Mad Max (1979) (Collector's Edition)

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by LordCrumb

Hopefully they can entice Mel Gibson to do some new interviews or commentary. If not, I don't think I would re-buy again.

Yeah. For some reason extras for these movies seem to be REALLY thin on the ground, even MGM's SE had a few flimsy featurettes and a commentary which had no input from Gibson whatsoever.

Even if they can get him in front of a camera for an interview, I'm not sure that'll be enough to entice me into buying it again. In fact, hell with Gibson, if they got George Miller for an interview and a commentary then I'd snap this up.

The MGM transfer is pretty darned good, and as the negatives are considered lost I fail to see how Shout! could improve on it (not that they'd do a transfer from the neg anyway, come to think of it).

[JohnWayne]

Holy shit, I've needed the first one in my collection for so long now. Ever since best buy only had 2 & 3 on sale for $5 after upgrade & save coupon, I've been stuck with an incomplete collection that's been bothering me for some time now.

[Gardenofstone10]

I have high hopes for this. If all of the SF titles are any indication, this is going to be so great!

[BladeRunner2007]

Mad Max & Escape from New York. I couldn't be any more happy right now. Two of my absolute favorite movies of all time. Just wow.

[Sky_Captain]

Would need to have something pretty dawn good attached to it, for me to replace the MGM release.

[HomerThompson]

Originally Posted by LordCrumb

Hopefully they can entice Mel Gibson to do some new interviews or commentary. If not, I don't think I would re-buy again.

Surprised they haven't yet. He even showed up to a screening of Mad Max recently and talked about his love for the character.

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/movie...c-aspirations/

[UniSol GR77]

Hopefully they'll do a brand new 2K/4k transfer for this.

Unfortunately, even the glorious sequels need a new transfer and SOON. Telecine judder/flickering just destroyed them.

[BladeRunner2007]

Originally Posted by UniSol GR77

Hopefully they'll do a brand new 2K/4k transfer for this.

Unfortunately, even the glorious sequels need a new transfer and SOON. Telecine judder/flickering just destroyed them.

Mad Max looks good. Mad Max II has an excellent transfer, but I can see why some might have a problem with the color timing. Mad Mad Beyond Thunderdome looks pretty good too. Yeah, the judder is a bit annoying at the beginning, but overall it's okay.

[UniSol GR77]

Originally Posted by BladeRunner2007

Mad Mad Beyond Thunderdome looks pretty good too. Yeah, the judder is a bit annoying at the beginning, but overall it's okay.

I think it's embarassing. I want WARNER to make 4K-based new transfers without any telecine judder. You can fix color timing, but you cannot do anything for the telecine judder as far as I know.

[DetroitSportsFan]

I'm expecting the same transfer as the previous BD.

[rickah88]

I've already got the trilogy tin, of which, I'm quite fond, but I'll be getting this for 2, possibly 3 reasons:

1) To support SF in their efforts
2) Slipcover with new art, original artwork
3) Strong possibiliy of some neat, new bonus features


Any improvement done to the transfer, would be a total bonus for me.

[The Fallen Deity]

Originally Posted by UniSol GR77

Hopefully they'll do a brand new 2K/4k transfer for this.

Unfortunately, even the glorious sequels need a new transfer and SOON. Telecine judder/flickering just destroyed them.

Probably not going to happen.

The current BD transfer is probably the best that Scream! can do with the movie at this moment time.

Also the flickering and judder isn't THAT bad on the sequels.

The best we can hope for with this release would be to have it jam packed with extras and to have the original Australian audio in lossless.

[javi92]

Originally Posted by UniSol GR77

Hopefully they'll do a brand new 2K/4k transfer for this.

Until Shout/Scream take some steps to improve their compression standards, news scans (unlikely as they are for some of the announced titles) would only do so much anyway. If you do everything right and then botch the final step, it doesn't really help. Cautiously optimistic.

[tylergfoster]

Originally Posted by UniSol GR77

Hopefully they'll do a brand new 2K/4k transfer for this.

If it's all on Shout!, they won't.

