Solid Snake

Still crap. That audio file had to originate as a generally used file. If it is more than audio it can still fit on there.

Josh Z

Only for the "Enhanced Commentary" version. If you just want to watch the movie without the commentary, it's a constant 2.40:1.

Josh Z

Warner's "Maximum Movie Mode" does this on discs including Watchmen, Terminator Salvation and Sherlock Holmes. The director can pause the movie, rewind a scene, or even shrink the image down to a picture-in-picture window and step out on camera to point to parts of the frame.

fitprod

The trick probably is that Paramount generally does not seemless branching on their Blu-ray discs. Anchorman, The Dictator, Gladiator, Iron Man 2 and Rango are the only titles I can think off. (Every other title with an alternate cut is one version, such as Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, G.I. Joe: Retaliation (BB Exclusive) and the upcoming World War Z, where the 2D version is the extended/alternate cut only.)

I've also heard rumblings the branching commentary was not ready in time to be included on the disc, but I haven't confirmed it.

fitprod

Supermallet

Everything except the commentary.

RocShemp

This shit reminds me of the old HD DVD versus BD days when BD players couldn't do PiP. Some features on BD actually had two separate encodes of the movie to "emulate" the PiP track on the HD DVD counterpart. Except, nonsense like that is no longer necessary since BD is perfectly capable of things like Maximum Movie mode. So saying that the "enhanced" commentary wouldn't fit is total bullshit.

Travis McClain

Of those three examples, I own two and have only watched one. I have yet to explore the Maximum Movie Mode, but that's probably obvious through my ignorance of the technical allowances and limitations of the thing.

That seems plausible. This indirectly reminded me of my freshman year of high school. One day, for whatever reason, almost none of us had done the previous night's algebra homework. I don't think there was anything special that night like a game to explain why so many of us were empty handed. It was a fluke.

Anyway, by the time the teacher got to me in his audit of who had done it, I decided that the least I could do was to try to get a laugh out of the ridiculousness of none of us having done the assignment. So when my turn came to admit I didn't have mine, either, I added that there must have been a rift in the space/time continuum. He awarded me partial credit for my originality.

I picture J.J. Abrams being at a convention somewhere and trying that defense to explain why no one could finish on time the commentary track for the Blu-ray Disc release of a billion dollar movie.

Supermallet

Awesome.

Giles

even though both Clash and Wrath of the Titans could be stated as being flawed, both Maximum Movie Mode features are excellent and really give an astounding primer of filmmaking 101

Supermallet

I think the Maximum Movie Mode stuff is great. I watched the one for Harry Potter 7A.

Match

Universal's U-Control did this on Fast & Furious (2009) Blu ray with Paul Walker and Justin Lin.

Supermallet

I got my German copy, but the digital copy code is locked to Germany. Is the iTunes commentary worth buying outright?

whotony

More importantly what about the Imax footage?

Josh Z

Dan, I don't use iTunes. You can have my code. Remind me and I'll email it to you later.

OldBoy

i have a code too, if anyone wants just pm...

OldBoy

my code is gone. thanks for playing!!

RocShemp

That's what I want to know as well.

Supermallet

Thanks Josh, you're a pal!

As for the IMAX footage, no luck. It's consistently at 2.40:1 in the 3D transfer, which was the one rumored to have the shifting ratios. Both the 3D and 2D discs are listed as 2.40:1 on the packaging as well.

The extras listed on the 2D disc are "Creating The Red Planet", "Attack on Starfleet", "The Klingon Home World", "The Enemy of My Enemy", "Ship To Ship", and "Brawl By The Bay". Is that more than the US release has?

Edit: Crap, I just looked at Josh's review on HDD and it looks like that's actually less than the US release. This has got to be the worst major home video release in recent memory. I should have just picked up the ugly Target version.

E Unit

That sucks, but thanks for taking one for the team. I was waiting for you to confirm the IMAX ratio shift, cause if it really did have it, I would have immediately ordered it. Alas...

Supermallet

I did get the CinemaNow bonus features, so it's not a total loss. I could still get the Target 2D set if I really wanted, I suppose, and consolidate the US discs with the 3D German disc into the German packaging, which is less ugly than the Target one. Not sure if it's worth the hassle, though.

RocShemp

Ditto. The US 3D disc looks great but I really would have jumped on a version with shifting aspect ratios.

hanshotfirst1138

Paramount fucked up this whole thing royally, but to be fair, they did at least not mess with the film and present it in a nice transfer.

RocShemp

The transfer is beautiful but they still technically messed with it by not at least providing the option of a release with shifting aspect ratios.

But then given that the only time they offered a BD like that was a Walmart exclusive, I don't think Paramount likes shifting aspect ratios in general.

b2net

I remember the firt one had IMAX scenes and was also constant ratio on blu like this one.

RocShemp

ST '09 may have been screened in IMAX but it seems that STID is the first in the franchise to actually be shot in IMAX: http://www.motion.kodak.com/motion/A...1639/index.htm