My favourite audio commentry - which i'm watching at the mo' is Spaced. Saxondale although only on 3 episodes is pretty funny too. Your favourites?
Richard Donner's Superman one is great.
And pretty much any one involving John Carpenter and Kurt Russell.
Also, the one on the Doctor Who dvd The Ark in Space- Tom Baker in full flow is magnificent.
Definitely any Carpenter/Russell commentaries, just because they really play off each other well and are having a great time.
Brian Blessed is pretty good on Flash Gordon.
I think it's just the enthusiasm that goes a long way, particularly if the participants get on well.
The LOTR commentaries are pretty good value, but it's a bit arse-numbing to sit through.
Ghostbusters is pretty good, just for having the silhouettes of the commentators.
Phoenix Nights is another good one - I've only listened to S1 of that though.
That said, I'm a bit commentaried out. I haven't listened to any in quite a while - I need a long commute or something to have the time to sit down and listen to them these days.
THE ONLY COMMENTARY WORTH LISTENING TO IS ANYTHING WITH BRUCE CAMPBELL. THE EVIL DEAD TRILOGY ARE BEST COMMENTARY. NOT A WASTED SECOND. NO BIG LONG PAUSES OF SILENCE. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.IF YOU'VE GOT THE TRILOGY AND HAVE'NT LISTENED TO IT. SHAME ON YOU. :-P
I've found the series "Director's Commentary" quite amusing. I'd never listen to a real one, but they tell me the New Order one on 24hour Party People is pretty good.
Arnie's Conan The Barbarian commentary is very, very funny - highly recommended.
The dual Japanese/American commentaries on Final Fantasy: the Spirits WIthin are amusing too, but mainly because it's pretty obvious that there are two very different views of what's supposed to be going on in the movie.
Some of the most irritating commentaries are the Star Wars DVDs, where with every minute that passes it becomes more obvious that Lucas doesn't have a clue what's good or bad about his films.
::"Lucas doesn't have a clue what's good or bad about his films"
Both Lucas (well, his team at least) and the staff of Empire seem to have come to the conclusion that any critical fan (especially if they have the temerity to use the Internet) is just a fussy c*nt.
They've "proved" their point by releasing the undoctored versions of the original Star Wars trilogy and then, when some fans said "well, thanks for taking out the shit bits but you could have left in the sensible, subtle bits, like putting windows in Cloud City", they come back with "see, you can't please 'em, whatever you try".
Tits. You can please them. All of them. Simply grow a brain, then it's easy.
- Dodgy CGI Jabba the Hut with comedy Han stepping on tail: shit.
- Adjusting the special effects so that you can't see through the snow speeders: good.
- Fucking about with who shot first in the cantina: your middle aged self censoring your youthful self, and thus shit.
- Making a better snow beast monster: good.
- Tracking away from the heroes in Mos Eisley, just so that you can do a comedy robot routine that shows off your new CGI skillz: bad.
- Animating the monster the Sand-Stormtrooper is riding: good.
It's not fucking rocket science. Subtle, enhancing changes are good. Waving a big flag saying "look at our CGI everyone! look! look!" is bad.
Sorry, what was the topic again?
Good point about the Star Wars DVDs.
I recently watched one of the Clone Wars DVDs with the animation director's commentary. The guy was simply saying what was happening on the screen at the time rather than give any insight into how it was made.
Spaced I will have to go back to. I haven't watched that wih the commentary for ages.
My favourite thing about the Spaced DVDs is the homage-ometer, which (for those of you who haven't seen it) provides subtitles everytime that a homage appears, explaining the source.
It's fucking fantastic. (It also has the added bonus of making redundant any "hey, isn't that from..?" people in the room.)
On the special edition topic, I think the Star Trek Motion Picture special edition has it right.
If you're going to do it, then any new effects should be in the same ballpark stylistically as the originals.
Hard to believe that the guy who did Jabba in the first SW special edition is the same guy who did the T-Rex in Jurassic Park...
I don't think it's any coincidence that ESTB works the best because it has the least done to it - no CGI creatures etc. (Although the addition of Vader's shuttle is pointless)
I don't think it's any coincidence that ESTB works the best because it has the least done to it )
This might be true of the '97 Cinema/Video SE, but not the DVD version. The reshooting of the Emperor's hologram scene with the (always wonderful) McDiarmid instead of the spooky chimp-eyed lady voiced by Revill should/i> have been a no-brainer, but for some reason they changed the script too, and wiped out a sizeable body of some of the better EU fiction in the process, as well as making Vader look like a right wally. It's one of the most significant changes made in any of the movies - in fact, it may be the only signficant change to dialogue other than the equally-pointless cutting of Red Leader's chat with Luke and Biggs.
