It’s always annoying when a DVD of a movie I like gets released in different versions. I’m always trying to figure out what the real differences are. And it doesn’t help that the box text is usually vague or even misleading. Amazon’s the worst - they mix together the reviews from different versions so you never know if the review you’re reading is for the same product that’s for sale.
So is there any sight that does basic side-by-side comparisons of different versions of DVD’s? Something like “The R-rated edition is the 108 minute version that was shown in theatres. The Director’s Cut edition is a 114 minute version that has all the scenes from the R-rated version with four additional scenes edited into it.” or “The general edition has one disc with the movie, a commentary track by the director, and four promotional trailers. The deluxe edition has the same disc with a second disc containing four screen tests, six out take scenes, a two minute blooper reel, a 45 minute documentary on the making of the movie, and a 20 minute documentary on the premiere.”
Well, you get some of this on the DVD details page at IMDB. Look up, for example, the movie Fight Club, which was released a couple of times on DVD with various features.
Curse you Walloon and your link to DVD Savant. And curse them for their link to Deep Discount DVD and talk of a one week sale therein. And curse Deep Discount DVD for holding this sale (20% off all DVDs) and forcing me to spend an ungodly amount of money buying movies from them. Curse you all, I say.
So far, DVD Talk is the only site that seems to be coming close to what I’m looking for. The other sites have general reviews of DVDs but little or no information about the differences between different editions of the same DVD.
What I do when I find a possible site is I test it by seeing if it can tell me things I already know. Like what the differences are between the 1998 Criterion DVD of This is Spinal Tap and the 2000 Special Edition DVD of This is Spinal Tap. Or whether The Incredible Adventures of Wallace and Gromit, Wallace & Gromit: The First Three Adventures and Wallace & Gromit in Three Amazing Adventures has the most bonus features. Or the fact that the one disc version of Underworld has a different commentary track than the two disc version of Underworld. Or the difference in running times between the 1998 Stripes DVD and the 2005 Stripes DVD.
I probably should’ve mentioned this is my previous post, but that site I posted lists any cuts made to the film, at the bottom of every film page. Also recommends the best version.
It’s an excellent site and I’m surprised no one here has mentioned it yet. DVD aficionados need to bookmark it, especially if you like buying DVDs of all region codes.
While it’s not a website, DVD Profiler is a good program. You can’t easily compare versions side-by-side, but if it’s been released and a user bought it then it’s probably in the database somewhere. (It’s generally user-edited much like a Wiki.) Though you might want to put a parental control on it if needed to block all the pornography in the database.
That’s the one. If you’re looking at or for a certain version of a DVD, however, you can pull whatever data has been entered by searching. This works really well if you have a UPC you can input. But there are better resources out there if you just want an overall picture.
