The Silence of the Lambs: Ultimate Edition announced:

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 26 Feb 2006, 07:51

Any word on whether they'll bundle this with the Hannibal 2-discer?

bradavon wrote:These are all the new Sony MGM UE DVDs right? Have I missed any? -

Rocky UE Box Set
The Terminator: UE
Magnificent Seven: UE
The Silence of the Lambs: UE
Platoon: UE

You're forgetting Raging Bull UE.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 26 Feb 2006, 18:06

EvaUnit02 wrote:Any word on whether they'll bundle this with the Hannibal 2-discer?

That's a real stinker, when you consider what came before (both Manhunter and SOTL). All the comedy really, really pissed me off.

If they did they'd include Red Dragon.

EvaUnit02 wrote:You're forgetting Raging Bull UE.

Oh yeah I did.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 27 Feb 2006, 04:33

bradavon wrote:
EvaUnit02 wrote:Any word on whether they'll bundle this with the Hannibal 2-discer?
That's a real stinker, when you consider what came before (both Manhunter and SOTL). All the comedy really, really pissed me off.

Yeah, Hannibal is a big cartoon villain in that one and Gary Oldman's character (the guy with no face who like feeding to pigs) was just dumb. Still a fun film to watch though and Ridley has made worse films - that dreck GI Jane comes to mind.[/quote]

saltysam · Post by **saltysam** » 22 Nov 2006, 11:48

Another new Region 1 SE coming

http://www.davisdvd.com/news/news.html

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 22 Nov 2006, 12:57

Thanks. I will buy this if it has the full opening credits intact.

slasher13 · Post by **slasher13** » 22 Nov 2006, 15:04

EvaUnit02 wrote:Thanks. I will buy this if it has the full opening credits intact.

Indeed, I still have my criterion collection, and much prefer the look of this over the special edition that come out. If the new release can be an enhancement of this, then it would be great and i would def get it

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 22 Nov 2006, 20:18

EvaUnit02 wrote:Thanks. I will buy this if it has the full opening credits intact.

There are two problems with the European UE's -

"Note about the transfer: There is a one pixelation error in the transfer, in the beginning of chapter 8 at the timecode 0:30:20. There are also some missing opening credits. First credits what are shown are:
-Brooke Smith/Diane Baker/Kasi Lemmons.
These credits are missing:
-A Strong Heart/Demme Productions/Jodie Foster/Anthony Hopkins/Scott Glenn/"The Silence Of The Lambs"/Ted Levine/Anthony Heald."

If both are fixed I'll upgrade

http://www.dvdcompare.net/comparisons/film.php?fid=749

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 23 Nov 2006, 02:09

How the fork did they manage to miss out the main credits?? lol

I have the SE, which is fine.

The Criterion looks awfully dark and reddish to me.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 23 Nov 2006, 18:38

Good question. It was first reported on the Scandinavian R2 to Sony which came out a few weeks earlier. Sony didn't give a shit and released the UK anyway.

Especially the "The Silence Of The Lambs" one, it has no title

The R1 won't have removable captions too.

p.s - Bar the commentary the Criterion is an overrated mess!

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 24 Nov 2006, 14:22

bradavon wrote: There are two problems with the European UE's -

"Note about the transfer: There is a one pixelation error in the transfer, in the beginning of chapter 8 at the timecode 0:30:20. There are also some missing opening credits. First credits what are shown are:
-Brooke Smith/Diane Baker/Kasi Lemmons.
These credits are missing:
-A Strong Heart/Demme Productions/Jodie Foster/Anthony Hopkins/Scott Glenn/"The Silence Of The Lambs"/Ted Levine/Anthony Heald."

I knew that and that's what I was refering to before. Practice what you preach and stop being patronising yourself.

Agreed about the Criterion, it is garbage. A non-anamorphic transfer that was directly ported from a laserdisc. People need to stop putting these early garbage Criterion discs like Robocop, SOTL, The Killer and Hardboiled on a pedestal. For a brand that is supposedly the "highest quality" they sure had no problems qualms about releasing shit LD-ported discs back in the 1997/1998; that crap cannot be justified at all so "all to be fair..." arguments are redundant.

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 24 Nov 2006, 17:01

I have to say that the DVD Beaver screen cap comparison (see below) between the Criterion and MGM editions of 'Robocop' favours the Criterion, IMO.

More detail/film grain, better colours/tones, superior brightness and contrast, "director's" aspect ratio.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare3/robocop.htm

Judge for yourselves...

slasher13 · Post by **slasher13** » 24 Nov 2006, 17:20

Exactly, I was just about to put that, Robocop should be at 1:66 ratio, yet MGM released it at 1:85, did they crop the movie? Looks like it

Silence of the Lamb, if you see the difference, i much prefer how Criterion has it, I like the following review from Whiggle:

Whiggle wrote:Taken entirely on its own terms, the MGM release has a pretty nice transfer. It has decent clarity, little edge enhancement, solid encoding and average-to-good detail. As an accurate representation of its director's intentions, however, it is a disgrace: its colours and brightness levels manipulated and "normalised" to high heck, and severely cropped on the left hand side most of the time (around 5% of the image missing). Whoever at MGM was in charge of creating the master for their DVD clearly did not understand that the scenes "down in the dungeon", to quote Dr. Lecter, were meant to be dark and red-tinted. Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins' faces should look as if they are poorly lit by cheap underground lighting, not bathed in a neon glow! Contrast this with Example 7, where little to no colour goosing has gone on and the two versions are more or less identical in terms of hue. Sorry, guys, the Criterion has the edge.

