Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

[manicsounds]

BluRayDef on "The Trial"

[Der Spieler]

BluRayDef on "The Trial"

I didn't realise it was 16 pounds on Amazon right now.

Yikes.

[manicsounds]

BluRayDef on "The Trial"

I didn't realise it was 16 pounds on Amazon right now.

Yikes.

Most of the Studio Canal Collection titles are about that price. A few others are cheaper though

[TMDaines]

HMV didn't seem to offer much of a pre-order special on this one though, did they? Not like with Le Quai des brumes anyway.

[perkizitore]

Quai was a misprice.

[bigP]

Confirmation that the Parable of Law prologue is on the new release.

[TMDaines]

Quai was a misprice.

Really? Didn't strike me as out of the ordinary as it was alongside all those other great MoC BFI and other pre-orders. Wasn't the price on Amazon too?

[krnash]

I recently bought the Lady Killers blu-ray only to open it up and find the booklet destroyed. And I mean totally destroyed- rips and bends galore. Unreadable.

Has anyone had any luck getting replacement stuff from StudioCanal in the past?

[manicsounds]

blu-ray.com on "The Trial"

[JPJ]

BluRayDef on "The Trial"

I didn't realise it was 16 pounds on Amazon right now.

Yikes.

"Greetings from Amazon.co.uk.

You saved £0.01 with Amazon.co.uk's Pre-order Price Guarantee!

The price of the item(s) decreased after you ordered them, and we gave you the lowest price.

The following title(s) decreased in price:

The Trial - 50th Anniversary [Blu-ray] [1962]
Price on order date: £16.00
Price charged at dispatch: £16.00
Lowest price up to and including release date: £15.99
Amount to be refunded: £0.01
Quantity: 1
Total Savings: £0.01"

[Drucker]

Bluray.com review of the Trial.

[manicsounds]

The Trial at DVDBeaver

[pzadvance]

Question for those in the know--and apologies if this has been addressed already--does StudioCanal continue to put out Region A discs in Canada? I know they released a few (The Third Man, Contempt, The Ladykillers perhaps?), but I haven't noted any plans for more recent releases to be sent to North America. Namely, I'm looking to get my hands on The Trial but I'm stuck with this region-locked Blu-Ray player. What determines which films they release in Region A? Anybody know?

[JonasEB]

There's a difference in who holds the rights to a lot of the films between Europe and North America. The Pianist is a StudioCanal Collection title in Europe but it's a Focus/Universal title in North America. I think somebody here pointed out that Lionsgate, who hold StudioCanal's films in North America, had issued everything they could get direct from Studio Canal so far...up until the latest batch that is - I think the new Bunuel is a potential Lionsgate release but The Trial may be with someone else (I believe its public domain status here is false and I think Milestone did the "official" DVD for North America.)

[willoneill]

They just put out Grand Illusion.

[Calvin]

Some Lucas-esque revisionism has been applied to The Devil Rides Out

[RossyG]

"Hammer purists, however, might want to hold on to their old DVDs as well as own this."

Nope, I'll just have the DVD. They can stick the BD where the sun don't shine.

CGI tinkering + no option to see the original shots = pre-order cancelled.

[A man stayed-put]

Who on earth thinks this kind of shit is a good idea? Overzealous DNR is disappointing, but actually digitally changing the content is disgraceful. Pending confirmation; my pre-order will also be cancelled.

[SpiderBaby]

Here is Hammer's Facebook reply on the issue:

Yes, we have enhanced the original effects (sensitively and with care, we think). The George Lucas analogy, however, though well-intentioned, is unhelpful and inaccurate. It was one review and everyone has taken it as gospel before they've even watched the film.

Why couldn't they have just left the option of having the original on the disc as well if they wanted to mess with it?

[nw_kiff]

Question for those in the know--and apologies if this has been addressed already--does StudioCanal continue to put out Region A discs in Canada? I know they released a few (The Third Man, Contempt, The Ladykillers perhaps?), but I haven't noted any plans for more recent releases to be sent to North America. Namely, I'm looking to get my hands on The Trial but I'm stuck with this region-locked Blu-Ray player. What determines which films they release in Region A? Anybody know?

Alliance Films has been handling some Studio Canal titles. It's really difficult to navigate what titles they have released and which they haven't since they have such a large library of titles they handle. However, I can tell you that some Bunuels have been released such as The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeois and That Obscure Object of Desire on Oct. 23rd. They also released a cheaper Blu Ray of Belle Du Jour. You can find them for cheap on Amazon.ca

[MichaelB]

Who on earth thinks this kind of shit is a good idea? Overzealous DNR is disappointing, but actually digitally changing the content is disgraceful. Pending confirmation; my pre-order will also be cancelled.

SFX magazine has just uploaded before-and-after comparisons.

It looks pretty damning, I have to say - yes, the original special effects were creaky as hell, but there are significant ethical and moral-rights issues at play here.

The really stupid thing is that if they'd included the original shots and seamlessly branched everything so viewers had a choice, no-one would have had a problem.

[feihong]

Don't really see a wall of blue fire behind the angel of death making it any more scary. And it sets such an awful precedent. I told them at the Hammer Facebook page I wouldn't buy a disc where Captain Kronos' sword is glowing with energy or anything when he swings it. Hope I didn't just give them the idea. That kind of stuff is no "improvement" or "enhancement" of a classic movie. It's kind of awful when even the English don't look at a movie as an historical record at this age and distance. It's a record of what happened now as much as an involving narrative. Sometimes more what happened than effective narrative. But people should be allowed to decide whether the record is worth their time or not.

[peerpee]

Their Facebook response reveals a lot:

Yes, we have enhanced the original effects (sensitively and with care, we think). The George Lucas analogy, however, though well-intentioned, is unhelpful and inaccurate. It was one review and everyone has taken it as gospel before they've even watched the film.

---

The George Lucas analogy is 100% what this is. Whether you think it looks better or not, you don't go dicking with it unless you have money to burn and want to include it as an extra to show how it could have looked (who'd even do that?). It's bad practice, revisionist, unfaithful, and a really terrible decision all round to alter the actual film in this way.

It's not a subjective decision and it's not one person's opinion against another. This won't just be "one review", this will be an avalanche. It's indefensible and wrong, wrong, wrong StudioCanal.

[colinr0380]

Absolutely (the nearest thing that I can think of to peerpee's analogy is that recreation of the spider pit sequence on the DVD of the 30s King Kong - though that was both an unshot film sequence and presented as an extra feature rather than incorporated into the original film, which makes it much more acceptable!), and I agree with MichaelB that the Lucas comparison isn't just fans being grumpy at some changes to arguably 'improve' a film. It is that the older version which viewers for decades have been familiar with has been thrown out in preference for modern updates without an option to switch back. Without the option of playing with or without the additions it makes it seem much more that these updates are meant to supercede the original, rather than act as an optional enhancement to the period and budgetary limitations of an original film.

To play devil's advocate (which seems appropriate for this film!) the additions might improve a film to such an extent that the viewer might not be able to imagine it with the original effects, but the point is that without the original version of the film available how will viewers of the future looking back be able to make sense of the reception the film got at the time when dealing with a film that has been manipulated since its release?

Both the Lucas and this situation to a lesser extent seem to show an attitude to films as one of being seen as needed to be updated and/or tidied up in order for them to be relevant to a perception of the expectations of an ever-changing 'general modern audience' and to remain exploitable in the current marketplace (presumably, like the Star Wars films or THX-1138, this version will also become the one sold for TV broadcasts and suchlike). But chasing after currency in the marketplace seems terribly short-termist compared to a much more honest approach of honouring the position that individual films have in their own particular era and circumstances of production.

[manicsounds]

Lucas has the right to do whatever he wants to do with his films, including revising. That's his choice whether people like it or not.

But as for this? I'm pretty sure the director didn't have a say with these changes, since he's been dead for quite some time now.


This is far beyond remixing mono audio tracks for surround, which is common. Also, NOBODY except me seems to be bothered by what Hammer/Studio Canal did with "Quatermass And The Pit" and the remixed audio track. The 'new' sound effects reminded me of the "Vertigo" 5.1 track . Just didn't belong....