It's more or less how they started out with DVD, too.

Everything was $29.99 MSRP, middling PQ, no special editions.

But it's THEIR format.

Very different situation.

Yep, that's what I was getting at. This is NOT the format on which they should be dragging their feet and doing things halfassed because it is THEIR format and they need it to succeed. They should be giving it everything they've got.

I second the vote for CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. I'd love to see that and STARSHIP TROOPERS in the format (as long as they do a good job on them)

There was a post recently about StarSHIT Troopers. Apparently the master is in very bad shape. Who knows when it will come out.

Thanks for the great news. But why the hell would the master be in such bad shape?

Funny how the Superbit DVD looked pretty nice. Is this going to be another case like The Fifth Element where Sony loses the perfectly good Superbit master and goes with some dirty, grungy transfer instead?

You'd think, but I think it's pretty obvious that Sony has never really put a lot of thought into any of their releases. Except they seem to believe that people adore The Fifth Element.

It's pretty much "If we release, they will come."

That, or they think they can recoup some losses by flooding the market with box-office bombs. "Hey, people are buying these fancy new Blu-Ray players and PS3s and they're going to want to buy movies to play on them. Let's just release shit like 'Hitch' and 'Click' since the technology is so new they'll buy anything just to have something to watch on these expensive new players."

While their quality may be debatable, neither Click nor Hitch were what would be considered box-office bombs. Hitch grossed about $180 million domestic, $370 million worldwide. Click grossed $140 million domestic and is Sandler's 4th most successful film to date, beating out movies like 50 First Dates and Anger Management.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=hitch.htm
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=click.htm

^Plus, Click was a new release, which carries more weight on average than a catalog title.

DVD wasn't? I think half the HD war is because Sony/Tosh are still pissed at each other over the Video/Versatile for the middle of D..V..D.

But DVD wasn't exclusively Sony's format. A format war was averted beforehand, so there weren't two competing formats hitting the market. So that time Sony could afford to be lazy. This time they really can't.

Maybe it's not too bad. I found this comment on avsforum from someone who works at Sony:

"I have seen the master for Starship Troopers though. Sharp, grainy and very tough to encode. Expect a BD50 on that one."


I don't see "tough to encode" to automatically mean that the master is in bad condition, there could be other factors that may cause this, like the way the film looks itself. At any rate, I'm glad to see that it's being worked on, and hopefully not done fast and halfassed like FIFTH ELEMENT was. BD50 is certainly a good sign.

I don't understand either how the master could be in bad shape. Isn't it in digital form? Did they lose the data or something?

What it may mean is that the transfer looks dated compared to today's transfers. Maybe it doesn't look nearly as good as other films from the same time period that got recent transfers. Leaving compression out of it, I wouldn't expect a 1997 transfer to look as good as one done in the past few years. (Perhaps this is why Gattaca was postponed/cancelled?)