Special Features - Are they still important?

[Stubblecat]

Here's a poll and a discussion about special features and supplements.

When I bought laserdiscs, special features were a sweet bonus which sometimes resulted in your movie costing close to a hundred dollars (or in the case of the Star Wars 9-LD set, over 400 dollars).

DVDs soon made special features standard on almost every movie.

Recently I've been feeling a bit of 'Feature Fatigue' with all the multi-disc monstrosities released. I'm starting to wish that it would all be scaled back to something managble.

What's your stance on supplements? None at all? 5 discs worth?

Do tell...

[Blu-Ron]

Seems you get less bonus materials on BD. Which makes no sense since there's more space.
Anyhoo.
But I will double dip on a fav movie with more bonus material. I just purchased the Psycho DVD just for the extra...extras.

[InfectedStranger]

I enjoy extras that will give cool facts about the making of the film, but nothing too long or big. I loved the special features for AVPR the movie sucked but the special features were amazing.

[Xen]

The more the better. While I'm not actively pursuing a job in the industry, I've always wanted to have one. It's often times like a mini-film school. More importantly though, for a movie I love, seeing behind the scenes features expands and improves upon the whole experience.

More than anything else I want a Commentary track, because that adds extra milage to the actual viewing of the movie. The docs and featurettes can be just as interesting though, and I always check them out after I finish a movie--even one I didn't like. There have been cases where a really cool special feature pushed me to buy a movie. For instance, I bought Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantamo Bay because the "Dude, Change the Movie!" feature sounded fascinating. I ordered The Lost City just to check out the doc mentioned in Bluray.com's review of the movie recently.

A really well done selection of special features could entice me to buy, and a complete lack of features will at least make me think twice. What I want to see less of is fluff. These promotional "featurettes" included on many discs that are nothing more than an extended circlejerk are not interesting or useful. Quality over quanitity.

[#Darren]

I like all BD's to carry all the features currently available on DVD.

Aside from that....

Quality over quantity is my choice.

My priorities:

Commentaries.
Deleted Scenes.
Theatrical/TV trailers.
In depth "making of's" with cast and crew interviews.
Other general promo materials.

But that's just me, and I know others will have other priorities...

[Stubblecat]

I have to admit I loved the 'Dude, Change The Movie' feature.

I'm so sick of commentaries at this point. I haven't listened to one in years.

[t0nythebeat]

Originally Posted by Xen

The more the better. While I'm not actively pursuing a job in the industry, I've always wanted to have one. It's often times like a mini-film school. More importantly though, for a movie I love, seeing behind the scenes features expands and improves upon the whole experience.

Ditto

[hardcorefrokid]

I love extras. When I bought Transformers on BD I watched the movie and the extras all in one night. I did the same thing with Batman Begins.

[Marine Mike]

Well I'm sortof on edge about this one as my wife and I do enjoy them. Though we will only watch them if we have time left over from after watching the movie and going to bed, like a spare hour or something. For example, we watched Daredevil earlier and one of the extras we saw was Jennifer Gardner's Screening interview. Was it important that it was available or would we feel cheated if it wasn't included? No.

I think that extras are just was the name implies, extra. If they are there and I have time, great. If not, its nothing that I care to waste time worrying about. Especially if they aren't in HD.

[Zman2k2]

I don't really watch the extra's at all. If they could make them available with BD-Live, and use the extra space for a better video encode or improve the amount of language tracks.

[Kyo28]

For me it's not the quantity that matters, but the quality of the extras.

Some BD's or DVD's have tons of extras but I never watch or listen to them, as they aren't very interesting or rather boring. Take an audio commentary track where all they do is describe what is happening on-screen. Not interesting at all.

I like extras that really help me delve into the story itself or help me get a different perspective or that enhance my viewing pleasure in some way. Some extras I appreciate (just examples) :
- bookmark features (so I can show my favorite scenes to friends easily)
- origin stories (e.g. the origin of the Silver Surfer as explained on the FF:RotSS BD)
- relationship diagrams (like on the Heroes season 1 BD)
- deleted scenes; alternate endings (provided they really add something to the story)

Basically, I'm not too interested in technical stuff (although I think extras explaining those are interesting for people who like that), but I really like extras that delve into the story.

[Blu-Benny]

i love the extras, especially the in depth "making of" features. the extended lord of the rings are my personal holy grail of extras for obvious reasons.

i can sit and watch things like this over and over, i personally find it very interesting to see how movies are made.

i also like the "making of an empire" (i belive that is what it's called) feature that came on the extra disc w/the original star wars trilogy box set.

[Blaumann]

I rarely watch extras.

When i do, i prefer to watch/listen to what the director has to say about his movie and his intentions. The technical background of how the movie was made/shot doesn't interest me that much. At the bottom of what i care about are actors talking about their role in this strange, generic way many of them tend to describe their part in the making-of featurettes.

[tron3]

I used to not care about them. Then I bought a few movies where the only extra's was the movie trailer. I felt cheated. Extra's certainly do add perceived value.

I much rather they get it to fit the leftover space and not take movie quality away for the sake of extra's. Rather pay for the second disc in that case.

[Marquoz]

They should do a Vanilla version with no extras on on disk, and then do an Expanded version with all the extras on a 2nd disk. That way people can pick and choose what they want without having to worry about the movie "suffering" because of the extras. Either that or as was previously said, use BD-Live to offer them.

I love extras, and watch almost every single one of them on almost all of my purchases. I always watch deleted scenes and bloopers, they add insight to the movie, and sometimes crucial scenes that were deleted that explain something in the movie that made absolutely no sense.

Commentaries are awesome because they add information about the movie you might not know otherwise. Behind the scenes are great for those really cool stunts that you want to know more about.

[DetroitSportsFan]

I prefer that a BD has extras. It "adds value" to the disc.

I like deleted scenes, commentaries, making ofs, trailers, etc. I could do without things like trivia, games, etc.

[atomik kinder]

I used to buy the two disc editions of DVD when they were offered over the one disc movie only edition. I found it to be a waste of money since extras are typically boring. They mostly never offer anything that hasn't been seen before. Although, I must admit, I do like some of the Animated Comics that have appeared on some discs. If it is something that adds to the story or such, I like them, but it if is a Making of documentary, director commentary, etc, I've seen it all before and is just a waste of time.

[kefrank]

i don't like any of the poll options. it's not the quantity of extras that matter, but the quality. if there are 3 discs worth of quality extras, then by all means include them.

[MW3]

If it's one of my favorite films then I want all the extras I can get. Especially making of docs. I enjoy the process of movie making and I want to learn as much as possible about how a movie evolves from the initial concept to the final cut.

[Blu_Dude]

Originally Posted by iDarren

I like all BD's to carry all the features currently available on DVD.

Aside from that....

Quality over quantity is my choice.

My priorities:

Commentaries.
Deleted Scenes.
Theatrical/TV trailers.
In depth "making of's" with cast and crew interviews.
Other general promo materials.

But that's just me, and I know others will have other priorities...

I agree. I frown upon a BD title when it does not provide all the bonus features that the DVD version has. I, however, care more about lossless than bonus features. I don't always have time to watch extras.