I was the first of my friends to have a DVD player and a Laserdisc for that matter. I was a film aficionado and the main reason I bought my combo player was not just for the improved image and sound, but for the bonus materials. Listening to Kevin Smith rap and even say “DVD Sucks” on his commentary for the Chasing Amy was priceless. Even better was the extended cut of The Blues Brothers, don’t get me wrong, the original is far superior, but it was still nice to have that extended cut. I cherished it and as my friend Jeff said when he got his DVD player two years later, “I hug it when no one is looking”. It was a life changing event after watching so many of these films in non-widescreen prints on VHS no less. For the better part of a decade, DVD ruled…until now. A few years back, studios began to get lazy and were releasing, upwards of three or four different DVD versions of the same film within two years of its release. Why? Greed of course. There will be those who argue with me, but I believe that this trend is directly responsible for a number of things, most importantly, my interest in buying DVD’s.One of the things the movie studios did get right was giving the consumer good bang for the buck. Between 2000 and 2004 I spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on DVD’s. Why? It’s simple, they were great packages and the movies were almost always under $20, even for special editions. I also give them credit for significantly lowering the catalog titles within a year which would spur me to buy some movies I wasn’t even going to rent, but for $8, seemed too good of a deal to pass up. But then, something changed. Either the special edition was released far after my interest waned or even worse, it was released separately and ran anywhere from $5 extra to $10 extra. I’ll admit it; I caved and like a giddy fan boy, shelled out money for select films but more times than not, $23 seemed far too much for a special edition of a film that I may have only watch once or even worse, keep in the wrapping never to be opened. The irony of all of this is that if there was no financial differentiation between the movie only and the special edition, I would have continued to buy DVD’s at an alarming rate that would have made me miss a mortgage or two. But I didn’t because the films came with less and less in order to have the film in stores because of the shortened box office window. Now, I understand this as it does not leave the filmmaker’s proper time to put into a special edition, but with a select few filmmakers (Kevin Smith, Peter Jackson); they let the consumer know that there would be a more fully loaded edition coming. For this I will always respect both of them and in each of their cases, I often bought both DVD’s because the bonus materials didn’t overlap and they were their own unique packages.
In recent weeks, I grabbed a copy of Valkyrie only to notice that the special edition didn’t even have a second disc. They were able to fit it all on the same disc as the movie. So why didn’t they just put the bonus materials on it, have one version of the film in stores. Oh wait, I forgot, there is a digital copy in the special edition of Valkyrie (WTF?). Here’s my question, does anyone use this digital copy? If so, email me (thescreendoor AT gmail DOT com). Valkyrie is a perfect example of a film I did not see in the theaters, but if priced affordably with cool special features, I would have bought it without thinking twice. But I was pissed by what I saw, I rented it, watched it once, returned it and even a year from now when it’s $5.99, I won’t give it a second thought. I was an impulse DVD buyer and now I’m cautious because I often wonder if there is going to be a better version down the road and even worse, I have a hard time paying $20+ for something that may not be all that good.
This all brings us to Blu-ray. Everyone seems to be surprised that the players are not having the impact that DVD players did. I haven’t even thought of buying one. Why may you ask? First and foremost, I’m surprised there isn’t a really top of the line player under $200. However, more importantly, the films are all $25 to $30. After a decade of buying films for less than $20, why am I going to fork over for movies I already have bought on VHS, Laserdisc, DVD and special edition DVD? I’ll admit it, the picture quality is great, but it’s not the same leap from VHS to DVD was. So what should the studios be doing to reel people like me in?
First and foremost, make sure no DVD’s are priced above $20. Anyone will fork over for a movie under $20, but when they see $30, they often wonder if it’s worth it especially when stores like Best Buy and Target run sales of DVD’s that are between $5 and $10. Not to mention the secondary market where DVD’s are always under $10. I even know some stores that won’t even buy DVD’s from you unless they are less than a month old because they have such a huge backlog. If the studios price the films under $20 and older ones can be bought for $10, they will see sales spike. This is what they did with DVD and it’s one of the reasons that DVD’s ruled for the first part of this decade (and it also led, in my humble opinion, to the fall of CD sales which never came down in price). Granted, it wouldn’t hurt to have really great special features as well, but price is most important.
Secondly, this whole bait and switch of regular editions versus special editions…make them all special editions. It cannot cost that much more to include all of the extras. I stopped buying DVD’s because I got confused by the multiple configurations, the extra $10 for two documentaries and even worse, when you buy a movie and eight months later when a souped up special edition hits shelves. If you do not have time to put everything together for the first release…tell people. Trust me, it’s good customer service and will be worth its own weight in gold. I knew that the Lord of the Rings DVD’s were coming in waves and that the big explosive edition with added scenes was coming six months after the first release, but that made me want to buy both all that much more. People don’t feel cheated when they know this and as a result, buy more. I would love to hop on the Blu-ray wagon and grab that multi disc set of The Godfather saga, but I’m not doing so until prices on players come down and the average disc costs far below $20. Until then, my regular DVD’s will have to suffice.
Anthony Kuzminski is a Chicago based writer and Special Features Editor for the antiMusic Network and his daily writings can be read at The Screen Door and can be contacted at thescreendoor AT gmail DOT com.
