Dark Force Entertainment Discussion Thread

[Damonstein]

Originally Posted by Ruined

They should have just said "due to an unforseen licensing issue" and left BU out of it. That would have been the most professional way to handle it instead of throwing others under the bus.

Code Red also does this but they dont pretend to be some classy Criterion-like label like arrow does, and that is the big difference.

I mean Arrow goes around proclaiming their elite status with high priced fancy pants packaging and arrow academy releases, but then when something goes wrong with A/V, business deals, etc they act like Code Red? Thats the definition of being pretentious.

If you want to model Criterion the professional behavior shouldn't end when a faulty product ships to retailers or some business or logistical mishap occurs. You take ownership for the problem and fix it instead of blaming everyone but yourself.

Bill has literally wished death to others over licensing issues. Dark force has also threatened to beat up others over it. Don't act like arrows message is anything like that. They called out blue underground but it clearly had thought put into it. The only reason you think it's unprofessional is because you don't like arrow. If fred ray put out the same message you would've called it professional.

[Profondo]

Originally Posted by Ruined

People in the US shouldn't have to participate in a Arrow UK sale to get a similar/good price when Arrow US exists. The price should be at least relatively close but thats definitely not the case. Maybe it is more expensive to license for the US or maybe it's because of MVD doing distro - or maybe they charge US customers more because they will pay it, but reality is Arrow could normalize pricing between US/UK but they choose not to and instead charge US customers much more for literally the same product minus a ratings logo.

I've just blown your Arrow pricing comparison out of the equation and now you change the goalposts saying it's now sale items? Arrow themselves have sales in the UK and the US. Stores in the US and the UK have sales on Arrow product, there is a pretty much consistent 2 for £25 deal in UK stores that have NOTHING to do with Arrow - it's the store's deal because the UK market is depressed. In the UK we have lost the ONLY surviving bricks and mortar store selling physical media! Again, this is just you moaning about Arrow and clutching straws to fit that agenda. You should be bloody grateful that you actually have stores to walk into, to buy a Blu-ray, because in the UK we'll no longer have that luxury!

[miribeau]

Originally Posted by Ruined

People in the US shouldn't have to participate in a Arrow UK sale to get a similar/good price when Arrow US exists. The price should be at least relatively close but thats definitely not the case. Maybe it is more expensive to license for the US or maybe it's because of MVD doing distro - or maybe they charge US customers more because they will pay it, but reality is Arrow could normalize pricing between US/UK but they choose not to and instead charge US customers much more for literally the same product minus a ratings logo.

The markets are different. They do offer a nice compromise, that middle ground where we can buy from them directly and save a ton of money.

Think of it this way. DF has a grand unveiling in a couple of months. A guy from the UK or Canada wishes to purchase MM I and MM II. He can buy from a scalper in the UK or Canada or he can purchase via the DF Superstore and pay appropriate international shipping and the same price for the items as all US customers. When it is a person from outside of the country, wishing to by from within, they can. Would it be nice if the price in the UK was the same as in the US? Yes. However, that can't be achieved for a variety of reasons.

Arrow, in real life, is a UK company. We can buy direct and save a ton or we can buy the US version which as all manner of mark-ups including the fee that has to be paid to the American companies that made the films. In the US, they couldn't release all four of the House films. House III was with Shout. So, to get the four pack, you had to order direct either in the set or as a set. It was only 25, dollars, to get all four, direct.

However you feel about Arrow is fine with me. I'm only saying that for Arrow UK with US buyers, you are looking at a situation that is similar to DF with a UK buyer. It will always be cheaper to buy from the source, from that outside country, and import, rather than pay any other source, even Arrow's US division, which charges what the market will allow.

[cakefactory]

Man. "Ruined Vs the Forum Re: Arrow" has happened in like 20 threads now, if not more.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Damonstein

Bill has literally wished death to others over licensing issues. Dark force has also threatened to beat up others over it. Don't act like arrows message is anything like it. They called out blue underground but it clearly had thought put into it. The only reason you think it's unprofessional is because you don't like arrow. If fred ray put out the same message you would've called it professional.

Nope its not professional no matter who does it.

Again the difference is neither Bill nor Fred portray themselves as a high class elite Criterion-esque label like Arrow does. Hell Bill runs around in a banana suit most of the time.

I mainly take issue with Arrow misleading people about who they really are as a label, which clearly as a whole isnt the same league as Criterion even if their discs and packaging look really good. Again when things go south Criterion handles it, Arrow plays the blame game.

[Damonstein]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Nope its not professional no matter who does it.

Again the difference is neither Bill nor Fred portray themselves as a high class elite Criterion-esque label like Arrow does. Hell Bill runs around in a banana suit most of the time.

