Your place for the latest DVD reviews!

Best when viewed with 800X600 screen size

COMMENTARY TRACKS (ARCHIVE)

Paradise Lost
By Shaun Collins

Musings while reflecting back in the early days of DVD: (How strange does that sound? The early days were barely five years ago!) The argument was over formatting. One format for everything, from music to software to movies. The perfect utopia that would be conformity. Once that was reached, the debate shifted to packaging. Jewel cases? No, people would confuse them with CDs. Long Boxes? No, too much packaging.

     Finally, a plastic slim case similar to a Disney type clamshell was decided on ... by every major studio except Warner Bros.  Warner decided to go with a "snap case" with the movie artwork printed directly on the box. New Line followed suit and suddenly the little perfect world of conformity and universal sameness was thrown into upheaval.

     Why do you mock us cruel fate? Why do you take our uniform universe and throw it into chaos?Personally, I hate the Warner snap cases. They give off a "low tech" look and feel totally contrary to the high gloss format that is DVD. The plastic ridges on the top and bottom of the cases snag the plastic sleeves on my other DVDs so I can't keep my collection in alphabetical order. (I'm to the point where I have separated out all the snap cases on a separate book shelf.) And most erroneously, with the artwork printed directly on the case, it can be scratched, have liquids spilled on it or worse, and is a goner. At least with "normal" DVD cases the stuff is protected better.  

     But then came special editions. FIGHT CLUB packaged in a cardboard slip sleeve designed to look like brown paper wrapping. About a low tech as you can get, but FIGHT CLUB is a nonconformist movie, so I guess I'll let it slide. Then came TERMINATOR 2 in it's gunmetal titanium case. Okay, I can live with that, I guess.

     Suddenly the flood gates opened. MEN IN BLACK in a black vinyl wrap. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS in a bizarre foil cardboard flip thing. The DOGMA SPECIAL EDITION in a paper slip sleeve, UNBREAKABLE in one with a window on the cover. "The X-Files," "Sopranos" and "Sex In The City" all have whole seasons packed into a flip case that unfolds like a road map. THE WICKER MAN comes in a wooden box. And now Artisan's announcement that Basic Instinct will be in an "ice case" with ice pick pen and TOTAL RECALL will come in a round metal collector's tin.  A ROUND DVD CASE?!?

     Don't get me wrong, cool ideas and all, but what happened to universal appeal, conformity and one format? How am I supposed to get a round case to sit in alphabetical order on my book shelf?And what about this back and forth with two disc sets? Some are in a doublewide case, some are in a single wide with a cool little flip thing in the middle for both discs.

     Make up your minds already!!!

     And so I sit and wait for the perfect utopian vision I was promised by the manufacturers when DVD first arrived on the scene. Conformity, standardization and movies that will all fit on one shelf the same way.   Ž