Impressive Impractical Packaging

[Westwood]

I hope whoever said that it is consumer right bs hasn't dared add insult to injury.
I am a big customer of amazon (rarely use anything else) and I have to say, being an international customer, they offer one of the best customer service. However it is annoying that with all the complaints they must get, they do not have a fixed packaging scheme or want to improve it, they would rather send replacements after replacements.
Anyway, more to the point, in the Europe some dvd sets were done in a horrible way (Sex And The City season 1 from Germany and Angels In America from the UK), where each of the two discs was placed in a tray glued on each internal side of the box, which means just a little tiny pressure on the center of the box and the discs become dislodged. I gave up. Something similar is still being used for double disc sets, like Dreamgirls in the UK, where disc on the left side has a small solid spindle thing, and the one on the right is the classic amaray case one, with the slit wavy-horizontally cutting the spindle in half. So again, just some pressure and the right disc becomes dislodged. I gave up after two tries and kept the slightly damaged discs, because they cost 5 pounds.

I was really afraid to order The Simpsons "head" packagings because I had seen them in stores and wondered how they would arrive at home if mail-ordered. So far they were ok, but as for discs packaging, I wonder how nobody commented on the latest edition, with discs hidden in plain cardboard pages. Amazon reviews are full of complaints on those, but not as much as the Charmed complete series edition which seems to be full of defects in both regular and deluxe editions. For those reasons I haven't bought the set yet. Also, I wanted the deluxe one but it's gone now....

[knives]

Not impressive, but the new Toho sci-fi set Sony put out, does Mothra really count as sci-fi, is as impractical as they come. I can't imagine any way that won't become a pain in the ass real quick.

[Ben Cheshire]

Cool thread. Surely heaps of people have had bad experiences with this. I've totally gone off elaborate packaging. Examples:

Any set I've bought that comes with a big book like Criterion's Mr. Arkadin. I find I'm always far less inspired to play the disc when it looks difficult to open.

I try and avoid slipcases, often there to house a lenticular cover, etc, which I often throw out.

The limited edition Reservoir Dogs packaging that slips out like a pack of matches inside a kerosene can (surely the most dangerous place to put them?)

Some other thoughts:

The Neil Young Archives Vol 1 has some amazing aspects in terms of packaging. The book is beautiful, with soft leathery covers like a journal. However, each disc is housed in an individual four-sided cardboard sleeze, with intentionally torn edges to make it look rustic, and squished into tiny boxes not big enough to hosue all of them. A lot of space is wasted in the box, which has no need to be as big as it is, except to look impressive. If anyone was a hardcore enough Neil Young fan to purchase multiple volumes of this set, they'd end up with a massive unnecessary mantlepiece display reading NE IL YOU NG (I'm guessing) along the side. If the packaging was smaller, I'm guessing less people would feel they were getting value for money, since the pricing on the box is so exorbitant. Having said that, the audio quality on the discs is incredible, and the special features and blu-ray update-capabilities are landmark. I've yet to have a blu ray be improved by bd-live. I lie in wait.

And how about this Australia Pulp Fiction Blu Ray release: Its a "briefcase edition," bigger than a regular blu ray case, not sure yet whether I want it:



http://www.ezydvd.com.au/ For the product page.

[skuhn8]

That Pulp Fiction set looks like an utter pain in the ass.

Ben, you ok? Your sentences are catastrophic--having trouble discerning what the second clause may be in a number of them.

[Ben Cheshire]

Ta for asking! Sorry, must have posted half way thru an edit. Will fix.