Well, now look at that. It’s official. Fox has finally admitted it. Avatar is being released on Blu-ray and DVD on Earth Day, April 22nd, just like writer/director James Cameron said it would. Just like every media outlet under the sun was reporting. Sigh…I hate these PR games. Why can’t we all just get along?
So, you’re all set to hit up Amazon and pre-order yourself a copy, right? Not so fast, pilgrim! You haven’t heard the details of this release yet. Prepare to be unimpressed, folks. Avatar will hit Blu-ray in a “Superbit” style, movie-only edition, where, Fox claims, it has left out all the gratuitous nonsense (read: trailers, animated menus and special features) in favour of maxing out the video and audio bandwidth to deliver the ultimate high-def presentation of the film. A more souped-up, multi-disc edition with an extended cut of the film and hours of extras will follow in November with a third dip, this time in 3D, expected in 2011.
Now, you might be thinking to yourself that you can justify the purchase of a couple of versions of the film back-to-back if they’re different enough. Look at the Watchmen sets! Look at Lord of the Rings! There’s enough of a difference between the standard and extended editions of those releases to warrant multiple purchases, right? Maybe. I dunno. But I, for one, am going to have difficulty swallowing the MSRP $39.99 price tag pill for the movie-only Avatar Blu-ray whose sole special feature is the inclusion of a copy of the film on DVD (the DVD on its own is MSRP $29.98, so maybe this isn’t such a bad deal after all!)
I’m anxious to see how much of the 50 gigabytes on the Blu-ray disc is taken up by the film in this ultimate, movie-only presentation of Avatar. If it’s less that 80% of capacity I think there will be a lot of fans crying foul. You don’t need 10gbs to hold a commentary track!
UPDATE: I forgot to mention that if you live in the UK you’ll have the option of purchasing the limited edition “Steelbook” release of Avatar, which comes packaged with 208-page Activist Survival Guide and four lenticular artcards. Yeesh.
Via: The LA Times
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