Dad's Army (2016) -- 13 June 2016

[McCrutchy]

Universal will release Oliver Parker's Dad's Army (2016) on 13 June 2016.

[McCrutchy]

Now, this is the hard part where I admit that I don't believe I have seen any of the TV series. Honestly, I was a tad put off by the missing episodes in series two, but the box set price is very decent, and I want to watch the show before I see the film, which seems to have divided critical opinion.

Is anyone going to see the film on Friday?

[Jezza]

Originally Posted by McCrutchy

Now, this is the hard part where I admit that I don't believe I have seen any of the TV series. Honestly, I was a tad put off by the missing episodes in series two, but the box set price is very decent, and I want to watch the show before I see the film, which seems to have divided critical opinion.

Is anyone going to see the film on Friday?

There's only 3 missing episodes out of the 80 produced and given if every episodes is a one-off you're not loosing any plot points. This isn't like Doctor Who or something similar where it's a serial and therefore random episodes survive and you can't tell what's happening (unless you own the soundtrack). Essentially the first couple of series are about their beginnings, but going in the third series, and first in colour, everything is set in stone and is what people think pf when they talk about Dad's Army.

If you're interested a radio series was produced of many of the TV episodes including the 3 missing episodes and I believe there's a CD release featuring just those episodes. In fact I believe those radio episodes are on the DVD

I might see it, reviews seem... OK, but I did watch the show a lot when I was younger and haven't watched the show probably in several years, so maybe this will get me invested in the show again.

[spearce8]

Surely at a time like this it would be a good opportunity to release the original 1971 Feature film on BD too, it's not as if there's not a Print, the BBC have shown HD versions for the last couple of Christmas periods.

[samdvd1]

Going to see this at the cinema next weekend and looking forward to it.

Catherine Zeta Jones and Toby Jones were pretty good on Graham Norton the other night, and I have become a huge fan of Toby Jones in recent years, thanks in no small part to The Detectorists.

[McCrutchy]

Originally Posted by spearce8

Surely at a time like this it would be a good opportunity to release the original 1971 Feature film on BD too, it's not as if there's not a Print, the BBC have shown HD versions for the last couple of Christmas periods.

Now, now. That's far too sensible for the BBC to put out a Blu-ray. You know how these things go: First you put the Dad's Army film on BD, then people start asking for The Ascent of Man and The Living Planet on Blu-ray, and then, well, that's stuff is so hard to do, pressing those discs, you know.

BUT...

What about if the BBC just dropped all discs and put EVERYTHING on...

[Show spoiler]BBC Store!

And they promise to keep everything there for all of eternity, just like they did with Dad's Ar--oh, wait...

[Dalekbuster523Bluray]

This film looks so unfunny, I bet the only person who will buy the Bluray will be Oliver Parker.

[malcy30]

Originally Posted by spearce8

Surely at a time like this it would be a good opportunity to release the original 1971 Feature film on BD too, it's not as if there's not a Print, the BBC have shown HD versions for the last couple of Christmas periods.

The film is owned by Sony who hate back catalogue. I was hoping that if the new movie does reasonably well in the US, then Twilight Time may pick up the original for BD given they have access to the Sony catalogue.

[HotRats]

One of the lost episodes is receiving an animation to go with the audio http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2016-...sode-was-found

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by Dalekbuster523Bluray

This film looks so unfunny, I bet the only person who will buy the Bluray will be Oliver Parker.

That's probably because he insisted on cutting out all the jokes again. The extras on the Johnny English Reborn Blu-ray with him reveal that it's a comedy that seems to have been made by a director who doesn’t really want to do a comedy in a classic case of trying to turn the film he’s been hired to make into the different kind of film he’d rather be making instead. He'll probably try to turn this into a WW2 spy thriller.

That problem is increasingly apparent from the deleted scenes on the JER Blu-ray and Parker's rationale for cutting most of the funnier moments purely to keep the story moving while bizarrely leaving the now redundant and occasionally laborious moments setting them up in the final cut: in that kind of spoof film the story is really nothing more than a near irrelevant coat rack to hang the jokes on, and it's the jokes that should take priority. As he rationalises his decisions as "small sacrifices worth making" to get to the next mundane plot point you can't help thinking he's the kind of director who'd cut the farting cowboys out of Blazing Saddles because it wasn't really moving the story forward. Every deleted scene on the disc is prefaced by Parker's near-identical explanations for cutting the jokes out of a comedy, and I won't be surprised if the Dad's Army Blu-ray will be exactly the same - and since the show was always character-based comedy he'll probably cut out all the character moments as well.

It's doomed, I tell ya. Doooommmmed...

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by spearce8

Surely at a time like this it would be a good opportunity to release the original 1971 Feature film on BD too, it's not as if there's not a Print, the BBC have shown HD versions for the last couple of Christmas periods.

That's down to Columbia, who own the film. But it is truly awful, largely because Columbia never really understood the show and setting the bar really low for the new film.

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by Fnord Prefect

I'll be buying it, for no more than £1 (DVD) or £2 (Blu-ray) in a charity shop, probably soon after Xmas 2016.

Judging from the large stacks of unsold BDs of Anchorman 2 they had last Autumn, I'm betting Poundland.

[Dalekbuster523Bluray]

Originally Posted by Fnord Prefect

I'll be buying it, for no more than £1 (DVD) or £2 (Blu-ray) in a charity shop, probably soon after Xmas 2016.

I doubt it will even be worth that...

[oddbox83]

Originally Posted by Jezza

There's only 3 missing episodes out of the 80 produced and given if every episodes is a one-off you're not loosing any plot points.

Regarding the missing episodes and everything that comes after, that's true.

Series 1 however has a running arc though and IMHO is the very best series as a result as you get the true sense of the Home Guard being set up by British spirit, a ramshackle group of people and not an awful lot else as they struggle with a lack of both training and equipment and just how funny some of the resulting situations can be. The later seasons lose that touch as it becomes all about sitcom laughs and caricatures.

The surviving series 2 episodes are still damned good though, they lose the serialised bits but the decline hadn't set in yet. Don't get me wrong, the later series are still very funny, they're just not that bottled magic like the first series or two for me.

This doesn't seem to be a popular view though, as all the "fan favourites" tend to be the overplayed colour episodes.

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by oddbox83

Series 1 however has a running arc though and IMHO is the very best series as a result as you get the true sense of the Home Guard being set up by British spirit, a ramshackle group of people and not an awful lot else as they struggle with a lack of both training and equipment and just how funny some of the resulting situations can be

And not just funny: in one of those episodes they think the Germans have invaded and despite not even being properly armed are fully prepared to die holding them off, which is somewhere the series never really went in the colour episodes.

The later seasons lose that touch as it becomes all about sitcom laughs and caricatures.

That's particularly noticeable in the poor final season where it feels like they've just been doing it too long and run out of ideas.

[MadManWithaBox]

I really love dads army but I think the show goes downhill after James Beck died.

[CavebobSpongeman]

Originally Posted by Dalekbuster523Bluray

This film looks so unfunny, I bet the only person who will buy the Bluray will be Oliver Parker.

Maybe you should actually see the film before you cast aspersions on it.

[Dalekbuster523Bluray]

Originally Posted by CavebobSpongeman

Maybe you should actually see the film before you cast aspersions on it.

Nah, judging by the trailers it would be a massive waste of money. I'd rather spend it on seeing a comedy film to the quality of the original Dad's Army.

[CavebobSpongeman]

I'll be the first one to hold my hands up if it is ****, I just think people should watch a film before they hate on it.

[levcore]

Love the show, looking forward to this. Might catch it at the cinema with my parents.