The Godfather Trilogy - Page 6

this new BR will be using the same THE COPPOLA RESTORATION DVD masters... right?


http://www.dvd-forum.at/21967/screenshots.htm

grabs from the DVD, if the new DVD uses the same BR masters, then this kind of improvement is expected.

Yes, it's from the restoration masters.

Read up on Robert Harris' post and his interview with American Cinematographer, both of which are on page 4 of this thread.

Is anyone else a little put off by the price of this release?

Even if you get it from Amazon with the 5% discount, it's still $82.60. That works out to around $27.50 per movie, or $41.30 if you only count the good ones (I & II).

Don't get me wrong, these are great movies but I'm really not sure I'll actually watch them very often. This one feels like it should cost about $15 less IMHO. Maybe it will go down in price like Kill Bill.

I'm sure we'll see something cheaper than Amazon's 30% off list price. I wouldn't be surprised to see them drop the price further as they did with the Kill Bill box set.

However, about $65 (street price) was the best price for the SD DVD boxset when released back in 2001. Given the cost of living is higher since then and the fact these are restored verisons in 1080p, they aren't going to be cheap.

Seems to be a common enough trend among a variety of titles, whether logically applied or not. Soon as the new wears off, they start to creep down. Pre-orders seem to be brisk enough, that I doubt they'll trim the price right away...not much anyway.

I'll pay, but then it's one of my must-have classics. Others I wait out, but not this one, especially with the restoration issue and the HD bonus stuff.

I am... I don't really want the 3rd one, and I don't want any of the extras. While I'm sure a lot of people do, I don't have time to watch stuff like that anymore and have much less interest in it as I used to (probably do to time) so I would rather save money or spend more disc space on video/audio even though I'm sure we are at the point of diminishing returns with any video bit rate increase (really what is the real difference between an extra 5mpbs when you already took a 3tb file and got it to 20 gb). I wish they would have offered both a set and individual release for everyone.

Wow.

I am not normally interested in extra features, but if ever there was an exception...

definately picking this one up

This is a must-buy, and I've got my preorder in. The best part is that since Robert Harris worked on the restoration, we already know in advance that there will be no chance of a Patton/Longest Day/Gangs of New York style EE and DNR botch in the transfer! No guesswork needed.

I'm put off by it, even though I can see the justification for a premium price in this case. But, the dvd set lists for $73 which already is a premium price. Then why does the BD set list for $120? The answer is of course the Fox strategy, gouge the early adopter. This set is yet another I'd like to have, but I don't mind waiting until Amazon has a blowout like the one they had last year.

The studios are making a mistake with BD pricing. First, for those of us who have been around through tape, laser disc and dvd, we've seen this cycle many times. This set will be under $50, street price, either late this year or next year. Having been burned as an early adopter in the past has caused me to become far more patient. If you can't wait, rent it. You'll more than recoup the rental cost.

The other, and far more serious point, is excessive pricing is keeping BD from becoming mainsteam. $80 or so for this set is a hard sell when you can pick up the orginal dvd set on Ebay for $15. People like us appreciate the difference, but we don't have enough scale to push this format past dvd. Until the software pricing is roughly comparable, BD will never get past niche status. People are used to paying about $15 for a blockbuster title on dvd at Walmart. Sure, BD is much better, but the difference really comes into play with larger screens. On a 42" set the difference isn't really significant unless you sit pretty close. So, will the typical shopper with a 42" lcd pay $25 for a BD or $15 for the dvd?

DVD's are so cheap right now the vast majority of consumers are simply not being tempted to move to BD. There is no legitimate reason why this set should not be the same price on DVD and BD, absolutely none. An arguement can be made that people paying the BD premium are simply encouraging the studios to keep a two tiered approach. One for the masses and one for videophiles. I don't want to give them an incentive to charge me more and neither should you.

