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If one compares this to Criterion cover art, than it is similar to this comparison:

I kinda liked them at first, and they've grown on me even more since — can imagine this working especially well with cardboard!

Definitely support slimline cases — every bit of space saved counts.

I really like the sleeves, they're very faithful to Japanese poster art of the period.

For me, this is exactly the style the sleeves needed to be and pretty much nail it

I doubt they're slim cases, as this is a dual format release. Fassbinder is one of the few boxed sets that have Blu-rays only, which I expect is a bigreason they chose it for their first slim case box.

True to the original posters. Love the design!

What A Disgrace wrote:I doubt they're slim cases, as this is a dual format release. Fassbinder is one of the few boxed sets that have Blu-rays only, which I expect is a bigreason they chose it for their first slim case box.

Honestly, I wouldn't be against slim Amarays even if it's only for 3 cases. Every shelf space saved is good to me.
I believe slim Amarays are available for 2 discs. I remember Carlotta using slim 2-disc Amarays for their Douglas Sirk DVD boxsets, and Viva are making some 6mm 2-BD cases.

Curious that Volume 1 and 3 have Yellow and Blue on their spines respectively, but vol 2 is colorless. Oversight or intentional?

I guess it's because they chose the male character for the spine rather than the female one.

By far my favorite design for an Arrow box set yet. I like the look of the Yoshida set pretty well, but I love these boxes. Frankly, I've never wanted to watch the trilogy more than I do having seen these covers.

tenia wrote:

What A Disgrace wrote:I doubt they're slim cases, as this is a dual format release. Fassbinder is one of the few boxed sets that have Blu-rays only, which I expect is a bigreason they chose it for their first slim case box.

Honestly, I wouldn't be against slim Amarays even if it's only for 3 cases. Every shelf space saved is good to me.
I believe slim Amarays are available for 2 discs. I remember Carlotta using slim 2-disc Amarays for their Douglas Sirk DVD boxsets, and Viva are making some 6mm 2-BD cases.

I doubt they're slim cases too - not because it's a dual format release, but because it's a three film set. If it was a bigger set like the Fassbinder one, I'm sure they'd consider slimmer cases. They could do 2-disc slim cases if they wanted, similar to what MoC did with their Imamura set last year, but I'm not sure it's necessary here.

I hope a hard outer box is present though! That's basically the best treatment you can get these days for the presentation of a box set (in the UK at least).

tenia wrote:I guess it's because they chose the male character for the spine rather than the female one.

It's because the mock-ups were done in double-quick time by a designer who (unsurprisingly) hadn't seen the film. And who (reasonably) wasn't expecting people to devote rather more time to discussing the spines than he did in creating them in the first place.

When the sleeves are created properly, tweaks may well be made.

Fair enough, just wanted to make sure it wasn't something that could inadvertently make its way through the cracks.

For what it's worth, I think the design is gorgeous regardless of the spine.

September's matching noirs look stunning.

I agree! The matching placement of the actors and the titles that look like elaborate neon signs of seedy nightclubs are wonderfully evocative!

Absolutely, though I prefer the Blue Dahlia cover (I guess the circular figure of a dahlia fits more in terms of composition than a key).

Great covers for these! I was expecting The Glass Key to be announced (somebody already guessed it) but The Blue Dahlia too is a nice surprise!

Definitely two of the best announcements for Academy this year.

Arrow says on Twitter that Dekalog will be in a box with 5 slim-line cases and the book, if anyone was curious.

There was a lot of discussion about this, but two episodes plus extras per disc seemed the most effective way of allowing an equally generous bitrate across the entire series.

Ten episodes is an awkward number to divvy up - five episodes across two discs is obviously ridiculous, but there's no even spacing to be had between that and exactly the other way round. And since there are plenty of extras, it made sense to spread them out evenly instead of devoting a separate disc to them, as they can stand lower bitrates.

MichaelB wrote:five episodes across two discs is obviously ridiculous

You mean how Criterion's doing it?

I expect Michael was fully aware of what Criterion has done when writing that statement.

I am really just bewildered by Criterion's decision; why not do four on a disc instead, and the two films bundled with their episodes on Disc 2? (Unless there's just a weird rights thing of having them share a disc) I'm getting both but it wouldn't surprise me if Arrow's bitrate is almost twice Criterion's.

To be honest, I don't know how high will be the AVB on the Arrow set, but looking at the Beaver numbers, they're all relatively low on the Criterion indeed (around 18Mbps). And as Michael said, dedicated a disc to extras while they are the elements that can be compressed the most seems counter-productive.
Criterion has 764 min of main material + 162 min of extras material (+23 min of Audio only extra material). Looking at the detailed duration of each element, it means Criterion has split the material as follow :
1st disc : 294 min
2nd disc : 299 min
3rd disc : 172 min
4th disc : 162 min ( + 20 min Audio only)

It just is totally silly. Why would you cram so much your main material but allocate a full dedicated disc to supplements while they should be the elements to be crammed somewhere ? With 4 discs only anyway, you're stuck with an average of 231 min of material per disc.
Instead, they could have done like this almost perfectly spread out material :

4 épisodes : 232 min
1 + 1 long + the 2 Kieslowski interviews + 2 long interviews + the analytic program : 61 + 85 + 20 (+23) + 28 + 46 = 241
1 + 1 long + the remaining interviews : 62 + 87 + 62 = 211
4 episodes + trailer : 242

This way, the main program is spaced out in a almost "clean" manner, the longer episodes are with their related shorter versions, the extras are spread per block and the content per disc is overall balanced (though the 1st disc is not in favor of the main program though it's still better than what Criterion has done anyway).

EDIT : thought the "Short Films" were related to episodes 6 & 7 while it's 5 & 6. I corrected my calculations.

For the "Short Films" to be on the same disc as their episodes, you would either have to put 2 + 2 long on Disc 2 (which would put you back at five hours of main material on one disc) or probably better:

Disc 1: Episodes 1-4 (4 hours)
Disc 2: Episode 5 + A Short Film About Killing (2.5 hours)
Disc 3: Episode 6 + A Short Film About Love (2.5 hours)
Disc 4: Episodes 7-10 (4 hours)

With the supplements spread across the various discs as space allows.

Ribs wrote:I expect Michael was fully aware of what Criterion has done when writing that statement.

I wasn't, actually.

The second Woody Allen set does not have the BBFC logo on the spine as the first set does on the Arrow site - have they moved it around on the first set since they rendered it, too, or is it inconsistent across the volumes?