Displaying items by tag: quality matters

Today’s editorial is going to be brief, because frankly some of us here at The Digital Bits have grown a bit frustrated at this point. Disheartened by the state of things, as it were. So too—we suspect—have many of you, our dear readers and fans of physical media. But lately, after nearly twenty-six years of passionate advocacy for film, TV, and special edition content on disc, it’s come to our attention that a couple of the major Hollywood studios don’t seem to have quite that same passion for the subject anymore.

One of these—let’s call ‘em Garner Brothers—just announced a long awaited 4K Ultra HD catalog release with almost no special features. Certainly no newly-created special features, because this studio doesn’t seem to do many of those anymore, and almost no special features on the actual discs, which is where disc fans tend to prefer them. Instead, most of this title’s special features are included as Digital extras only.

Nor does this title include the most obvious extra that fans have been wanting for years, which is the uncut 81-minute “Festival Version” of a certain making-of documentary about this film. Why? Honestly, we’re not sure there’s many people left at this studio who even know that it exists or why fans might care about it. (And if there is, that person should definitely be given a bigger role in making these decisions.)

Now, all of this is particularly frustrating, because if you pre-order this same title on 4K UHD in the United Kingdom, you do get those extras on disc. What’s more, you get a couple of different deluxe packaging options with swag in the UK, both of them terrific, whereas here in the States, the packaging’s artwork simply makes fans of this film weep, created—as it seems to have been—by an intern and novice Photoshop user for reasons unknown (rather than using the film’s already existing poster or production art, which… again… is the kind of thing this studio’s best customers would actually prefer.) [Read on here...]