The Soviet Influence: Battleship Potemkin/Drifters

[EddieLarkin]

I'll place my order for the disc now and email Mr Stoddart about a replacement. Very happy to finally make my purchase; I think I'll stick Turksib on my order as well because I feel bad for the BFI and what this replacement might have cost them.

[A man stayed-put]

Many thanks for all the info on the exchange scheme Michael and to the BFI for the quick turnaround. I emailed Mr Stoddart today and he was very prompt and pleasant with his response. BFI (like MOC) really are faultless in their customer service.

[Finch]

Email sent to Mr Stoddart, thank you to MichaelB for sharing the info.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

e-mail received from Ben Stoddart assuring me of a replacement in the mail today or tomorrow. Great work and thanks to Michael B. Member of the year and now bfi hostage negotiator. Is there no end to the accolades?

[A man stayed-put]

Got my replacement through today and, to my untrained eye, it looks very good indeed.

[MichaelB]

My copy was waiting for me when I got home last night, and I'm very happy to confirm that it's definitely been fixed - I immediately checked the opening titles and the hammock scene, where the jaggies were originally all too obvious, and they've been comprehensively banished.

The running time remains 1:08:49, which seems to be consistent with a true 18fps presentation - so now that the resolution issue has been corrected it's pretty safe to say that this is the definitive Potemkin on Blu-ray so far.

I also compared both discs to see if there's any obvious way of telling which is the corrected one without actually playing it. It's very subtle indeed, but if you look at the text curving around the bottom of the artwork ("WARNING: All rights of the producer..."), at the very end, to the right of the BFI logo, there's a small 'V2' that isn't on the original faulty disc.

[peerpee]

I was a little worried when the motion menu came on, because it uses the faulty encode (to redo that would have been a bit OCD I suppose), but very glad to concur with MichaelB's findings on the POTEMKIN feature itself! This is now the best Blu-ray of POTEMKIN available anywhere in the world.

[maxcherry]

When will it be safe to buy re-pressed copy from British Amazon?

And does extras (Drifters • Granton Trawler • Trade Tattoo • North Sea) have English subtitles?

[MichaelB]

And does extras (Drifters • Granton Trawler • Trade Tattoo • North Sea) have English subtitles?

I'll check my copy when I get a moment - but you don't need subtitles on Drifters or Trade Tattoo, since they have no spoken content.

[tenia]

When will it be safe to buy re-pressed copy from British Amazon?

Honestly, since you just have to send an email to Ben Stoddart to get the replacement disc, you can just order it on Amazon and send an email right after. You're likely to get your disc the same day than your copy.

[HKM]

you don't need subtitles on Drifters or Trade Tattoo, since they have no spoken content

Nor on Granton Trawler -- or at least it would all be '[indecipherable]'.

[maxcherry]

Thank you, MichaelB!

since you just have to send an email to Ben Stoddart to get the replacement disc, you can just order it on Amazon and send an email right after

Well, maybe BFI wouldn’t mind sending replacement copy to Ukraine, but I’d prefer to buy just the right stuff and not having to worry about replacement disc getting lost or broken somewhere…

[willoneill]

My replacement disc arrived in Canada today. Thanks BFI!

[What A Disgrace]

Is this the last entry in the Soviet Influence series?

[DeprongMori]

Is there anything visual printed on the "Battleship Potemkin/Drifters" BluRay disk itself that would allow one to distinguish between the original faulty pressing and the corrected disk? (Such as "second edition", etc) Thanks.

[MichaelB]

Is there anything visual printed on the "Battleship Potemkin/Drifters" BluRay disk itself that would allow one to distinguish between the original faulty pressing and the corrected disk? (Such as "second edition", etc) Thanks.

Yes - on the disc itself, there's a tiny "V2" at the end of the copyright text curving around the edge.

[Black Hat]

Had bought this a little over a year ago but it's been sitting in my kevyip until I just read this thread for the first time now. There's no v2 on my disc, is the replacement program still happening?

[Forrest Taft]

It was a few months ago, at least. I had bought my copy when it came out, but dug it out of my kevyip only recently. I sent an e-mail to BFI and got a replacement copy within a week.

[DeprongMori]

It seems some resellers still have copies of the old version. I've been checking with a few. Most don't want to open a package and check, one insisted all the bad copies were recalled and destroyed (without checking their stock), and one other was kind enough to check and find out that their new stock was the defective version. Being in the US, the cost of potentially having to to a return to the UK is steering me away from picking this up.

[Forrest Taft]

For what it's worth, I did not have to send my defective disc to the BFI. I'm in Europe though.

[Paul Moran]

For what it's worth, I did not have to send my defective disc to the BFI. I'm in Europe though.

Same for me, last Thursday. But, since I still had it, I "attached" a copy of the order acknowledgement/despatch email as proof of purchase, for which I got a pat on the back from Ben Stoddardt at BFI. ("Thanks for sending me the shipping note, much appreciated.")

BTW, thanks to MichaelB for explaining how to spot the defective discs. I didn't notice anything wrong when I watched the films last April, but since then I've upgraded from a 50" set to a 65" set (both Panasonic plasmas), and I understand that in this case, size does matter.

[Feego]

I just requested a replacement disc this weekend and received a response from Ben Stoddart today (Like Black Hat, I bought this several months ago but had not checked it until now). He assured me that he will send me one, but he mentioned that he only has a limited quantity of replacement copies remaining. So if you need one, you would be wise to request it sooner rather than later.

[DeprongMori]

Would one of you who has the corrected disc mind posting a photo of the pertinent information on the disc label? Thanks much.

[MichaelB]

I described it above - there's a very small 'V2' at the end of the curved info line running round the edge of the disc label. I'm not sure what a photo would add.

[swo17]

If it helps, here is a crude drawing made in Microsoft Paint: