The Complete Kubrick

[dwk]

I don't know if it has been mentioned, but Criterion has confirmed that the set will include Staircases to Nowhere: Making Stanley Kubrick's The Shining and Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures.

These haven't been confirmed yet, but I think it will also include the following:
Stanley Kubrick's Boxes
Spielberg on Kubrick
Once Upon a Time...A Clockwork Orange

[mfunk9786]

This is all very exciting, but unlike the Bergman and Varda boxes...I already have most of these films. So I need to be convinced that the extras here are truly outstanding.

But if I (and many of you) wait for details / reviews / sales, it done be gone.

No?

The one thing Criterion still has in its favor over other boutique labels is that they don’t capitalize on FOMO by only issuing limited releases at the outset. So you can absolutely wait a year to buy this if you want

This is a vastly underrated aspect of how Criterion does business in this particular climate. No limited slipcover, no /5000 run of these, whatever the case may be. Just buy it when it's a good time for you to buy it. Nobody needs to push you off the ledge sooner than you're comfortable with all the details and are ready to make the purchase (or not). As far as I'm concerned, that's a huge plus.

FYI for those who are brand loyalists, I have some good news and bad news as Orbit has just listed it...

The good news is the very reasonable price of $399.99.

The bad news is that the details they got from Criterion indicate that the set is very heavy, so much so that Orbit is only shipping it with UPS Ground (or 2-day or overnight). No Media Mail option, and at least for me to Florida, UPS is about $18. It's also ineligible to be ordered with another item/items.

[ivuernis]

This from Mifumefan from Bluray.com:
All but BARRY LYNDON will be encoded by FiM

Here

Oh fucking hell.

Why would the Barry Lyndon be or need to be any different from the existing Criterion 4K?

[Finch]

The encode is fine except for the highlights. Still preferable (to me) to WB's encode and grading but this could and should have been re-encoded. I don't get why they didn't ask David to do one more disc. EWS was already done. Ah well.

[swo17]

This from Mifumefan from Bluray.com:
All but BARRY LYNDON will be encoded by FiM

ln other words, every film that Criterion has already released on 4K will use the same encode as before. All other films will receive a new encode by FiM

[DimitriL]

The encode is fine except for the highlights. Still preferable (to me) to WB's encode and grading but this could and should have been re-encoded. I don't get why they didn't ask David to do one more disc. EWS was already done. Ah well.

It's 11 features remaining (2 versions of one of them) plus 4 shorts (2 versions of one of those), and presumably both 4k and BDs on all of those. That is...an enormous job to do correctly. And the the oldest 4k in the set is barely a year old. So yeah, I get this decision, even if means the BL encode is problematic.

[Finch]

Since Orbit will only ship the set on its own, I wonder if Criterion will do the same and not bundle it with anything else if the order contains other discs?

[nitin]

They did ship the Wes Anderson set separately when I ordered it along with a bunch of other discs during the last sale.

[tenia]

It's much more attractive to have a higher price but with a bigger discount. That's why in France, annual clearance sales are heavily surveiled by authorities : because some shops would artificially increase the supposedly-original price to claim it's getting a bigger discount, when it actually was never sold at the original price.

I don't know if this is true now, but certainly when I worked in retail forty years ago there was a British rule that you could only advertise something at half price if it had provably been on sale at full price for a minimum of 28 days beforehand.

I believe that's pretty much what the authorities check in France.

[MichaelB]

This is a vastly underrated aspect of how Criterion does business in this particular climate. No limited slipcover, no /5000 run of these, whatever the case may be. Just buy it when it's a good time for you to buy it. Nobody needs to push you off the ledge sooner than you're comfortable with all the details and are ready to make the purchase (or not). As far as I'm concerned, that's a huge plus.

If only other labels could actually afford to do this—but Criterion has a whopping financial advantage here.

As I keep saying, if anyone has a realistic, evidence-backed, genuinely workable alternative to the limited-edition model that will achieve the same absolutely critical result of stimulating cashflow at a time when a label is most financially vulnerable (i.e. just after the production and manufacturing budget has been spent), I am genuinely all ears, and have a direct line to the heads of a great many boutique labels.

But I've been asking this for well over a decade now, and nobody's come up with anything—and I haven't even had any hilariously impractical suggestions; it's been deafening silence pretty much across the board.

[jegharfangetmigenmyg]

This is a vastly underrated aspect of how Criterion does business in this particular climate. No limited slipcover, no /5000 run of these, whatever the case may be. Just buy it when it's a good time for you to buy it. Nobody needs to push you off the ledge sooner than you're comfortable with all the details and are ready to make the purchase (or not). As far as I'm concerned, that's a huge plus.

If only other labels could actually afford to do this—but Criterion has a whopping financial advantage here.

As I keep saying, if anyone has a realistic, evidence-backed, genuinely workable alternative to the limited-edition model that will achieve the same absolutely critical result of stimulating cashflow at a time when a label is most financially vulnerable (i.e. just after the production and manufacturing budget has been spent), I am genuinely all ears, and have a direct line to the heads of a great many boutique labels.

But I've been asking this for well over a decade now, and nobody's come up with anything—and I haven't even had any hilariously impractical suggestions; it's been deafening silence pretty much across the board.

Only alternative I've seen is Radiance's subscription model where one can buy a full year's releases in advance. Do you know if that's been successful? I was contemplating, but found it too big an ask for such a complete blind buy, even if I feel like supporting them and other Boutique labels...

[MichaelB]

Good answer, but you've also identified the problem! I myself haven't ever taken out a subscription like this as the cash outlay is just too huge.