I agree this and a few other BDs are overpriced, but not by that much. BDs cost more to master and more for each unit to produce. If they don't charge more than DVDs, why would the studio spend the extra to make BDs? I might try to wait on this until black friday

This trilogy is worth every penny. We are talking about a premium restoration of some of the best films of all time.

Absolutely correct.

+1

it would be virtually impossible for the studio to overprice this set.

So Paramount, by doing a complete and (apparently) meticulous restoration of all three films and providing (hopefully) a high quality transfer complete with all of the extras from previous DVD versions and newly released special features at a premium price is like Fox selling catalogue titles from old prints with no extras on a BD-25 at new release prices?

Let's just say while I think Paramount is pricing some of their newer BD releases a bit too high, I disagree with you on this count.

Brandon

Seriously.

Ok, then buy me a set too.

The point isn't whether or not the BD is "worth every penny", the point is there is no excuse to charge a $47 premium for the BD. If you pay it, they'll keep doing it. All the effort and expense that went into this set is already loaded into the $73 DVD, beyond that they're simply gouging the early BD adopters.

If you have to have this set upon release I understand. But, I've played this game one time to many. I'll wait and pick it up for $50 over the holidays or early next year.

I agree with you regarding the restoration (as long as it's as good as everyone is saying it is). For me, the value isn't quite there simply because I don't think I'll be watching these movies very often. That's the way I judge it. I'll probably wait until the set is on sale for ~$60 before I pick it up.

Well since the trilogy is supposed to be remarkable in every sense, I want to "reward" the studios by snatching this up on day one. Maybe they will get the hint that this is what we expect on every release hence forward.

Now on sub-par releases, I either won't buy them or wait until they are at bargain bin prices.

If you mean restoring and preserving important films that were nearly lost. God I sure hope so.

I just finished watching Spartacus on HD DVD and at the end, it said in big titles "Restoration by Robert Harris". This raises the question in my mind as to what Godfather might look like. Spartacus was shot on Panavision 70 according to the same credits. If a film shot on 70mm stock and restored by an expert looks as poor as Spartacus on HD DVD (how does an encode that is full of film grain lack so much detail???), I think I will hold off on Godfather Trilogy until the reviews are in. We already know what happened with the other Coppola film restored by Zoetrope and that didn't turn out so hot either.

My line of thinking is that, if it went through a meticulous restoration job, perhaps this truly is "as good as it will ever look." Yes, it does require putting a bit of faith in the people doing the restoration, but seeing as I don't own these on DVD I have no reservations about purchasing.

By all accounts this appears to be a top notch effort by Paramount. And that's what I want. We shall see

Brandon

The problems with the SPARTACUS HD-DVD have nothing to do with the quality of the film restoration that Robert Harris did. It was simply the matter of an old film-to-HD transfer being used for that release, just like many of the other Universal HD-DVDs. Harris has said that SPARTACUS can look a hell of a lot better in HD if a new transfer is made from his restoration elements. There's no way THE GODFATHER will suffer that fate, as the HD master for the Blu-ray was digitally converted directly from the 4K DI of the final restoration.

Vincent

P.S.- Do the SPARTACUS credits really say it was filmed in Panavision 70? If so, they are wrong. It was filmed in Super Technirama, which was 8-perf 35mm VistaVision with an anamorphic squeeze, from which 70mm and 35mm release prints would be optically printed.

Was looking around movietyme today (i'm from the UK, i import from here), and they have The Godfather BD up for preorder. Price is £54.99, completly reasonable for 3 movies and the special features, i can't wait for this set.

That cover looks very nice.Looking forward to it.

really good IMHO

Fyi...

The UK Godfather boxset will be out Oct 27th , and it appears to be a lot cheaper. Amazon UK have it for £37.49($69.99)or play.com at £34.99($65.99)and certainly a better deal than importing via Movietyme at £54.99($102.68) Its just the small problem of waiting over a month for these classic movies.

I wish they were released separately. I wouldn't pay money for Godfather 3. That's probably why they're in a set.