At theOneliner, we're rather fond of DVDs. We're sure you are too. They're thinner, shinier and just far more sexy that the big ol' monoliths that are VHS tapes. Of course, style is nothing without substance, and here DVD gets even shinier. Higher resolution shows off today's insane CGI eyecandy in pin sharp digital crikeyvision while surround sound 6 channel DTS bludgeons our eardrums into submission. All of these are Good Things.
While that's the critical improvement, it's only scratching the surface of the myriad possibilities of the Extras section. Of course, if it's a Warner's disk you might as well ignore it, unless you're desperate to see the trailer of the film you've just seen or can buy into the strange double-think that has 'interactive menus' as an extra. Surely a non-interactive menu would be a pretty but pretty useless picture, as you couldn't select anything? So surely all menus are interactive by definition? Are we missing something here? Answers on a postcard to the usual Oneliner address.
There's the usual making-of-featurettes invariably featuring the actors, writers and directors falling over themselves to praise each other as complete professionals in fluffy 'talking heads' style interviews, saying that of course there were no problems with the shooting and everyone is just one big happy family. Occasionally their eyes tell a different story, if you witness the disdain (and slightly back-handed complements) Bill Murray dishes out to sparsely named director McG on the Charlie's Angels disk. Reports of severe arguments between Lucy Liu and Murray (an entirely unofficial reason for him not returning in this summer's sequel Full Throttle) are absent from this happy corner of movieland, as are the other frequent on-set reports of ego-clashes between the Angels themselves about petty stuff like who has the sexiest outfit, leading to diva-like storming off to trailer temper tantrums. Of course, second, third, fourth hand reports and speculation are a poor basis to criticise the accuracy of the interviews, but it does seem that in the entire history of filmmaking every shoot has gone swimmingly with no problems whatsoever, which rings a little hollow. This has parallels with the deleted scenes, seemingly always cut for 'pacing reasons' not because they just plain sucked.
As most actors are renowned for their egos, most special effects featurettes are renowned for being identical. In most respects the swashbuckling days of effects engineering are pretty much gone, as animatronics go the way of Jaws and are blown up by the barrels of the digital era. While more convincing, it's a pity that the Godzilla days of 'Man In Suit' have been replaced by 'Man reacting to imaginary model to be rendered in later' at least in the unintentional humour aspect. Without the entirely unique aspects of animatronics, where at least every film would have to be tackled in a different way, we now have interviews with spoddy young chaps in front of their workstations explaining how they matted out the actors and composited them into this computer model generated through painstaking wireframe blah blah blah blah. The techniques are identical, only the models change. The only interesting one I can remember at the moment was on The Matrix bullet-time effect, and that's been done to death by this point.
Oh, and in case I sound like belittling the 'Man In Suit' concept, that's what was used on Alien and that film scared the bejesus out of me.
Amongst the dross of featurettes on the make-up lady and two hundred near-as-dammit identical TV spots there lies a glittering golden prize, the director's commentary. That's DVD paydirt, baby. Not a bad word from me about any of them, even the boring ones (Snatch) or the pointless, uninformative ones (Charlie's Angels again. This article must be brought to you in conjunction with Columbia). It's all gravy, and bonus points for additional cast commentaries.
So, Extras are Good, we've conclusively proven. (Perhaps the 4-disk Fellowship Of The Ring takes it to extremes, with 4 commentaries on a 4 hour film before even touching the other 2 disks chock full on features, something only the unemployed or students among us will have time to devour.) Therefore lack of Extras are Bad. This won't stop studios releasing a common-on-garden one disk edition and then a few months later dishing out a two disker, with more bonus stuff. Choice is also Good, so I've nothing against this as long as we're told in advance that that's the plan. Sneakier companies perhaps hoping to catch the people who really love a particular film out by not telling them their nefarious schemes in the hope they buy both editions incur my displeasure, and will be first against the wall when the revolution comes.
But what to call these editions?, he asked finally coming to the point. For the most part the industry has standardised on simply 'Special Edition'. Webster's dictionary defines 'special' as 'Particular; peculiar; different from others; extraordinary; uncommon' so I've no complaints with the DVD definition, although I'd be tempted to buy a Peculiar Edition DVD too.
Occasionally some renegade disks and companies decide to go a different route. Witness the 'Collector's Edition' phenomena. Popping on my pedant cap for a while, surely anyone who buys any form of the disk is a 'Collector' of it? And surely no-one has a hobby of collecting DVDs anyway? Watching, granted but collecting? It implies these editions will be locked up in a vacuum-sealed underground vault to prevent international DVD thieves from stealing your precious and valuable disk.
Collector's editions are silly enough, but look at something like Zoolander. A good film, a reasonable haul of extras but nothing particularly groundbreaking, nothing that hasn't been mentioned above as fairly standard Extra. What honorific is given to this 12cm diameter plastic circle? Why, it's a 'Special Collector's Edition', of course. What, by the beard of Wotan, exactly is a 'Special Collector's Edition'? What does it all mean? Are only Special Collectors eligible to buy it? Do you need some kind of card proving your identity as a Special Collector? Do you have to be like a Special Agent, the best of the best, only at buying disks? This, we feel, is a total nonsense.
The vortex of stupidity doesn't halt at this. Zoolander is only available in one edition - the Special Collector's Edition. If it's the only edition that's going to be put out, why does it need any sort of distinguishing name at all? Certainly it's not 'different from others' as there are no other editions, so looking back at the definition the only other contenders to describe it are extraordinary and uncommon. I suppose this is a subjective argument the studio may disagree with, but I think anyone having a look at the Extras contained on the disk will agree that they are by no means uncommon, being more or less what I'd expect on a DVD.
So why on earth would anything be called a Special Collectors Edition? I'll only accept it as a viable title if there are only ten ever produced and they can only be bought from a remote Special Collectors Shop halfway up a mountain in Tibet.
I recommend we all go off and write stiffly worded letters to our members of parliament, asking they include this as an offence under the 'Being Bloody Silly' act of 1824.