kill Bill II without first seeing KB I. Che is being released in theatres as both a one viewing experience and as two separate films. Both then are valid as standalone experiences. But it would be puzzling if someone were to purchase the second film only just like it would be puzzling if someone were to watch the second film in theatres before seeing the first half.