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The booklet's great at least.

Their Antonioni cover art gets progressively more monochrome with each release. At least it can't get much greyer than that.

It's an interesting take, given that RED DESERT and IDENTIFICATION are colour films...

BTW this may be a barebones package by way of extras, but it is a really impressive transfer of the feature with comprehensive subbing... An elusive and beautiful film, and a late MA masterpiece!...

From a Blu-ray.com forumer :

Spoiler

The entire television version is on one Blu-ray?

Ooh, I am not liking that dark red on the back cover of F&A...rather disconcerting. Also, I wish they put the discs in individual slip cases, like the DVD version.

The booklet for Identification looks like a 90s self-help book.(?)

domino harvey wrote:The entire television version is on one Blu-ray?

It seems so, yes. 5hrs+ on one single disc. That was my biggest concern about the set since they announced it as a 3 disc only, where I would have seen it as a 4 disc set.

I've pre-ordered it anyway, but I'm really eager to see some reviews, or see it by myself.

I have confidence that they've learned from their past crammed-on-one-disc editions (Last Emperor, M) and they know what they're doing this time. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let this look super amazing.

I thought M looked pretty good.

Yeah, M looked fine to me. Wish they would go back and redo the Last Emperor. Maybe even include the longer TV cut.

I mentioned M because I remember some grumblings about the contrast boosting and relatively lower bitrate as compared to the MoC and the more recent German blu (not that bits ever tell the whole story) in order to fit all the special features on the disc.

aox wrote:Yeah, M looked fine to me. Wish they would go back and redo the Last Emperor. Maybe even include the longer TV cut.

Why bother if they can't present it in the correct aspect ratio? It's never going to look good in Storaro's Golden Magic Fantasy RatioTM.

zedz wrote:

aox wrote:Yeah, M looked fine to me. Wish they would go back and redo the Last Emperor. Maybe even include the longer TV cut.

Why bother if they can't present it in the correct aspect ratio? It's never going to look good in Storaro's Golden Magic Fantasy RatioTM.

Ugh... I totally forgot about that.

At least Coppola is powerful enough to have prevented the same thing from happening to Apocalypse Now.

Film looks good in stupid ratio. It just looks better in original. Hyperbole hyperbole...

In between this and the Movie Experience thread, you're becoming the Voice of Diminished Expectations around here.

aox wrote:At least Coppola is powerful enough to have prevented the same thing from happening to Apocalypse Now.

I'm still surprised by how much sway Storaro does have. Can't they just shoo the crazy man away? Does he have any legal entitlement to his obviously nutty demands? Would they reframe the image as a triangle if it would sooth his soul?

Cold Bishop wrote:In between this and the Movie Experience thread, you're becoming the Voice of Diminished Expectations around here.

Enjoyment of movies is great for me. I value the perfect image, best home theatre, good extras, etc. Very important. But the Last Emperor Blu-ray is better than the DVD video, despite lack of TV version. Ideal is original ratio, 2-disc TV, etc. But how lucky we are to watch movies at home so close, maybe better?, than our ancestors ever could.

zitherstrings wrote:

Cold Bishop wrote:In between this and the Movie Experience thread, you're becoming the Voice of Diminished Expectations around here.

Enjoyment of movies is great for me. I value the perfect image, best home theatre, good extras, etc. Very important. But the Last Emperor Blu-ray is better than the DVD video, despite lack of TV version. Ideal is original ratio, 2-disc TV, etc. But how lucky we are to watch movies at home so close, maybe better?, than our ancestors ever could.

Poor ancestors! (?)

I'm pretty sure everybody who saw The Last Emperor on original release saw it looking better than the Criterion BluRay.

Has anyone else noticed the mistake on the spine for the Harakiri blu? On my copy at least, the two tabs with the Criterion logos do not line up with their other releases and is lower. It's only packaging but it looks noticeably funky.

ianungstad wrote:Has anyone else noticed the mistake on the spine for the Harakiri blu? On my copy at least, the two tabs with the Criterion logos do not line up with their other releases and is lower. It's only packaging but it looks noticeably funky.

Mine looks fine. You must have received just a badly printed copy.

Anthony wrote:Mine looks fine. You must have received just a badly printed copy.

Yeah, I actually had this in mind yesterday, and compared Harakiri to the spines of a couple other movies in B&N yesterday. It didn't align perfectly, but it wasn't off by any more than a bunch of others I have at home.

Fanny & Alexander

As a note, this edition only has the one spine number, 261, where the DVD edition covers 261 to 264 (one for the box, each version of the film, and then the making-of documentary.)

Well, that's going to make some crazed collectors' heads explode

Won't a crazed collector be keeping both versions anyway?