[DimitriL]

If only other labels could actually afford to do this—but Criterion has a whopping financial advantage here.

Well, they do now, with Rales’ capital fueling things. But they were having to do fairly big layoffs every 6-7 years or so before that, which I think backs up your point about how other labels were unlikely to follow suit. At any rate, it certainly helped the perception over the last 40 years that they play fair with the customer.

I think it’s also the reason they don’t add extra features to their 4k upgrades - they actively don’t feed the FOMO machine.

[MichaelB]

Most other labels can't do big layoffs, because they never had big staffing numbers to lay off in the first place!

[DimitriL]

Most other labels can't do big layoffs, because they never had big staffing numbers to lay off in the first place!

That's fair, though from the info I can find, their staff isn't that much bigger than Arrow or Kino. (After the last layoffs, it might have actually been smaller than Arrow for awhile.)

[dwk]

This is a vastly underrated aspect of how Criterion does business in this particular climate. No limited slipcover, no /5000 run of these, whatever the case may be. Just buy it when it's a good time for you to buy it. Nobody needs to push you off the ledge sooner than you're comfortable with all the details and are ready to make the purchase (or not). As far as I'm concerned, that's a huge plus.

If only other labels could actually afford to do this—but Criterion has a whopping financial advantage here.

As I keep saying, if anyone has a realistic, evidence-backed, genuinely workable alternative to the limited-edition model that will achieve the same absolutely critical result of stimulating cashflow at a time when a label is most financially vulnerable (i.e. just after the production and manufacturing budget has been spent), I am genuinely all ears, and have a direct line to the heads of a great many boutique labels.

But I've been asking this for well over a decade now, and nobody's come up with anything—and I haven't even had any hilariously impractical suggestions; it's been deafening silence pretty much across the board.

Even though I'm not a fan of the model, I have less of an issue with a small label like Radiance doing limited editions than I do bigger labels like Vinegar Syndrome (kings of fomo and overly packaged releases- slipcovers in slip boxes in a magnetic box) and studios (Lionsgate Limited, Sony/Disney/Fox only doing limited edition steelbooks for their UHDs.)

[aox]

This might be a trash post on this academic board, so apologies:
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php? ... count=1438

I spoke to the Criterion producer regarding your questions, and here are the answers regarding the inclusion of these:

- Dr Strangelove Pie Fight (negative exists at the BFI archive in the UK) - NO
- 2001 deleted scenes from roadshow edition (17 extra minutes found in a salt mine) - NO, we enquired and they do not exist
- Clockwork R-rated cut alternate shots/edits (issued on laserdisc) - NO
- The Shining cut first-week-only ending - NO, it is addressed in several places in the box set, photos are included in the Staircases to Nowhere documentary but the footage itself does not exist.
- Original premiere version of Fear and Desire - YES, we are presenting the full version (70 min) which is the Venice Premiere version.

But lets talk

[Matt]

How dare they not include footage that doesn't exist! In something called "complete?" No sale

[Noiretirc]

The last 2 posts here deeply boost this place's toffee-nosed reputation.

Why shouldn't these questions, clearly coming from a deeply knowledgeable Kubrickphile, be asked?

Blu-ray.com will have a field-day with this!

Edit: phile not file.

[swo17]

Imprint just announced a 4-film early Kubrick box that includes both cuts of Fear and Desire on 4K, with all films authored and encoded by FiM

[Roger Ryan]

Regarding cut footage existing or not, what exactly was found in the salt mine if not the deleted 17 minutes from 2001? Or, is the post poorly worded and, like the Strangelove pie fight, the footage exists but will not be included in the set due to clearance or technical issues?

[Matt]

The last 2 posts here deeply boost this place's toffee-nosed reputation.

Well, then I guess I just made the most toffee-nosed shitpost on this forum.

I was poking a little fun at people (not here) who are mad about Criterion excluding any Kubrick-tangential material from the supplements. I was extrapolating that they would probably be just as upset by Criterion not including these things that don't actually exist.

My post was not about the deeply knowledgeable Kubrickphile's question, but about how I would expect people on certain forums (not this one) to respond to his findings. And I think I could say the same about aox's post.

[Matt]

Regarding cut footage existing or not, what exactly was found in the salt mine if not the deleted 17 minutes from 2001? Or, is the post poorly worded and, like the Strangelove pie fight, the footage exists but will not be included in the set due to clearance or technical issues?

It seems to be just a rumor based on one writer's misunderstanding of what was found in the salt mine (which is actually an underground preservation vault where many archives send fragile materials). No credible evidence or even description of what might be on the footage has ever surfaced in the almost 16 years since this "discovery" was made, and all reports of it seem to trace back to one post on a "Space:1999" fan forum regarding a Douglas Trumbull Q&A the poster attended in 2010.

[Roger Ryan]

Thanks for the update... from 16 years ago! I guess I wasn't too concerned about learning more about the validity of supposed footage found in the Kansas salt mine after reading the initial announcement; just assumed it might eventually be made public. I knew some of the deleted footage consisted of Frank Poole's space walk which Kubrick had originally intended to mirror Dave Bowman's earlier space walk shot-for-shot until he recognized the repetition became deadly dull, but I was under the impression several minutes were related to activities on the moon base and space station which are documented by behind-the-scenes photos. As described, I don't think the actual 19 minutes of footage cut is nearly as enticing as what the behind-the-scenes stills showed for scenes that never made it into the premier version.

[Calvin]

I'm curious about the claim that the deleted scenes don't exist, since when Warner was supposedly asked about them they said that it has always been in the Warner vaults