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Hellboy Directors cut

815 Views 15 Replies 11 Participants Last post by jfischer, Oct 23, 2004

nebrunner

Discussion Starter · Oct 21, 2004

I purchased this yesterday, it was released on Tuesday October 19th. As I was watching it last night, I saw that they used small white text for all locations, ie: the people would walk into an abandoned subway tunnel and the text would say "ABANDONED SUBWAY TUNNEL" in small white letters, within the body of the movie.

Later on in the movie, Hellboy speaks with a dead russian, and the dead russian doesn't speak English, so his dialog is subtitled. These subtitles were in much larger yellow letters and they were below the picture, in the black letter box bars!

Right now I am watching the movies on a 4:3 television, so I can still see the text, but eventually I plan on watching everything on a projector mated with a correctly aspect ratio'd screen. I will not be able to see that text.

I was disappointed that a director who puts as much hard work and thought into his movies would allow his directors cut DVD to overlook something as simple as this.

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Grubert

· #2 · Oct 21, 2004

No mistake. You have a 4:3 TV, and your DVD player is probably set to 4:3 or Standard, right? And my guess is the subtitles for Russian dialog are player-generated, whereas the location texts are 'burned-in'. Your player is drawing black bars to accomodate the anamorphic picture to the 4:3 aspect ratio, and then overlays the subtitles on the video image.

When you do get a 16:9 projector and set your DVD player aspect ratio to Widescreen, the player overlays the subtitles on the anamorphic (stretched) picture, so they will be displayed without any problem.

Subtitles and widescreen displays pose a problem with:

(a) non-anamorphic letterbox discs, or

(b) scope- ratioed films whose subtitles are placed outside the picture of a scope-ratioed film (and you're using variable masking).

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nebrunner

Discussion Starter · #3 · Oct 21, 2004

Why would they use player generated text for one thing, and 'burned in text' for another?

Wouldn't it make more sense to be consistent? Also, by placing all text within the movie frame, would that not be suitable for every situation?

Version

· #4 · Oct 21, 2004

Language text is almost always generated by the DVD player so that multiple lanuages can be employed. It is placed by the DVD player a certain distance from the bottom of the screen irregardless of the where the picture starts or stops and therefore will be different depending on whther the player is set to 16:9 or 4:3 mode.

As for why the location text is not player generated... perhaps they just didn't want to deal with multiple cuoncurrent subtitle streams or perhaps the director had a specific style he wanted employed on those titles.

nebrunner

Discussion Starter · #5 · Oct 21, 2004

That definitely explains why the location titles looked good, and the dialog subtitles looked like crap.

The director probably has no control over the dialog if they squeeze on several different languages into the same disc. Sounds like an economic matter.

Burnsip

· #6 · Oct 21, 2004

So what are the major differences between the director's cut and the theatrical release?

FoxyMulder

· #7 · Oct 21, 2004

The differences between the theatrical cut and the directors cut appears to be mainly dialogue and it expands the characters and just adds a little more substance the film itself is still PG-13 and contains no blood or additional violence ( i enjoyed it )

GrantMeThePower

· #8 · Oct 21, 2004

Not to mention that this is a 1.85:1 film, not a 2.35:1 where even on a widescreen there is black bars, so the subtitles are in the picture.

I'm using a projector, and this looks great.

Burnsip

· #9 · Oct 21, 2004

Quote:

Originally posted by FoxyMulder
The differences between the theatrical cut and the directors cut appears to be mainly dialogue and it expands the characters and just adds a little more substance the film itself is still PG-13 and contains no blood or additional violence ( i enjoyed it )

Thanks.

It doesn't seem worth it to double dip on the director's cut then.

John Ballentine

· #10 · Oct 21, 2004

Quote:

Originally posted by FoxyMulder
The differences between the theatrical cut and the directors cut appears to be mainly dialogue and it expands the characters and just adds a little more substance the film itself is still PG-13 and contains no blood or additional violence ( i enjoyed it )

Well - no double dip for me either, especially since there is no additional blood or violence!

cip4465

· #11 · Oct 21, 2004

no double dip for me either, but only because I passed on the first release in anticipation of this one. Havent seen the movie yet, but friends say it is pretty enjoyable!

FoxyMulder

· #12 · Oct 21, 2004

Its worth getting the directors cut as the additional scenes do really enhance certain characters and bring the film more to life.

2Sound

· #13 · Oct 21, 2004

I don't know why people complain about double-dipping. Sell the first one in a Garage sale, on ebay, to a friend, family, etc., and use the money to get the new one the first week while it's cheap! Sure, you might be out a couple of bucks, but at least you're not out twice the money!

So, if you see the movie in theaters, buy the first release, and buy the second release (or three or four if it's Columbia!) is that triple-dipping?

If you bought the version that comes with the Hellboy bust, then you're really dippin'! That statue is $20! If I'm not mistaken, that's the only difference between the collector's set and the director's cut, right? I hardly think that's worth the extra $20. At least with the LOTR sets, you get more than just the statue with it. Maybe I'm missing something.

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fisheggs

· #14 · Oct 23, 2004

Quote:

Originally posted by 2Sound
Maybe I'm missing something.

Checked your wallet lately?

John Ballentine

· #15 · Oct 23, 2004

Quote:

Originally posted by FoxyMulder
Its worth getting the directors cut as the additional scenes do really enhance certain characters and bring the film more to life.

Then why wasn't that the cut that was released theatrically???

Just curious.

jfischer

· #16 · Oct 23, 2004

Quote:

Originally posted by John Ballentine
Then why wasn't that the cut that was released theatrically???

Just curious.

Studio execs often want a film cut to a certain length (or other reasons) for its theatrical run.

I think the EE editions of the LOTR movies are better than the theatrical ones, but asking audiences to sit through a 4 hour movie in a theater is asking a lot...

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