Criterion & Eclipse Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on Vol. 6

[swo17]

You can see here that Oharu is not going to be a digipak.

[krnash]

Anyone have any idea why they'd make this one in particular a digi?

[Moe Dickstein]

When will they finally kill off these stupid Digipaks!!! I want all my cases the same height, so either all digi or none!

[Jack Phillips]

When will they finally kill off these stupid Digipaks!!! I want all my cases the same height, so either all digi or none!

I love digipaks. The only thing I like better are steelbooks. My MOC steelbooks are the pride of my collection. When will the CC start issuing steelbooks???

[Moe Dickstein]

Yeah and also Steelbooks are worse lol. I have avoided buying things in those. I also toss slipcovers.

The only legit reason I know of for CC to do Digis is when the booklet won't fit in the regular case, and for that I guess I can deal with it, but at least the early flimsy ones are replaceable (except good luck finding a Third Man plastic case on its own...)

[feihong]

I imagine it comes down to budget on the title and the producer of the disc's personal preference whether they make it a digipack or their usual treatment.

Personally I like the feeling of a paper cover-it feels a whole lot classier and more important than a plastic cover does. And I like the more subtle printing you get on paper that has some tooth to it, instead of these glossy, anemic treatments they give to practically every dvd or blu ray on the market. One of the high points of Criterion design for me is still the Fassbinder BRD trilogy package, which has beautiful printing quality, a nice, clear and evocative conceptual treatment for its design, and a real, tactile sense that what's in the package is something special. The Repo Man package captured that feeling for me again, and Sansho the Bailiff definitely creates that feeling.

[Moe Dickstein]

However paper can be a nightmare if buying used. Stickers are impossible to remove in most cases without ripping the paper. Far less of a concern with the plastic cases...

[Gregory]

All the more reason not to put stickers directly onto a digipak, which is something I've rarely seen, and anyway Ronsonol can usually get off price stickers cleanly, with no stain.
We have a whole thread on this, and clearly opinion is so divided that there's no way for Criterion to make most people happy who have a stake in this debate. No matter which they choose, someone will be pissed off, so it's not clear what the same old complaints based on personal preference could ever accomplish.

[johnnysnatchclub7]

The only way to make everyone happy is to continue to make digis when they see fit but also make replacement art for sale on the website for $5 a pop a la the original flimsy ones. I, for one, would buy all applicable titles. I crave the uniformity and durability more than I do a little bit extra artwork and a fatter booklet.

[knives]

The problem with that is that most of the titles they do digis for nowadays is out of necessity as they have yet to master a two disc blu set with large booklet. Etaix, for instance, is digi because it must be.

[johnnysnatchclub7]

They do make two discs cases though now with the Samurai Trilogy. Any booklet too fat I can put on a bookshelf. I wouldn't imagine that it would be terribly expensive for them to print these covers (SEVEN SAMURAI, THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, etc.) on demand, or fifty at a time or something. I'm sure they'd make money on it.

[knives]

That's assuming though that there's a thousand yous out there because they are not paying for just the thing you are ordering, but a shipment of that thing.

[johnnysnatchclub7]

Very true.

[Lowry_Sam]

I have way too much plastic on my shelves which is unnecessary (ie. just a big fat case with no booklet) & taking up wasted space. At the same time, I hate having cardboard/paper packaging that doesn't fit will together &/or is inconvenient to pull out (Last Year At Marienbad). I also hate receiving disks damaged and/or unique packaging that is damaged, but I found that that happens regardless of how my discs are stored (though ones in plastic cases without booklets seem to fare the worst when dislodged). I like MoC's Steelbooks best (and their cover art, unlike Criterion's, is consistently good), though I also like Arrow's 4-option cover choice insert too. It seems that in this day and age more attention can be given to design & function, but in the crass world of contemporary capitalism cheap is what sells.

For me (so far) the best compromise between durability, economy, style and function, while trying to reduce plastic use is the Digibook. They are actually sturdier than most of the keep cases these days. Only the amount of plastic that is needed to hold the disc(s) is necessary. They can be made quite durable (though some get made with a rather cheap glue and/or disc insert job). They can also be made with no plastic at all (though most of these allow the discs to fall out easily or get scratched). It can accommodate nice artwork. It's thickness can vary to accommodate any size booklet/pages of art & writing. The pages often act as buffer to help keep the discs from popping off the ring while in transit.

The French Studio Canal Digibooks (The Graduate, To Be Or Not To Be) look to be the most eco-friendly & space saving titles on my shelf (though their booklets are contained in a sleeve & are smaller) and I haven't had any problems with them yet. The only plastic (besides the disc) seems to be the circular ring embedded into the book cover. These are followed by the Fox digibooks (All About Eve, The Rocky Horror Picture Show) which have no plastic insert (but the disc nestles into the cutout in the sleeve rather snugly & doesn't seem to get scratched trying to do so), which also have glossier books w/ larger pages. Warner's does overkill on the digibooks by glueing thick plastic holders into the end of the book, making their digibooks less eco-friendly and more space-consuming than the others (especially noticeable with multi disc titles, though it does make Bladerunner, Citizen Kane, The Exorcist or Sony's Taxi Driver stand out on the shelf). The titles of the digibooks are often much easier to read from a distance too than are the inserts underneath a glossy keepcase. Finally, the digibooks are easy to open & get the disc out (some keepcases have tricky/sketchy latch mechanisms).

[Drucker]

The Studio Canal Digibooks look to be the most eco-friendly & space saving titles on my shelf (though their booklets are contained in a sleeve & are smaller) and I haven't had any problems with them yet.

I agree those look very nice and I kick myself for getting the US edition of Grand Illusion, as the look of my EU copies of The Trial and Quai Des Brumes look so darn nice. However, recently when I actually finally got to watching Quai, the glued-on-ring fell off of my SC case (resulting in the disc being thrown across the room!), which is a real pain. I've been able to stick it back on, but it is far from as stable and nice as I'd like it to be.

[cdnchris]

Band of Outsiders
Jubal
3:10 to Yuma

[swo17]

A real missed opportunity there for the Blu-ray sticker on Jubal to just be a close-up of Borgnine's face.

[knives]

It seems Borgnine is in the process of crapping himself actually.

[swo17]

Isn't there a scene early in the film where it's established that, to overcome his constipation, Borgnine has to anchor himself to another human being and then gently rock back and forth while grimacing? And then at a key point later in the film, while the three leads are on the run, Borgnine suddenly feels the urge and so Glenn Ford is forced to stand watch, lest their pursuers come to know their shame? A bold choice for the cover art, no doubt.

[rwiggum]

Boy, I'm not usually one to complain about packaging, but that Jubal design is AWFUL. I was hoping the rest of the package would make up for the bargiain bin-looking cover, but not one bit.

And is the booklet art for 3:10 to Yuma really just a closer crop of the cover art?

Seems like a lazy month.

[eerik]

[knives]

That's the booklet cover, right?

[domino harvey]

That has to be the worst fucking work Saul Bass ever did. THIS is the time Criterion decides to go with vintage artwork?

[criterion10]

Yikes. Not a fan of those covers, with the exception of To Be or Not To Be, which is pretty great.

[Drucker]

I really find that To Be Or Not To Be cover awful. I understand the reason for it based on the context of the film, but it does not look appealing or match the tone of the film at all.