Ken Cranes Determines What Is and Is Not A Special Edition DVD?

[Damian]

After an earlier post of mine asking why Wayne's World was considered a Special Edition, even though it totally lacked any supplements. I was told (and verified for myself) that Paramount is in fact NOT calling the two movies special editions. So I deceided to write Ken Cranes an email, telling them that listing those movies as special editions is very miss leading and they would probably want to change their titles. (DVD Planet has them listed the same way, but both companies are one and the same)

Here is the email I just got back from Ken Cranes.

Thanks for the email. I just checked the back of the covers for Wayne's
World 1&2. For Waynes World they list theatrical trailers, commentary by the
director Penelope Spheeris, interviews with Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Rob
Lowe, Tia Carrera, Penelope Shheeris and Lorne Michaels as the special
features. For Wayne's World 2 they list interviews with Mike Myers, Dana
Carvey, Tia Carrera Lorne Michaels and director Stephen Surjik and running
commentary by the director as the special edition features. While these
features may not seem very special, any features added to the disc makes it
a "special edition."

Feel free to get in touch with us at any of the contact points below if
you have any questions or concerns...

Now I have verified with a couple of other online sites like Amazon.com that Wayne's World is in fact not a special edition. So what gives Ken Cranes the right to call it something it's not? Isn't that false advertising? Are they just trying to make a sell by mis-leading the public?

Any thoughts on this?

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"They're us....we're them!"
-Damian

[saraswati]

that is exactly what they are doing. the term "special edition" is pretty meaningless, when you get down to it. it's similar to what happened about 10 years ago when the environmental craze took off. suddenly every consumer product out there came with the words "all natural" on its packaging somewhere. or when, a few years ago, the anti-fat health craze took off, and you would see "lite" or "fat free" on everything. the advertising industry really takes to these catchphrases, because they mean virtually nothing, yet make the product sound better to consumers.

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deep in the heat of the bush...

[egman]

This is a bad policy for DVDPlanet I have to admit. I'm sorry, but with the studios loading discs up with features, the fact of having some extras should not make that DVD a special edition. Maybe that would've flown in Laser's heyday, but it you can't apply that logic now. It looks like false advertising.

[NotEd]

Considering the studios have adopted "Special Edition" to label their DVDs as being ones with extras and such, it is misleading if not false advertising for a retailer to say something is a "Special Edition" if it is not labeled as such. Definitely immoral if not illegal in my book.
It'd be a different story if "Special Edition" wasn't used to label DVDs already, but it is, so the retailer can not decide something is Special just because it meets a set of criteria they have decided to apply after the studio has already failed to label it that way.
Just my $.02.


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"Bad movie? You're soaking in it!"
-Crow T. Robot, MST3K

[Damian]

I'm glad people are agreeing with me on this. Here is another responce from the wise people at Ken Cranes.

This is what I sent in responce to the first email.

But when the studio is not packaging their product as a "Special
Edition", isn't it false advertising when the retailers re-title
something in order to gain sales?

And here is their responce to it

I am not sure what you mean by retailers re-titling something. As far as we
are concerned we only put what the studios put on their packaging. If other
retailers are doing that then yes it is false advertising, or if they put
"Special Edition" before the title comes out because the studio says that is
what it is going to be and then the studio changes their mind and takes the
features off it that made it a special edition then no since that is clearly
a case of the studio changing it's mind. To put it simply we are all at the
mercy of the studios. I would say most retailers go by what is told to them
by the studios, but if the studio changes their mind at the last minute then
it is wrong to blame the retailer since they had nothing to do with it. In
a sense the retailer is like a messenger boy until the title comes out.
Don't blame the messenger, blame the person that sent the message.

He is making it sound as if Paramount was the one that told them it was going to be a Special Edition. If that's the case, why aren't the other web stores trying to sell it as a Special Edition. My complaint here isn't that Wayne's World is NOT a special edition, it's the fact that Ken Cranes and DVD Planet is mis-leading their customers into thinking they are, simply to make a sell.

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"They're us....we're them!"
-Damian

[egman]

The question I I want to asks is if they are aware that this happens, why keep the SE title up?

I'm not going to say that they are trying to fed us a load of crap, but just being aware of title changes does not make their chocie to keep the SE title any more valid.

[Damian]

Well I got another reply from them after I wrote them a THIRD time.

They have now admited to re-titling the DVD's on their site as they see fit. Once again I'll start with my reply, then add their's.

After this reply my curiosity peaked so I started checking
other web sites. Amazon.com, Best Buy.com and Buy.com all sell the
Wayne's World DVD's, yet none of them list them as special editions. I
just double-checked both DVD Planet AND Ken Cranes. Both sites have
Wayne's World listed as Special Editions.
Now if Paramount was the one that told you guys it was a Special
Edition, why would they not tell these other sites they were? If titling
something as a Special Edition attracts sales, and only DVD Planet and
Ken Cranes were told by Paramount that Wayne's World was a special
edition, wouldn't that be putting you guys at an unfair advantage over
the other sites? I hate to keep this topic open, but I find it very
interesting that only your sites list these movies as Special Edition,
when none of the others do. If Paramount indeed was the one that told
you guys they were, then maybe a phone call needs to be made back to
them asking for clarification because from the consumers point of view,
it looks like false advertising.
Thanks again,
Damian

And their reply...

Thanks for the email. I'm afraid that the previous email we sent you was a
little misleading. Paramount did not actually advertise these to us as
"special editions." However, as a company policy we consider ANY movie
released with added features a special edition and ANY movie release without
added features a movie only edition. Since both Waynes World films had
multiple added features, we consider them special editions. Since there are
special features listed on the package we do not consider this false
advertising.

So if any of you order from either DVD Planet or Ken Cranes, make sure you do your research first. You may not be ordering what you think you are.

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"They're us....we're them!"
-Damian