I wish they would pick better at this or negotiate harder on this front though. The Shadow but not Darkman? The Ravenous debacle? I absolutely appreciate that they redid Sleepaway Camp, yet it only emphasizes how bizarre it is that they felt it was still worth releasing those other films without pushing harder to get the studio to allow or allotting funds to do new masters.

[balthazar_bee]

Originally Posted by tylergfoster

I absolutely appreciate that they redid Sleepaway Camp, yet it only emphasizes how bizarre it is that they felt it was still worth releasing those other films without pushing harder to get the studio to allow or allotting funds to do new masters.

Agreed. I finally got round to seeing Cat People...what an eyesore. File that under, "Why even bother?"

[NoirFan]

Originally Posted by tylergfoster

it only emphasizes how bizarre it is that they felt it was still worth releasing those other films without pushing harder to get the studio to allow or allotting funds to do new masters.

I'm guessing part of the reason for a new master for The Shadow was that Shout's came so quickly on the heels of the Universal release that they felt the need to further differentiate/elevate their own edition over that of Universal's.

As for not doing new masters for most of their other titles, why would they? As has been amply shown here, Facebook, and other social media outlets, they have a rabidly, aggressively loyal fanbase who eagerly snatch up whatever they release regardless of transfer quality and loudly shout down any voices of dissent from either professional critics or fellow board members, who are dismissed as 'haters' or 'trolls' simply for pointing out clear and obvious technical defects.*

We've even had people go so far as to claim that negative reviews are the result of jealousy (!) on the reviewer's part due to Scream's popularity. When the level of self-delusion reaches such heights, what financial incentive would the label have to allocate funds for new transfers, when said funds, limited and precious as they are for all boutique labels, could be used instead to secure more titles and commission additional extras? Their business model is working like gangbusters, so why change it just because a few reviewers (who don't buy the discs anyway) and a relatively small portion of their audience (who, in most cases, are still likely going to buy the discs) are responding negatively?


* Which, to be completely fair, in many cases may not be particularly distracting on smaller screens, which is what assumedly the majority of viewers own. However, just because they are not readily detectable on, say, a 36" 720p LCD with the factory settings still on (turn off that sharpening and motion smoother!), doesn't mean that they aren't there, or that superior encoding wouldn't likely fix them.

[NoirFan]

Somehow I mistakenly left this sentence out my previous post:

Also, somewhere along the line, people started conflating problematic inherited transfers (which are not Scream's 'fault' per se) and poor encodes (which most definitely are), which has furthered muddled the conversation (such as it is).

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by NoirFan

Somehow I mistakenly left this sentence out my previous post:

Also, somewhere along the line, people started conflating problematic inherited transfers (which are not Scream's 'fault' per se) and poor encodes (which most definitely are), which has furthered muddled the conversation (such as it is).

True, true. But what niggles me is that even when Shout! does a 'NEW High Definition Transfer', they tend to look very much like flaky old telecines done from dirty old IPs. Whether that really is the result of them transferring less than optimal elements on less than optimal equipment OR they're just colour correcting old masters which are being given to them (as is their normal MO) is unclear. The cynic in me certainly leans towards the latter, but I'd certainly like to be proved wrong.

[Rocky01542]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

True, true. But what niggles me is that even when Shout! does a 'NEW High Definition Transfer', they tend to look very much like flaky old telecines done from dirty old IPs. Whether that really is the result of them transferring less than optimal elements on less than optimal equipment OR they're just colour correcting old masters which are being given to them (as is their normal MO) is unclear. The cynic in me certainly leans towards the latter, but I'd certainly like to be proved wrong.

I noticed that some of them even have edge enhancement, most notably The Fog. Leads me to wonder whether they digitally tinkered with it in hopes to make it pop more, and since their Blu-rays of They Live and Prince of Darkness received such high acclaim (even though they look like crap), maybe they thought nobody would be bothered by it.

[Geoff D]

The Fog is the one that's always stuck in my craw. But I think Shout! are smart enough not to add anything untoward to the PQ (and they certainly don't have the money to take anything away, like dirt and scratches!), and the EE in The Fog may well have been baked into the transfer they were given, if my paranoia is correct.