Zodiac: Two-Disc Director's Cut

[Rich Malloy]

I Netflixed the current DVD last weekend. Good film, one of the better I've seen from Fincher.

Lousy DVD transfer. Moire patterns, jaggies, and shimmering that seems to grow worse and worse as the film progresses. Something went wrong in the transfer process, I suspect.

[Cinesimilitude]

The teaser for the director's cut has got to be the biggest "F.U." I've heard of. "Congratulations on your new purchase, here's a taste of what you didn't get but will be able to spend another 25$ on in the near future!"

[Antoine Doinel]

I suppose, but pretty much every fan knew a special edition was in the pipeline before the barebones disc came out.

[Matt]

Lousy DVD transfer. Moire patterns, jaggies, and shimmering that seems to grow worse and worse as the film progresses. Something went wrong in the transfer process, I suspect.

Just from the few moments that I've seen of it, I think that the transfer is actually really good. It's just that it's going to look awful unless you have a really sharp TV capable of displaying all the detail. Kind of like how the HD-shot NFL games always look like crap on my 12-year-old RCA tube set.

[Oedipax]

Yeah, I didn't have any complaints about the transfer - and I was paying pretty close attention to it, since I'm such a fan of Savides' cinematography and was also quite interested in how he worked in digital as opposed to film. Viewed on a 42" Pioneer plasma, fwiw.

[Rich Malloy]

Just from the few moments that I've seen of it, I think that the transfer is actually really good. It's just that it's going to look awful unless you have a really sharp TV capable of displaying all the detail. Kind of like how the HD-shot NFL games always look like crap on my 12-year-old RCA tube set.

I played back the disc on an Oppo 981HD upscaling to 1080i via HDMI to a 54" Panasonic HDTV, properly calibrated with Digital Video Essentials.

And I'm hardly the only one reporting the lousy transfer, and I don't mean a few instances here and there. I mean "lousy" pretty consistently. If there's a pattern that will cause moire artifacting, you'll see it. If there's movement over many parallel planes, you'll get major shimmering. And that old video killer, the venetian blind, makes a cameo during one of the interior office scenes, and of course strobes like crazy.

Yes, yes, some reviews call this a "great" transfer, but some reviewers simply don't do their job. Watch it all the way through, and unfortunately you'll see exactly what I mean.

[THX1378]

Specs are up this morning from DVD Active with a January 8th release date:

Paramount has announced Zodiac: Director's Cut which stars Jake Gyllenhaal. This David Fincher directed thriller will be available to own from the 8th January. Extras will include a commentary by David Fincher, a second commentary by Jake Gyllenhall, Robert Downey Jr, Producer Brad Fischer, James Vanderbilt and James Ellroy, a Zodiac Deciphered documentary, a Visual Effects of Zodiac featurette, a Digital Workflow featurette, and sequence breakdowns (Blue Rock Springs, Lake Berryessa, and San Francisco). Completing the package will be a This is the Zodiac Speaking featurette, a featurette on Linguistic Analysis, a His Name Was Arthur Leigh Allen featurette, Jeopardy Surface: Geographic Profiling, Dr. Kim Rossmo's Geographic Profile of the Zodiac, The Psychology of Aggression: Behavioral Profiling, Special Agent Sharon Pagaling-Hagan's Behavioral Profile of the Zodiac, trailers and TV spots.

From whats been said on their board, the directors cut only runs 5 minutes longer.

[Gigi M.]

From whats been said on their board, the directors cut only runs 5 minutes longer.

Thank God.

[flyonthewall2983]

Specs are up this morning from DVD Active with a January 8th release date

Nice. I just saw this and I think it'll be remembered as one of Fincher's best. I'll definitely pick this up.

[Roger_Thornhill]

If Paramount's releasing it I guess there goes any hope of a Blu-ray release of the special edition.

[Dylan]

From whats been said on their board, the directors cut only runs 5 minutes longer.

Thank God.

God, for some reason I was under the impression it would be forty-five minutes to an hour longer. I guess we'll be getting no dramatic illumination on Chloe Sevigny's character. I guess we'll be getting no real dramatic illumination at all, just bits and pieces, or a couple scenes.

