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I received my Tati box today, and it was exactly as described above, but I was able to fix it in about 90 seconds. Voila!



The outside spines of the individual discs are very easily 'refolded' to their correct width. I held the individual cases upright in front of me, looking down on it so I could ensure that the open ends were square, then rubbed the spine firmly (without crushing) up and down a couple of times, pressing firmly against the edge of the digipack as I did so (since this is the correct width for the spine). Then I turned the disc around so the open end was facing down on the desktop (ensuring everything was square) and pinched the spine gently between my fingernails and worked back and forth to crease the spine to its correct width. Do that seven times and everything fits perfectly. If you bite your fingernails: 1) shame on you; and 2) enjoy your wonky Tati box set!

Time Bandits, Safe, and The Night Porter arrived today. All three releases feature the fold-out insert instead of a stapled / bound booklet. At least with Time Bandits, one side of the insert is the map.

zedz wrote:I received my Tati box today, and it was exactly as described above, but I was able to fix it in about 90 seconds. Voila!...

And yet, now I am greatly disturbed by the non-chronological placement of TRAFIC and PARADE!

Clearly they're in zedz' favored alphabetical-for-the-first-letter/reverse-alphabetical-for-the-second-letter-on order.

I'm more bothered by the fact that zedz left the plastic wrap on. This is why there's no Post Your Picture thread here

domino harvey wrote:Post Your Picture thread

That sounds like a great idea! And we could make it open to non-members, too!

So Time Bandits has a lenticular slipcover.

cdnchris wrote:

domino harvey wrote:Post Your Picture thread

That sounds like a great idea! And we could make it open to non-members, too!

And make it that you'll need a Facebook account to access thread.

dwk wrote:So Time Bandits has a lenticular slipcover.

Ugh. Welcome to inexplicable cardboard slipcover fetishism, Criterion. I'm sure everyone on the blu-ray.com forums just ejaculated in unison

They're trying to bridge the gap between the Casers and the Digipackers

Liking cardboard slipcovers is the only weird anal packaging thing the Home Video Forum Brigade gets right. Now, would I travel out of my way and/or pay extra to secure one? No. But they're nice. I am still emotionally scarred by the long ago tales of Matt tossing every slipcover that came to the library and transferring digipaks to Amarays though

I guess Criterion doesn't have enough work to do... So let's change the packaging. Again.

Ah so the booklet budget for recent releases was shifted to a slipcase budget for time bandits.

Time Bandits
The Night Porter
Safe

This is going beyond ridiculous. Pamphlets vs. booklets is one thing. Poster-style foldouts is another. I can't think of a more unwelcoming (and eventually, self-defacing/destructing) format for reading an essay or any other written material about a film. What in the fuck are they thinking?

Yeah, I'm with you - I don't mind a pamphlet style thing like some of the earlier releases - if there's just one essay, why pad it just to waste more paper? But -- HUH? Oh, Criterion. You always get so close to consistently satisfying your customer base and then you do something baffling

domino harvey wrote:Liking cardboard slipcovers is the only weird anal packaging thing the Home Video Forum Brigade gets right. Now, would I travel out of my way and/or pay extra to secure one? No. But they're nice. I am still emotionally scarred by the long ago tales of Matt tossing every slipcover that came to the library and transferring digipaks to Amarays though

Eh - when you're asking "I wonder if it'll have a slip" or saying "no slip no sale" about releases, you're a mental patient. And that (along with what you mentioned re: going out of your way to buy them, which some folks on those forums do) just seems so bizarre to me. You're never going to have a collection that has 100% releases with slipcovers, so why worry about getting any? The only situations where I've genuinely been bummed not to have a slipcover were Lost Season 3 (which had a slipcover initially but reprints ditched it, despite the other seasons retaining it) and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, both uniformity concerns. The latter is a real eyesore among the Criterion portion of my shelf (and it's a bad movie and I only own it for the technical supplements anyway - so maybe I should just get rid of it).

Also on the foldout front, I don't think they're all necessarily like this, but the one for It Happened One Night looks along all the creases like one of my shirts after I iron it (i.e. not good). The picture Chris took looks the same as mine, so I suspect this is a widespread thing.

I'll never understand why they don't simply do a 10 pages booklet and that's it.
Or staples really are this expensive these days ?

It's been a while but when I worked at a place that had to do printing it was certainly quite a bit cheaper to print a one sheet as opposed to printing, cutting, and then binding (even with staples) a booklet. I assume they're trying to save costs elsewhere after the dual-format thing didn't pan out.

Maybe they're trying to find things to do that people will hate more than dual format so that they can bring dual format back?

mfunk9786 wrote:

domino harvey wrote:Liking cardboard slipcovers is the only weird anal packaging thing the Home Video Forum Brigade gets right. Now, would I travel out of my way and/or pay extra to secure one? No. But they're nice. I am still emotionally scarred by the long ago tales of Matt tossing every slipcover that came to the library and transferring digipaks to Amarays though

Eh - when you're asking "I wonder if it'll have a slip" or saying "no slip no sale" about releases, you're a mental patient. And that (along with what you mentioned re: going out of your way to buy them, which some folks on those forums do) just seems so bizarre to me. You're never going to have a collection that has 100% releases with slipcovers, so why worry about getting any?

And I'm the mental patient? Why bother having only some Criterions if you can't have them all? &c

I just meant that the aesthetics of them on the shelf are essentially moot because every other disc you have won't have one (or something like that ratio) - unless you organize your Blu-rays by slipcover and no slipcover - in which case...

P.S. I did not say you were a mental patient, I said that people who don't buy something because it doesn't come with a slipcover (or vice versa) are. Unless----!!!

Now I realize why Criterion changes various aspects of the packaging every now and then. So they can have a good laugh at all the neurosis that comes from this site.

mfunk9786 wrote:I just meant that the aesthetics of them on the shelf are essentially moot because every other disc you have won't have one (or something like that ratio) - unless you organize your Blu-rays by slipcover and no slipcover - in which case...

P.S. I did not say you were a mental patient, I said that people who don't buy something because it doesn't come with a slipcover (or vice versa) are. Unless----!!!

I don't do that, thank God. I do like slipcovers and will buy a film sooner than later if I know it comes with one, but I wouldn't, say, pay more for a film with one than without. To use an extremely recent example, my copy of Dallas Buyers Club came from Amazon today with a slipcover, which was a nice surprise because I was sure they'd have gone through their first run already. And that was cool. But had I really needed the slipcover I would have paid twice as much and bought it when it first came out. That is ridic. Also, I can charge more on the second hand market for a Blu-ray with a slipcover, so regardless of personal feelings I love them because $$$$$$$$$$