Your recommendations, please, as to which DVD of Time Bandits I should purchase to show the kids. Clearly I have failed as a parent, since they (ages 8, 12, 13, 15) have never seen this classic movie, but I hope to make up for that now.
The darned thing isn’t available on any of the real-time-streaming services we subscribe to these days, so I’m gonna buy it and have it for the grand-kids when they’re ready.
Apparently there are at least 3 editions:
Image Entertainment 2011
Criterion 1999
Anchor Bay 2004
I’m not looking for Blu-Ray or any of that fancy stuff–we, as a family, are only slowly moving into the 21st Century, technologically speaking.
I have the Anchor Bay version. It’s a good enough transfer, but the extras are pretty much non-existent - just the theatrical trailer, and some cast bios. If you don’t care about the extras, this one is fine.
The Anchor Bay release is anamorphic, while the Criterion release is not. That certainly gives the edge to Anchor Bay. Checkout DVDBeaver for a comparison of the different versions.
ETA: Except that they really are all pretty crappy releases (even the Blu-rays) compared to the 2013 Arrow Blu-ray release. The new Blu-ray greatly color-corrects the image, removes scratches and dirt, stabilizes jitter, and fixes many little glitches. It is worth getting.
Yes, Criterion releases are superior to all others unless they are old enough to be non-anamorphic, meaning they show a “postage stamp” image on modern TVs. 1999 is too old. I have a limited number of classics with very good transfers and so forth that I will probably replace because I am tired of choosing between a small image and a zoomed, grainy one.
I got a DVD of it because Amazon reviews said that the Blu-Rays were actually worse quality.
I have the Anchor Bay Special Edition version. It says Divimax Series on the front. That means it uses the maximum bitrate it can, which means the best picture quality for DVD. And they aren’t kidding; The video quality is great (audio quality isn’t half bad either.)