The Big Red One

[Anonymous]

DVDAnswers has just posted the the artwork and general specs. Nice cover too. May looks like its Sam Fuller month.

[BWilson]

The reconstructions is excellent, see my comments here.

[Floyd]

Looking forward to this to be sure. Unfortunately the bad news would be since Schickel head up the effort for the restoration he will be nice enough to supply a droning commentary.

[manicsounds]

review of the Australian DVD, probably identical to the R1

[Rufus T. Firefly]

and another

[devlinnn]

This is a stunning set. Just finished catching the documentary on the making of the film and reconstruction where many a story on Fuller and his working methods is told by the cast. But wait to you catch his daughter! Dressed in army gear, chomping on a fat cigar, she growls and spits about her father and the work with rightful pride. The great man himself would be pleased.

[david hare]

I heard last night the ever hopeless Warners Australia are pulling this disc from the shelves having inadvertently sent it out prior to a scheduled theatrical run through Reading cinemas in Sydney (and possibly Melbourne.) There are still copies ($25) at JB Parramatta (here we go again - thanks Zarah!) but city stores are now denuded.

[BWilson]

Watched the R1 disc last night. There is one MASSIVE dissapointment. It appears that the deleated scenes and alternate takes on disc two are presented only with commentary, so you can't hear the dialogue. This was clearly a mistake. I hope they recall this or remedy it somehow. For years people have been waiting for this, WB uncovers the material, they transfer it to DVD, and then two ass holes talk over all the dialogue. WTF!

[hearthesilence]

Have you checked the menu? Is there an option laid out for commentary and regular audio, because if there is, maybe it's a manufacturing error (i.e. expect replacement discs)?

[david hare]

I agree I think the enforced commentary audio on the deleted scenes sucks! (titanic egos involved here.)

For a very detailed discussion of this look here.

[BWilson]

Have you checked the menu? Is there an option laid out for commentary and regular audio, because if there is, maybe it's a manufacturing error (i.e. expect replacement discs)?

There is no option given. It's commentary only. BIG MISTAKE. People have waited 25 years to see this and they fucked it up.

[headacheboy]

I must say I appreciate the heads up. I had it in my hand and for whatever reason I decided not to purchase it. Now that I've read this I am pleased to have saved $20 that can be given to Criterion instead...

[oldsheperd]

I would still recommend buying this. The extra forty minutes flush out the stroy much more and the two docs are great. Oh well, the commentary on deleted scenes can't be turned off, but if these scenes were crucial to the film I imagine they would've been included in the shooting script and the reconstruction. A minor flaw.

[BWilson]

I would still recommend buying this. The extra forty minutes flush out the stroy much more and the two docs are great. Oh well, the commentary on deleted scenes can't be turned off, but if these scenes were crucial to the film I imagine they would've been included in the shooting script and the reconstruction. A minor flaw.

Well if you don't care about it that's fine, but I've been waiting a long time to see the "grandmother under the tank" scene and they fucked it up. If you're fine with it that's great, but that doesn't make it OK. For those of us who do care, this is a big deal. I'd back you up if it were a title you cared about.

[oldsheperd]

BWilson, I'm not personally attacking you. I'm just saying that yeah it does suck but the other extras are definitely worth buying this set. It's cool man. It's your world I'm just living heree.

[DrewReiber]

Guys, these deleted scenes have no audio. When they found the footage used to restore the film, they found a bunch of material where no audio tracks could be found to accompany it. I don't know if they explain this on the disc or in the commentary, but this was explained when the film was initially restored. If you want to see it without the commentary, you can just turn the sound off, but that's as good as it's ever going to get. That audio is lost forever.

[david hare]

Drew I'm not sure that's completely correct - some of the scenes had tracks or stems (and I thought some were in the original release print -) anyway I'll check and get back.

[Narshty]

Yeah, the grandmother scene definitely has the original audio that you can faintly hear under the commentary. It's a shame, I know.

[tryavna]

I know I'm a bit late to this discussion, but I was pretty unhappy about the way Warner handled disc 2 as well. Most of those "Alternate Scenes" do indeed possess some, if not all, their original audio. As Narshty, points out, the grandmother scene does. You can tell there's partial audio (but only partial) for the alternate German infiltrator scene during the Bulge. And some of the short clips they left out (where the insane guy talks directly into the camera, the first conversation about the palm trees, etc.) have all their audio. I feel like this is just a screw-up on Warners' part, and they really ought to think about replacement discs. It's one of the few times I've been sorry I've bought a Warner disc.

[DrewReiber]

Sorry, my mistake. Shickel said he was going to place the remaining bits that were still missing their audio tracks as seperate special features, but I guess something far different is going on. Scary.

[Donald Trampoline]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I just watched this bonus disc and was flabbergasted that there was only forced commentary on the deleted scenes and "anatomy of a scene" features. Totally ridiculous.

The scene audio is not missing. It is clearly there. You can hear it in the extremely brief sections when the two commentators are not talking and you can clearly discern scene audio underneath all the commentating. They had even taken the time to ADR Lee Marvin's missing lines with a voiceover actor in one of these scenes, and you can hear that under the commentators' voices. These were scenes that they worked on and would have added to the reconstructed cut, but just could not find a way to fit in.

I'm surprised more discussion was not had here, as this is a very significant DVD release and a very interesting experiment in reconstructing a film. I'm also surprised to come here and see the thread ending here with no resolution to the problem. (I just rented the DVD from Netflix, so at least I didn't pay for this faulty disc. But I expect I got a fairly recent copy.) So no one's been able to bang on Warner's door or contact Shickel and get this resolved?!? I expect more from this rabble-rousing forum!!

[BWilson]

I agree it's a very big mistake, that has bugged me for a long time. If this happened on the DVD for Bad Boys 2 there would be enough user complaints to get a recall, but not for this title which is comparatively obscure.

[der_Artur]

So no one's been able to bang on Warner's door or contact Shickel and get this resolved?!?

If anyone can do so, please do so!

[FrauBlucher]

The Big Red One pre-order

[Gregory]

I guess they'll probably drop some special features from the 2-disc DVD edition, which had the 162-minute reconstructed cut, commentary, and over 3 hours of extras.