What was the first DVD you bought?
My first was “It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World” which I bought in 2001. After buying it and coming home though I immediately went back out and bought “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.”
Good topic. We got a DVD player as a Christmas gift several years ago, along with maybe six or so discs. The gift discs were well chosen enough and I have rewatched all of them at least once each.
As for buying DVD’s, I can’t remember which of these was the first:
Blade Runner – Director’s Cut
Doctor Zhivago
The Godfather Collection
Sharky’s Machine
It wasn’t long after Christmas that year that we got into Netflix, but since then we haven’t bought very many.
Mine was Jurassic Park, purchased to check out the whiz bang 5.1 surround sound that accompanied our DVD player.
I immediately went to the T-rex in the rain scene. The cat was terrified she was going to be eaten by a Very Big Thing. Just crouched in the middle of the living room and quivered, because the Very Big Thing was all around her! I spent about 10 minutes going from one chapter to another, squealing to my husband, “Look! It fast forwards like, instantly!” 
We were relatively early adopters of DVD, but that’s only because I won a player via an online contest (hey, it actually does happen once in awhile!).
Along with the player, we got a five-pack of movies. The only two of those I can remember off the top of my head were The Mask and Fools Rush In.
As for which DVD was the first one I bought, that’s a lot harder of a question. I can’t quite remember, but it was probably either Jurassic Park or Clerks.
I picked up The Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” Collector’s Series 2-disc edition, and a documentary on “The Making Of Aja”, with Donald Fagen and Walter Becker of Steely Dan, on the way to the cashier when we bought our player.
I think that next, I bought “Oklahoma!” and “Carousel” in widescreen. Those were my mom’s favorite movies, and I’ve been seeing them since I was a little kid (in pan-and-scan).
Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Theatrical Edition) and Monsters, Inc. in late 2002. I actually bought the dvds before I bought the player (I bought that a week later).
Would you mind giving a critique/review of the Aja disc? I haven’t seen it around and am mildly interested in such a thing. Aja is one of my favorite albums.
Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Theatrical Edition). Same as DataZak, it was bought before I had a machine to play it on.
The Quiet Man…looooooooove that movie!!!
Oh, it’s fascinating! The two of them sit in a recording studio control room and play back the master tapes, often highlighting things on the tracks that went unused, or singling out Michael McDonald’s multitracked harmonies on “Peg” and all kinds of really cool stuff.
During the program, some of the musicians who played on the album are interviewed: drummer Rick Marotta, guitarists Larry Carlton, Dean Parks and Denny Dias, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, bassist Chuck Rainey, and drummer Bernard Purdie, as well as engineer Roger Nichols and producer Gary Katz.
At the end, two of the album’s songs are recreated live-in-studio by some of these players, including Rainey and Purdie. If you can find it, I urge you to pick it up!
Thanks. I’ll see if Netflix has it.
I think my first DVD order–I forget from where–consisted of A Clockwork Orange and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. The next order, which still exists on my Amazon account records, was The Doors, Ken Russell’s Mahler, and Mystery Train. This was in mid-2000, when I got my PowerBook, which was the first DVD-capable device I owned (I’m still using it).
My first DVD purchase was 2001: a Space Odyssey, specifically because I figured that would be a good test of the format’s capabilities. It looked and sounded a lot better than VHS, you bet.
DVD-ROM drive for… Zork Grand Inquisitor? “I AM THE BOSS OF YOU!”
First movie seen? Cowboy Bebop, Vol 1. Gorgeous sound and “Oh. I can switch from sub to dub… and not buy two copies? I can have dub and subtitles at once, to see the different interpretations? Four… four episodes on one disc?”
“The Green Mile”. But we didn’t buy it; it was a gift.
I couldn’t remember but I figured it must have been bought at Amazon so I checked my account page. What a trip down memory lane, and no wonder I’m broke.
My first was Short 5 - Diversity because it included a film of The Job, a Joe Lansdale story, not because I’m a Vin Diesel fan.
Were the other three ones Analyze This, Get Shorty, and an Eagles Concert? When I bought my DVD player there was a promotional offer where you got five free DVD’s and it was these five.
The first DVD I bought (that same day) was Mr Vampire, a Chinese vampire movie I’d been looking for.
Umm… back when I’d really sorted out the DVD drive on my first desktop computer, LONG before I had a DVD player hooked up to my television, I went over to the local futureshop and got…
sports night, the complete series box set.
I feel very proud of that one.
Bought my first DVD player in April 1997. Bought Forbidden Planet and Batman (Keaton version).
Sir Rhosis
EDIT: Was anybody ahead of me in embracing the new technology? Anyone get one prior to 4/97?
I purchased Aliens and the original Highlander movie at the same time. Whoever worked on the sound to Highlander did a horrible horrible job. During the quiet scenes I had to turn up the volume real high to hear it and when it turned into an action scene it was way too loud.
Marc