this would be my pick for the absolute worst DVD release ever done...

they took the pan and scan... chopped off the bottom and the top and called it widescreen... and a terrible transfer... the scenes where headless men are riding legless horses... amazingly bad release...

i would call this film a masterpiece... definitely Boorman's magnum opus...

and all i am aware of is this one amazingly, precedent setting, miserable failure of a release...

i've written Criterion like 1000 times...

anyone know anything?... a rumor of a future release?... a different region disk that was well done?...

anything?...

The ellipsis...is killing me...

Anyway, I agree, horrendous treatment of a classic, not to the mention the convulsion-inducing cover. Is there anything better in other regions?

know nothing about the specifics of this title, but the cover sure is better.

Writing... Warner Bros.... would be far more... helpful.

ahhh... the very people... who murdered it... the first time...

yeah there's a thought...

a sarcastic one at that...

Criterion don't own the rights to the film and couldn't help you if they wanted to. You might as well write to Santa Claus. Warner own the film and don't have a history of licensing their movies to Criterion. If you want to complain to someone, complain to Warner.

Forget it, kid.

yeah...

i'll shoot my eye out...

what the hell... i'll write warner... i did think, i guess incorrectly, criterion could buy access to the rights for a title they wanted to release... didn't know they were stonewalled by warner....

so i've got write santa... and write the bastards that murdered the first DVD release...

anything else?... anyone?...

I'd definitely buy this. I've been holding off buying the original for years.

Well during HTF's Warner chat back in '06 the question was asked about an Excalibur SE and the response was:

"We know ARTHUR, EXCALIBUR and OUTLAND all need to be improved in quality."

Then another question about Excalibur was brought up and the response was:

"We know EXCALIBUR has a fervent following. We'll keep it in mind."

So now it's almost July 2007 and we've only had a HD-DVD version of Excalibur come along. Warner is usually good about these things (they are one of the best dvd-producing studios nowadays), so maybe just maybe we shall see something towards the end of the year.

"Your sword was stolen, Kay, but here's Excalibur!"

Excalibur is my favorite movie of all time, and I'd love to see a better edition come along, but that statement simply isn't true.

How about my custom cover?

That a nice cover you made there you get a pat on the back my boy.

Excellent cover. Hats off.

That's the cover I've been using since I ditched the snapper long ago...

Really?
I haven't watched this in a really long time, so I don't remember how it looks. But could it be that the "pan and scan" is actually just the entire full-frame 35mm image and the widescreen is how Boorman framed it theatrically?

That description doesn't sound right ... I haven't watched it in a while ... but I don't remember it being that bad. Certainly ... as noted in the DVDTalk review ... a big improvement over previous versions.
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=308

"The king without a sword! The land without a king!" Have loved that movie for a long time. Really need a better version. Edited to say that's a great custom cover.

Wait, is there a custom cover posted here? I see nothing.

I believe Region 2 has the original one-sheet as a cover.

I kinda wish with the remake craze in Hollywood lately, they would get around to doing this. I would love to see an Arthur story with fantasy elements.

What, remake this? REMAKE this? I going to gouge my eyes out so I don't have to read the words "they should remake" any goddamned more.

Then watch Excalibur?

You might be using one of my older Excalibur covers (or perhaps someone else's that coincidently looks much like mine), but it's hard to believe that you have been using it since "long ago," as I created and submitted this cover for download only last week!

(You may have trouble seeing the sample I posted above, as my web space has been in and out today in terms of accessibility.)

*ducks I just think the film seems a little dated is all.

As I stated above, the OP is incorrect. The DVD is indeed widescreen (I checked it myself last night to make sure I wasn't dreaming). The VHS version/TV versions were indeed pan-and-scan. I watched this movie at least 100 times on VHS and remember being aghast at first seeing the widescreen DVD image and noticing cool things happening in the periphery (like Gawain getting his side sewn up in the "meeting Lancelot" sequence).