I mainly take issue with Arrow misleading people about who they really are as a label, which clearly as a whole isnt the same league as Criterion even if their discs and packaging look really good. Again when things go south Criterion handles it, Arrow plays the blame game.

You're just creating a double standard based on your personal preferences.

[Sector Drone]

Man, I only wish Arrow walked around in banana costumes and threatened their customers and other labels as professionly as Code Red does it. Definitely no misleading who they are there. I know I'm going to get a Blu-ray filled with grammatical and punctuation errors on the back of it, with possible feces on it.

[miribeau]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Nope its not professional no matter who does it.

Again the difference is neither Bill nor Fred portray themselves as a high class elite label like Arrow does. Hell Bill runs around in a banana suit most of the time.

I mainly take issue with Arrow misleading people about who they really are as a label, which clearly as a whole isnt the same league as Criterion even if their discs and packaging look really good. Again when things go south Criterion handles it, Arrow plays the blame game.

Again, I don't have a problem with anyone hating or loving Arrow. I think most of us are somewhere in between the two extremes. However, bringing it back to DF, as a Christian woman I try not to get angry but I can certainly understand why DD was so upset on behalf of Bill when all of the recent issues arose, and then more bad things happened to DF which left DD even more angry, and I have no reason not to accept that anger is a natural reaction to bad things happening. I would find it odd if DD and Bill were not upset after all that happened.

I have familial obligations. I can understand, even from that perspective of always trying to do my best to be kind and respectful, how a person or an organization could end up getting upset and behaving poorly, possibly handling a situation badly, where their livelihood is threatened. We have no way of knowing who is doing what in the current issue facing CR, DF and VS, but with past issues, like what you have mentioned with Arrow, all involved were trying to do the best for their own.

I won't go into all the possible ramifications of the dispute between CR and VS over Mausoleum. I will say, it is an unfortunate situation and has to be very upsetting for at least two of the parties involved, if not all of them. Assuming Arrow may have behaved badly as a company at some point or at many points, they are just people. I have found that forgiveness gets easier as you get older and make more mistakes yourself so, perhaps, you will forgive them in time.

On another board, two children, routinely now, call me cancer and it. They have no idea what a slippery slope it is, to allow yourself to behave badly over time, enforcing that behavior, so that, when you are older, it becomes difficult to stop. They will learn. I learned a long time ago. Arrow is a growing company and, as they learn together, they will more than likely do better and start living up to the higher standard you would like to see them live up to.

[Profondo]

Originally Posted by Damonstein

You're just creating a double standard based on your personal preferences.

Of course he is! The only one describing Arrow as "elite" or anything like it is Ruined, as he also describes them as a "multi-million" company. It suits HIS agenda and diatribe! The only description Arrow have ever given of themselves is of a cult cinema label!

[frakking toaster]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Nope its not professional no matter who does it.

Again the difference is neither Bill nor Fred portray themselves as a high class elite Criterion-esque label like Arrow does. Hell Bill runs around in a banana suit most of the time.

I mainly take issue with Arrow misleading people about who they really are as a label, which clearly as a whole isnt the same league as Criterion even if their discs and packaging look really good. Again when things go south Criterion handles it, Arrow plays the blame game.

Criterion have been releasing teal tinted transfers all year that people have been *****ing about and I haven't seen Criterion mention it once. Arrow put up a statement letting people know why the product they paid for was being cancelled. They were very transparent and told the truth. Bill would've posted an incoherent response and named dropped a forum member from a place that hasn't been active for 10 years as the reason.

[Damonstein]

Originally Posted by frakking toaster

Criterion have been releasing teal tinted transfers all year that people have been *****ing about and I haven't seen Criterion mention it once. Arrow put up a statement letting people know why the product they paid for was being cancelled. They were very transparent and told the truth. Bill would've posted an incoherent response and named dropped a forum member from a place that hasn't been active for 10 years as the reason.

But Bill always acts like a lunatic which makes that okay.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Profondo

I've just blown your Arrow pricing comparison out of the equation and now you change the goalposts saying it's now sale items? Arrow themselves have sales in the UK and the US. Stores in the US and the UK have sales on Arrow product, there is a pretty much consistent 2 for £25 deal in UK stores that have NOTHING to do with Arrow - it's the store's deal because the UK market is depressed. In the UK we have lost the ONLY surviving bricks and mortar store selling physical media! Again, this is just you moaning about Arrow and clutching straws to fit that agenda. You should be bloody grateful that you actually have stores to walk into, to buy a Blu-ray, because in the UK we'll no longer have that luxury!

