Solid Snake

I got this as a recommedation on Amazon some days ago. Also got an email yesterday too.


via Amazon:
it's released by Shout! Factory. Amazon price is.... $149.99.

Amazon Link

So educate me. I dont THINK i have anything from Shout! How is their stuff? Didn't they release that Bruce Lee set..and it was "alright" at best with it's quality?

TheDuke

You should probably post this in the designated Shout thread, as it's been heavily discussed there. Shout is a great company.

Solid Snake

Some things deserve their own thread. I think this would be one of them.

Why So Blu?

Yeah, I pre-ordered it a while ago when it was first mentioned in the Shout/Scream thread. Good stuff.

E Unit

Threw down on the full price to snag one of the 100 signed copies.

Paul_SD

Gotta say I'm really surprised by this. I would have expected, if you didn't have any of the Scream Factory releases, you would at least have picked up something like Rolling Thunder, Death Hunt, or Dirty Mary Cray Larry/Race With The Devil...all of which I would have though would have been up your alley.

Yeah Shout is a good/great outfit putting out a lot of licensed content that the studios themselves don't have much regard for. Unfortunately like most licensees they are dependent upon what the license owner gives them as far as transfers. Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Seas was supposedly a disaster (would have loved to have had a solid BD of that), but the aforementioned titles from Fox and MGM have all been solid releases.

As far as the Herzog- While I love Aguirre and have Nosferatu on order, I struggled to get through Cobra Verde when I owned it. There are a few titles in that set I would be curious to see, but $150 is way too much for the value I would get out of it. I'm sure most of the big titles like Aguirre and Fitzcarraldo will get an individual release at some point. The lesser titles unlikely which will give the complete set some real value once it goes out of print.
If you can swing the price tag now- and take care of your discs/sets I think there is a good bet you can at least get back most if not all of your outlay on this after you watch everything (and it sells out).

hanshotfirst1138

In the case of the Bruce Lee films, from what I understand, the ever illustrious folks at Fortune Star, who own pretty much every Hong Kong film after 1980, basically provided them with half-assed SD masters.

banthafett

Im glad he posted about this set. I would have missed it. I dont go into threads that lump stuff together unless it's wrote in title of thread.

I can only imagine the stuff I might have missed out on. Every release should have its own thread.

Supermallet

Cobra Verde is the least of the Herzog/Kinski collaborations, but it's still a well made and interesting film.

inri222

Josh Z

While this is true and the blame ultimately lies with Fortune Star, it rubbed a lot of fans the wrong way that Shout! Factory denied that the masters were SD upconverts for a really long time and had to be forced to reissue the discs after-the-fact when they should have taken corrective action up front.

The true HD masters were already available and had been issued on Blu-ray in Asia by Fortune Star themselves. When Shout! received the SD upconvert masters instead, they should have delayed the release until they could get the matter sorted out. Instead, they pressed forward with blanket denials that anything was wrong.

I like Shout! Factory, but that Bruce Lee set was kind of a big cock-up on their part.

TheDuke

That's fine but I want you to know that if I had moderation powers you had better believe this thread would be getting moved, and I would be smirking while doing it.

I don't believe you really mean that.

EddieMoney

Wish I had the money for this. Fuck!

Groucho

Bummer that the signed version is sold out.

Coral

Looks to be a great set, and it comes out to roughly $10 per movie - so that's a good deal.

However, I'm being extra picky with what I buy on BD. It has to be a great film AND be something that'll have repeat viewings. For me about 4 films fit that criteria. Plus, while the packaging looks nice - I'd rather just have regular cases - sweetk simple and durable.

E Unit

There's also some docs on this set. I've only seen the Making of Nosferatu which is a measly 13 minutes. Too bad a lot of the commentaries are gone off a lot of these from the Anchor Bay release.

• English Audio Commentaries: Even Dwarfs Started Small, Fata Morgana, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, Heart of Glass, Strozek and Cobra Verde
• German Audio commentaries: Nosferatu the Vampyre, Fitzcarraldo, Where the Green Ants Dream.
• In Conversation - Werner Herzog and Laurens Straub (In German with English Subtitles)
• The Making of Nosferatu The Vampyre
• Portrait: Werner Herzog documentary
• Herzog In Africa documentary
• Theatrical Trailers

EDIT: Reading the list of commentaries, I actually think these are all of the ones from the Anchor Bay set.

hanshotfirst1138

If Shout did do that, then shame upon them for not being up front about it, I totally agree. To be fair, Fortune Star have a vice-like death grip on the rights to uncountable classic HK films, and as a longtime HK film fan, I can tell you that they've managed to mess up almost every single one with bad upscales, out-of-sync sound, horrendous remixes, and downmixes masquerading as mono, and across many distributors too. And it doesn't look the rights will ever lapse to anyone else. Apparently Shout's Jackie Chan Blus weren't that impressive either. Like I said, I'm in no way absolving Shout of lying, they absolutely deserve the criticism, but Fortune Star mess up more often than the government, so they were hardly dealing with a sterling source.

slop101

I would've liked to get that as well. Blink and you miss it, I suppose.

Giles

not much of a discounted price - but hey I'm up for purchasing this.

slop101

Good thing Twilight Time isn't doing this release, it would be almost $500 if they were...

Solid Snake

If it was CC during a sale we'd knock down that pricing like crazy.

Still so happy I got that Zatoichi set for like 70 bucks.

rocket1312

There were no German commentaries on the Anchor Bay dvds, so these can't be the same ones. The English ones may be the same, but who knows. I'm actually a little disappointed by the German commentaries only because Herzog commentaries are (imo) the greatest special feature ever and I often listen to them as background noise while I do other things. That doesn't work so well with German commentaries. Unless you speak German.

B&N do other sales besides the Criterion sales. They often have 40% off all art-house sales, which I would hope this set would fall under. We can't know for sure until it happens, but I would expect there to be some deals on this set at some point.

hanshotfirst1138

If there are English commentaries to go with the German ones, I think the assumption would be that they're the same as the old Anchor Bay ones, though obviously we won't know until the reviews come in. The man has a wonderful, hypnotic voice though .

Supermallet

The English commentary on Nosferatu alone is worth the price of admission (the film itself is brilliant as well). I'm very disappointed they weren't able to get all the Anchor Bay commentaries.

hanshotfirst1138

They weren't? Damn. Guess completists have to double dip.