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Beautiful. This is what blu-ray is about. . .

ShellOilJunior wrote:Beautiful. This is what blu-ray is about. . .

A smaller version of an excellent DVD packaging job from five years earlier? When will re-releasing DVD packages as Blus simply become a "dog bites man " story around here?

I'm glad they fixed their digis...

CSM126 wrote: the extras would have to go on a second disc (and it is a two-disc set), so that would explain the packaging be a digi rather than a keepcase. I doubt the booklet had that much to do with it.

Well, if you remember, the likes of Army of Shadows had a keepcase accomodating two discs on the right inside and the booklet on the left. Also, their booklet for the DVD reissue of Seven Samurai was one of their thickest, so I still think the booklet accounts at least to some extent for the digipak. Not that it really matters in the grand scheme of things: I'd have quite liked a somewhat larger keepcase but the digipak does look quite nice as well.

The 2-disc figure 8 style won't work for the smaller BD keepcases though.

It's a slow day, so apologies for this.

The way I understand it is that Criterion's customized clear BluRay cases don't come in doubles, so any BluRay edition that requires an extra disc = automatic digipack. The only exception I'm aware of (not that I've been following too closely) was Benjamin Button, which came in the conventional blue BluRay case. And which could only accommodate a slender pamphlet of a booklet, which is where Finch is right about the booklet (also) being a deal breaker.

A double BluRay keepcase to match the existing clear Criterion single BluRay keepcase doesn't, as far as I know, exist, so it would entail design and production all its own for a single release, which would no doubt be prohibitive.

Further to that, though probably half or more of all their DVD releases are 2-discers (which necessitate their own kind of keepcase), the same content almost always fits on just one Blu-ray disc. I wouldn't guess that there are enough exceptions to this for them to consider dreaming up a custom 2-disc BD case, especially when anything that's an exception is surely going to be considered important enough to merit its own lavish digipak.

I can also confirm the Blue Blu-Ray package for Benajmin Button, and also that through ordering from Canada I also got one of those dual language French/English versions of the packaging!

On looking at that Seven Samurai Blu and comparing it with my DVD copy isn't the book that came with the reissue DVD quite thick? It was positioned next to the digipack in the box in the previous set, rather than being small enough to put inside the gatefold. Does that suggest that the size of the booklet has been cut down to fit inside the packaging? (As well as the digipack itself likely being reformatted and resized to Blu-Ray dimensions if it is going to be anything like the Brakhage Blu digipack).

Tom Hagen wrote:

ShellOilJunior wrote:Beautiful. This is what blu-ray is about. . .

A smaller version of an excellent DVD packaging job from five years earlier? When will re-releasing DVD packages as Blus simply become a "dog bites man " story around here?

Criterion releasing its flagship title on blu-ray could never be classified as a "dog bites man" story.

That disc art is outstanding.

It wasn' a giant ass crack afterall...

Hopefully they kept the underwater shot for the keepcase inside of the Blu package. I also notice that they used the temporary art (albeit reversed) for the front of the booklet - nice one!

The Blu-ray actually uses a different shot.

I like the one they went with, but I love the ones with Mitchum with his hand in a claw shape looking upward.

The Norman Rockwell one is priceless.

Thanks to Eric for taking the time to post all that. Ultimately, I like what they went with, for all of the reasons he mentions in his post. I was really hoping for them to do the storybook thing. The "Little Golden Books" cover is actually my favorite, and this would have been great too, but I definitely understand why they went in the direction they did.

I love the paper dolls made out of money cover. Even if it is a little bit of a rip-off of the original Bunny Lake is Missing poster.

Jeff wrote:The "Little Golden Books" cover is actually my favorite

Mine, too, actually. I also do like the idea of the first one and a little tinkering and I think it would have been great. Too bad about the legal requirements in listing Mitchum and Winters on the front.

Is this a new legal requirement or something left over from the original production of the film?

I'm guessing it's a condition of Criterion's new contract with MGM that above the line actors get credits on the packaging.

Tom Hagen wrote:The Norman Rockwell one is priceless.

Yeah, that one was eye-catching. I really prefer this one and this one, though. Sure, the former has shades of Walkabout, but it captures the fairy tale feeling really well. The latter with the font over it looked great, but Mitchum looking like a maniac really caught the horror for me.