Just see the difference on this site:
http://www.zetaminor.com/dvd/dvdreviews/silence_x_3.htm

Especially the airport scene.. I much prefer the Criterion version

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 24 Nov 2006, 22:14

Robocop I could live with being non-anamorphic 1.66:1 but SOTL no way. The 1.85:1/1.78:1 aspect ratio in particular looks awful on a WS set. It needs to be anamorphic for me to be acceptable.

No way does the Criterion have the edge, for me anyway. Anamorphic is a massively important one for me (if applicable).

EvaUnit02 wrote:I knew that and that's what I was refering to before. Practice what you preach and stop being patronising yourself.

I wasn't being patronising. Sorry if you thought I was but to be fair you didn't mention 1 of the 2 faults anyway.

EvaUnit02 wrote:Agreed about the Criterion, it is garbage. A non-anamorphic transfer that was directly ported from a laserdisc. People need to stop putting these early garbage Criterion discs like Robocop, SOTL, The Killer and Hardboiled on a pedestal. For a brand that is supposedly the "highest quality" they sure had no problems qualms about releasing shit LD-ported discs back in the 1997/1998; that crap cannot be justified at all so "all to be fair..." arguments are redundant.

Agreed.

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 25 Nov 2006, 00:59

I like the original captions on the Criterion: but overall still prefer the MGM image.

See comparison:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/dvdcompare/silence.htm

Yes, you may have a fair point about the DP's lighting intentions, but the CT transfer is still too reddish. Look at Jodie's face in the last cap.

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 25 Nov 2006, 01:06

Another two Criterion Vs MGM comps:

http://dvdscan.com/silence.htm

http://whiggles.landofwhimsy.com/writin ... lence.html

(The second comp is particularly useful)

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 25 Nov 2006, 15:35

That Whiggles comparison just shows he's a Criterion fanboy. The Criterion is a red mess, the MGM is MUCH nicer and Anamorphic to boot.

Some shots are so dark and red in the CC you can't even see the people. The fact he's given the MGM 5 out of 10 proves he's biased. 5 out of 10, jeez no matter which you prefer it's not that bad.

I really hope Sony don't mess this one up again as I'd like to upgrade from my MGM!

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 25 Nov 2006, 15:46

I agree with you Brad. It CAN happen.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 25 Nov 2006, 23:39

bradavon wrote:I really hope Sony don't mess this one up again

Sony no longer handle the MGM catalogue, remember? It'll be a Fox release.

slasher13 · Post by **slasher13** » 26 Nov 2006, 11:56

Fox releases are generally good, like at Se7en, the special edition, they restored that film to what the director wanted and it is an excellent release, so now getting high hopes that Fox will release this which will blow the previous releases away

jimmyscab · Post by **jimmyscab** » 26 Nov 2006, 13:51

bradavon wrote:That Whiggles comparison just shows he's a Criterion fanboy. The Criterion is a red mess, the MGM is MUCH nicer and Anamorphic to boot.

Some shots are so dark and red in the CC you can't even see the people. The fact he's given the MGM 5 out of 10 proves he's biased. 5 out of 10, jeez no matter which you prefer it's not that bad.

I really hope Sony don't mess this one up again as I'd like to upgrade from my MGM!

Criterion is not a mess at all. 5 out of 10 is bit harsh for the MGM but his written review was fair enough and he didn't rate the Criterion highly either.

In terms of detail, theres not much difference between the two. Its just the MGM has had its levels boosted which may fool people into thinking it has more detail but its not much better. The colours have also changed, this is what got Whiggles mad, and he has a point. Its different and the Criterion trasnfer was approved by Tak Fujimoto (the director of photography i think)

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 26 Nov 2006, 14:27

Okay not a mess but it is too red and non-anamorphic. Personally my own eyes take precedence over what a director/producer/dop etc... thinks and it's too red.

Also for me like I said anamorphic is a big one and the Criterion is not anamorphic.

EvaUnit02 wrote:Sony no longer handle the MGM catalogue, remember? It'll be a Fox release.

Good point. More the reason to get it right.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 26 Nov 2006, 15:29

bradavon wrote: Good point. More the reason to get it right.

Highly likely. Fox (like Warner) recognise how lucrative classic and catalogue titles are.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 13 Dec 2006, 03:52

News of the R1 CE (why didn't you report this Brad?):-
http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=63520

Meh @ loss of DTS. If it has the full opening credits intact and the proper X-files-esque threatrical captions then this is a must buy for me.

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 13 Dec 2006, 05:14

There's no real improvement between the R2 SE and UE so I can't see the R1 UE having much to entice me to rebuy. No original stereo track either? I suppose the captions will be original but that's not enough for me to bother.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 13 Dec 2006, 19:15

EvaUnit02 wrote:News of the R1 CE (why didn't you report this Brad?):-
http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=63520

Because Salty on the previous page did it for me

. Do you rely on me posting it?

EvaUnit02 wrote:Meh @ loss of DTS. If it has the full opening credits intact and the proper X-files-esque threatrical captions then this is a must buy for me.

My thoughts exactly.

Markgway wrote:There's no real improvement between the R2 SE and UE so I can't see the R1 UE having much to entice me to rebuy. No original stereo track either? I suppose the captions will be original but that's not enough for me to bother.

It does have extensive new extras, no commentary still though

Not every film HAS to have the original mix. Sure on HK films when there's naff al to work with and often the remixes are over the top but for Western releases it's not really a big deal to lose it. IMO.