In fairness to Lucas (who all faults aside has given me more fun than any other person I haven't actually met), the "absolutely unaltered" DVD version was preciesly what the fans had been whining on about ("Give us back our movies, you monster - you owe it to the history of cinema - you've raped our childhood!"), even though he had more or less said "they're pretty shitty quality, you know".
There is definitely room for the middle-ground version Linton lovingly describes - I'd certainly buy a copy - but it really was the DVD release of "the original cinema movies" that fans were demanding. At least with that out there, maybe we can move on.
Urrrrgh, italics off.
The Spinal Tap commentary "in character" is almost as good as the film itself and most of Kevin Smith's have some great Ben Affleck baiting remarks in them.
Yeah, the change in dialogue is a bit pointless.
The thing with the releases of the original trilogy, I probably would have bought them if they'd been anamorphic. But I agree, it's a fine line between fixing technical errors like matte lines and going a bit mental with it. The upcoming Blade Runner set looks pretty comprehensive.
I guess most fans would have been happy with a cleaned-up version, fixed garbage mattes, stabilise optical elements etc. I suppose he could always continue to milk the cash-cow and release a three version set, completely untouched, technical faults fixed, and his 'vision'.
I can see where he's coming from when he wanted to revamp some of the space shots. Because motion control had evolved between Star Wars and TESB, so some of the motion control moves look a bit ponderous.
But then he goes a bit crazy putting stuff in that jars horribly with the rest of the film.
I've seen them so many times and bought several different versions, it would have to be something pretty special for me to fork out again for them.
Sourcing as much 3rd part stuff would be cool, all the toy ads, fluff making ofs (even *those* specials) radio plays, Meco Disco Soundtracks, every bit of tat, as well as Fan Films like Troops. Something like that would probably satisfy even the most cyncial Star Wars geek.
If you compare the LOTR DVDs with the Star Wars ones, and they look pretty weak in comparison.
Sourcing as much 3rd part stuff would be cool, all the toy ads, fluff making ofs (even *those* specials) radio plays, Meco Disco Soundtracks, every bit of tat, as well as Fan Films like Troops. Something like that would probably satisfy even the most cyncial Star Wars geek.
I recieved a pirated copy (well, there isn't any other kind) of the Holiday Special as a present, and when the feeling had returned to my eyes, I was treated to a simply huge reel of old Kenner toy TV ad's as DVD "extras". Their nostalgic brillance almost made me forget that Bea Arthur had ever existed...
But that's another thing. THS is unutterably shite, and I can see why George would want to surpress its existance, expunge it from reality entirely, but he's sort of missing the point - it's part of the daft fabric of Star Warsiana that is at this point more important than the movies themselves. He also recently and rather suspicially licensed Hasbro to make a toy based on Boba Fett's debut in THS, used a familiar-looking Kashyyyk in RotS, and continues to allow THS Wookiee characters to appear in the novels.. even after Chewir himself was offed.
For George, it's less about "vision", and more about control - that's why the 3rd party material nevers gets a shout on the DVDs, even though it's alot more fun than the Ewok movies or Droids. Contrast this with Peter Jackson, whose DVDs abound with cast-made shorts and disarmingly frank back-stage insights.
I've never listened to a commentary. What's the point? You have to sit through the film, and if I'm in the mood to do that then the last thing I want to hear is someone prattling on about it.
It's mainly for film geeks, who like to get some behind the scenes info, once they've seen the film.
Some commentaries don't necessarily reference the film all the time, so it's quite easy to treat them as a podcast type thing.
Sometimes I listen to them after I've seen the film a couple of times and I just want to listen to it while I'm working.
It's not for everyone though.
- Steve
::"What's the point?"
Yeah! I mean, unless you're a film student, or just interested, or bored, or find them entertaining in their own right, or...
Wagner and Ezquerras commentary on the Judge Dredd special edition had me in tears of laughter throughout.
Wagner and Ezquerra did a commentary on the JD movie? You're winding me up, right?
Happened at a Dreddcon a few years back IIRC.
*Really* wish I could have been there...
Wasnt it Alan Grant and David Bishop?
Could be. I wasn't there :)
I was talking bollocks.
Damn.