Arrow themselves have direct sales on Arrow product in the UK. Arrow never has sales in the US, not even once. The only hope of an Arrow sale in the US is a 50% off B&N sale, which is still worse than the direct Arrow UK sales. And, even when they have an old Region B title that is going for under 10GBP in the UK like THE STUFF since its been out so long, and they directly port the title to Region A - same cover, disc, and all just different region code - they charge $39.99 MSRP in the US and street price is double+. And to top it off, the US version was still largely misframed like the UK version.

You seem to think you are disagreeing with me when it seems you pretty much saying the same thing a different way. UK customers won't pay as much for discs so its okay to charge them less because they need to in order to sell them; which also means, US customers will pay more for discs so its okay to charge them more for the same discs because they can make more profit that way. Its the same argument big pharma uses to charge US more than other countries for the same drug.

But the price can be normalized to make things fair by lowering US prices to be in line with UK prices (sure, you'd make a bit less profit per title, but maybe you'd move more units?) and Arrow could easily have direct sales in the US on par with their UK sales. But it hasn't happened yet and there is no sign of it happening.

Originally Posted by Damonstein

But Bill always acts like a lunatic which makes that okay.

It doesn't make it okay, it just makes it less deceptive. If you portray yourself as a lunatic and your label as part business, part sideshow - then one would expect a perhaps less than professional response at times.

If you portray yourself as "the global market leader in the Premium Home Entertainment market, fuelled by passionate and expert curation, aligned with state of the art in-house film restoration" then you'd expect a similarly professional behavior when things go wrong, and this doesn't happen with Arrow - its always blame someone else, throw someone under the bus - blame the company that gave us the scan we framed wrong, blame the other label hogging the license of the title we shouldn't have shipped to stores, blame the retailer for not selling a product they never received from us, etc. If you actually want to live up to that quote from their website, own your mistakes and fix them instead of always attempting to shift blame elsewhere.

Originally Posted by cakefactory

Man. "Ruined Vs the Forum Re: Arrow" has happened in like 20 threads now, if not more.

Someone directly asked why couple pages back, I obliged. If you don't want to know the answer don't ask

[nekromantik]

all im going to say is at least Arrow head does not post racist and quite frankly despicable comments on public forum.
I refuse to give Bill any of my money.

[Knaldskalle]

Originally Posted by Ruined

People in the US shouldn't have to participate in a Arrow UK sale to get a similar/good price when Arrow US exists. The price should be at least relatively close but thats definitely not the case. Maybe it is more expensive to license for the US or maybe it's because of MVD doing distro - or maybe they charge US customers more because they will pay it, but reality is Arrow could normalize pricing between US/UK but they choose not to and instead charge US customers much more for literally the same product minus a ratings logo.

UK customers shouldn't have to participate in a Criterion US sale to get similar/good price when Criterion UK exists. Yet, guess what?

[cakefactory]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Someone directly asked why couple pages back, I obliged. If you don't want to know the answer don't ask

Oh, I know you can't resist, I'm complaining more about the people that have to ask and get you started all over again!!

The only real source of amusement with these discussions is you never get angry or rude about it but you always make others flip out. :P You're like the tar baby, people punch at you even though you're just calmly sitting there, and the madder they get the more they just get stuck in the morass.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by ScorpionReleasing

I know who really owns this film and I do know that a couple of well-respected genre labels are speaking with them on releasing the correct version for awhile now, I can't say anymore but I could tell you that this disc is not going to be worth anything in a few month

Originally Posted by frakking toaster

Has to be arrow. They have a couple of Larraz titles in the pipeline.

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Blood...lu-ray/228651/

Hmm doesnt look that way.

Only The House That Vanished blu release seems to remain Dark Force.

[Damonstein]

Originally Posted by Ruined

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Blood...lu-ray/228651/

Hmm doesnt look that way.

Only The House That Vanished blu release seems to remain Dark Force.

Didn't he say he would never sell it again?

[cloudnine]

Originally Posted by zbinks

So... you're effectively calling Dark Force a scalper?

It's not scalping but it's unethical. No other labels have ever done it.

[frakking toaster]

Originally Posted by Ruined

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Blood...lu-ray/228651/

Hmm doesnt look that way.

Only The House That Vanished blu release seems to remain Dark Force.

That's a volume one. The next one is already confirmed to have BLACK CANDLES (oh look a title code red doesn't have the rights to and is still selling) and EDGE OF THE AXE.

I guess you missed the part where their cartel got shut down for selling titles they don't own the rights to! Especially when they're still selling Torture Dungeon on the new site which Severin clearly have the rights to. Dark Force and Code Red are totally not the type of people to sell titles they don't have the rights to right???

[Deadguy2322]

How the hell is Ruined not banned for shilling for Dark Force even after both sides admitted that he was given free product for defending the label over the garbage “The House That Disappeared” blu?