What are your opinons on dvd extras?

How do the fine members of this forum feel about dvd extras? In my opinon some of the commentaries are intresting and a few extras are good but in my opinon most of them are a waste of time, and to be honest i can do without them and just have the film on it’s own. i am not just talking about SW’s but all dvds.

I’m one who enjoys the extras. I enjoy the entertaining stories they mostly tell. But I hate it when they are obviously either talking out of their ass or just making stuff up. Especially Mark Damon and possibly Robert Hossein. And I hate it when Koch doesn’t sub their extras in English if their film is in English.

But I enjoy interviews with Tomas Milian as he is so entertaining. He seems to remeber a lot and is very sure in his self but contrary to some, I don’t find him arrogant at all. Just because he says he is talented? Franco Nero is good to because he is so nice and has cool stories.

To be honest I seldom/never watch them. I don’t mind having them though, and who knows maybe someday when I don’t have something better to do I will give them a go.
But extras never influence which version of a film I’m going to purchase.
Only issues regarding the film itself(English options, uncut, wide screen etc…) is important to me when I decide which version to get.

Hossein? Why?
Because of his Argento remark?

Extras are pretty important to me. I hated MGM for releasing bare bones sabata for instance. Not even a trailer.

If I learn something then good, but if it is just a bunch of stills and stuff then not really interested.

Well it really depends. On modern films i find most extras, especially a making of quite boring. but audio commentary of the director, main actor can be very interesting. And the ausio comments of some experts like frayling on the old movies are just awesome.
I also love the extras on the dollar films and most leone pics, so much info in the documentaries. But i normally like documentaries very much anyway.
So for me extras are nice, interviews can be boring for me. i mean a short thing with eastwood telling about the shooting, or milian tellling how he acts by placing his hat differently. But a director just talking why he is so great, can be boring. I think it was on the bullet for a general DVD where i did not wathc the interview completely.
But if pictures accompany them its nice. So i am a big extras fan. Next to the possibility to have subtitles and different audio tracks this is the most obvious advantage the dvd has. But on the other hand i wonder what more a blu-ray for example offers. A double dvd is the most i could thin of.

and location pics and posters are not very interesting to me, but i reckon some of the guys who like to archive stuff might enjoy this. i dont care too much about that.

[quote=“Stanton, post:4, topic:1661”]Hossein? Why?
Because of his Argento remark?[/quote]Not necessarily his Argento remark because he did seem genuienly surprised but he never seemed to say anything that might… hurt his image but I didn’t hold it against him. He seemed nice enough. But I felt he might have embelished the intensity of his friendship with Sergio Leone but who am I to say.

Must admit i very rarely watch extras, aside from some of the interviews on SW discs. Other than that the only other ones i have watched have been on John Carpenter releases…ie The Fog, The Thing, Halloween etc…

I will watch anything on John Carpenters The Thing ;).

The carpenter extras are good…they seem to be film length themselves! The Thing doc is great, and i especially like the one for The Fog too…

I have to view The Thing at least once a year.

Same here…great minds think alike… :smiley: :stuck_out_tongue:

A hell of a movie and I just cannot fault the film ;).

Yeah i’m always surprised at how well it’s stood the test of time. The fx may be a little outdated now but were superb for the time, and still look great. Anyway i still prefer to see actual “solid” effects rather than all that cgi stuff… Definitely a classic. I was somewhat horrified to hear a remake may be in the offing…

The effects are great for the time and still look great. Do not like most CGI stuff. We have the; tension, Morricone score in the style of Carpenter scores at times, the snow of course and the dog :D, Kurt Russell in one of his best roles, Carpenter was at a peak at the time, classic lines in the film and the negative feel in the film.

I like the extras and mostly I watch all of them. It’s interesting to see a bit how they made this movie or to listen to the Audio Commentaries. But sometimes they just oversize a dvd with extras. Most of the Ridley Scott Movies (with all the different cuts …) have masses of extras.

As mentioned above the Audio Commentaries of John Carpenter are all extremly good.
To Ennio and Silver: Yes The Thing is G R E A T! :slight_smile:

Pretty much sums up my opinion exactly… I love any interviews, documentaries, etc… but I could care less about photo slideshows and whatnot… super 8 versions of the film- wtf is that? why would I ever want to sit down and watch a shitty version of the film when I can just watch the DVD? I guess in some sense its cool to have it, in an archival sort of way, but i couldn’t imagine it ever being watched…

I like the special features on the Robert Rodiguez discs a lot, the short film school things where he shows some of the methods he used to make his films

I recently just gave this interview a watch and I found his commentary to be very interesting, particularly his words on his character in the film

also it really pisses me off when i buy a disc and then a couple months later a “special edition” is released with a bunch of cool extras…

Oh my god I hate that. But I really have terrible luck with renting spaghettis.

Story time.

I hawanted to see Navajo Joe but my store only had a old VHS of it. So I bit the bullet and rented it. And then they come out with this nice shiny USA MGM DVD of it! What a slap in the face. I also recently rented Man of the East which is now on US TV!