Is it me, or has Warner Bros. vastly improved lately?

[theta]

I know, it's weird. The proponents of the loathed snapper, doing a good job on the actual shiny discs themselves? Sounds weird but at least as far as their back catalogue goes, lately they're really going above and beyond the call of duty.

Take "Gaslight." Okay, sorta well-known but not particularly critically praised or a film from the 40s that you MUST see. Has it's fans.

The disc has the 1940 version, the 1944 version, a making-of, an archival newsreel and the trailer for the '44 version. That's really good for fifteen bucks, especially considering how obscure the title is.

Then there's the 1932 "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", a title that was voted to be released. They could easily have just transferred it onto a disc and have done with it.
Instead, they restored the film as completely as possible. The extras include the '42 version with Spencer Tracy, a commentary by a film historian on the '32 version, and a Looney Tunes short (admittedly a crappy one, but still...)

Or "A Night At the Opera." The extras on that include a commentary, vintage shorts, a half-hour making-of, a vintage TV clip, and the movie looks the best it has in years.


I really think Warners has turned themselves around, especially when it comes to their back catalogue. Your thoughts?

[Chunkblower]

Despite the whole snapper thing, I've always felt Warner was one of the best studios with regards to DVDs. They really pushed the format when it started, and helped push it further once it got going (L.A. Confidential and Contact are still good discs today, but they were miles ahead of what other studios were doing at the time). Their two-disc digipak series are all essential releases worth owning; well-put together with good features for a good price. Even when they release a title barebones, the transfer and sound are usually good, which is all you really need at the end of the day. They also tend to have lower price points on their DVDs, especially on back catalogue releases which means more bang for the buck. Sure, they've made a few blunders (their featureless, full-frame, no-fill line for one- but then again, how many customers are clamouring for a widescreen "Doc Hollywood"?) but far fewer than some other studios have. I think it's easy to say Warner had fallen to the wayside when other studios who previously produced crap have caught up. I own more Warner releases than any other company, so that in itself says something to me.

[BubbleGumUK]

I agree totally with Chunkblower.

Who can really blame WB for flooding the eary market with bare bones issues - they were trying to launch a new, untested, unproven format - they just needed to get stuff out there!

Once things were up and running, I think WB was among the first studios to start offering extras: even early titles had 5.1 remixes and the trailer - more than some other studios do now!

That they're going back is issuing catalog titles again shouldn't be seen as aggressive marketing a double-dipping opportunities to grab our bucks - they had a job to do in 1997 and they did it well. Now they get to do it properly.

They've always been a studio that puts care into their titles, even if the snappers continue and we don't get DTS. The new 2-disc collections are second to none in terms of what we get on them and the restorations on the movies themselves.

What I can't atually believe is how many they really get throguh a year. Takes time to produce goods as great as these, yet they manage to churn them out and make a fantastic job of it every time!

So, yeah, I think WB has always been improving, since day one.