[Oedipax]

I hope it includes the black screen/music montage sequence described somewhere, that sounded great. Basically, it was Fincher's way of transitioning from one era to the next - you would hear a mix of pop songs marking the passage of time.

[flyonthewall2983]

I hope it includes the black screen/music montage sequence described somewhere, that sounded great. Basically, it was Fincher's way of transitioning from one era to the next - you would hear a mix of pop songs marking the passage of time.

I was thinking the same thing.

[Dylan]

I hope it includes the black screen/music montage sequence described somewhere, that sounded great. Basically, it was Fincher's way of transitioning from one era to the next - you would hear a mix of pop songs marking the passage of time.

That's probably all we'll get. I was hoping there would be more character scenes, but it's possible that what I want for a director's cut of "Zodiac" doesn't exist.

[jedgeco]

I was hoping there would be more character scenes, but it's possible that what I want for a director's cut of "Zodiac" doesn't exist.

I'm pretty sure there is a substantially longer cut of Zodiac, and I'd be shocked if they released something else on the new DVD. I think somebody's botched the info on the running time for the new disc.

[Antoine Doinel]

I hope it includes the black screen/music montage sequence described somewhere, that sounded great. Basically, it was Fincher's way of transitioning from one era to the next - you would hear a mix of pop songs marking the passage of time.

According to a NY Times article prior to the release of the film, the blackout sequence is about two minutes long in total, so there will be three minutes of other stuff as well. But yeah, I too was hoping for at least a good ten to twenty minutes of excised scenes. I was hoping for more Sevigny and Goldberg.

[Cosmic Bus]

The disc announcement at DavisDVD does specify a 162-minute running time, so it appears there are indeed only five minutes of footage added. Disappointing in a sense, but I'll be quite happy to finally have the film on HD and not have to concern myself with owning a separate release for what I thought was going to be a significantly different theatrical cut.

[flyonthewall2983]

Here are the specific specs, from thedigitalbits:

And back to Paramount for a moment, we've got some new details for you on the studio's forthcoming Zødiac: Director's Cut (due 1/8/08). The 2-disc set will feature a version of the film that's 162 minutes long (for the record, that's 4 minutes longer than the theatrical version). Extras will include audio commentary by director David Fincher, a second commentary by Jake Gyllenhall, Robert Downey Jr., producer Brad Fischer, James Vanderbilt and James Ellroy, 3 The Film featurettes (Zødiac Deciphered, The Visual Effects of Zødiac and Digital Workflow), 3 Sequence Breakdowns (Blue Rock Springs, Lake Berryessa and San Francisco), 5 The Facts featurettes (This is the Zødiac Speaking, Lake Herman Road, Blue Rock Springs, Lake Berryessa and San Francisco), 4 Prime Suspect featurettes (His Name Was Arthur Leigh Allen, Linguistic Analysis, Jeopardy Surface: Geographic Profiling and The Psychology of Aggression: Behavioral Profiling), 2 text-based features (Special Agent Sharon Pagaling-Hagan's Behavioral Profile of the Zødiac and Dr. Kim Rossmo's Geographic Profile of the Zødiac) and the film's theatrical trailer. Audio will be Dolby Digital 5.1 on the DVD version, and Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 on the HD-DVD. All of the video-based special features will be in HD on the HD-DVD version.

[manicsounds]

According to amazon

[domino harvey]

Holy smokes, that's got to be the best major studio cover I've seen in some time.

[Cinephrenic]

And it has the wacky 'C'.

[eez28]

Yea, my birthday is on the postmark, not the actual year but thats ok.

[exte]

According to amazon

CHRIST! THAT'S AWESOME! Fincher must have final say on dvd se covers...

[jaredsap]

Holy smokes, that's got to be the best major studio cover I've seen in some time.

Without question. Eat your heart out, Criterion.

[Walter]

If they could only do that on an envelope, shrink wrapped with a slip of paper on the back that had the standard info.. I'm practically salivating here