No issue riles up DVD consumers faster -- and with more steam from the ears and invective from the mouth -- than double-dipping. Or triple. And so on.
Multiple-dipping is an odious practice indulged in by Hollywood studios through their home entertainment arms. The offenders debut a movie with little or nothing on the bonus menu.
Then, perhaps within a scandalously short time, the same movie is re-released on DVD. This time in a special or collector's edition or director's cut or unrated naughty T&A version or some other supposedly super-duper, "ya-gotta-buy-this-one" release.
As a result, we are annoyed, pissed-off and otherwise agitated. With good reason, assuming we already bought the original.
All studios do it. It just so happens that I am picking on Warners Home Entertainment this week for Flags of Our Fathers. It is just an example. There are dozens from Warners' competitors. They are all guilty.
But Clint Eastwood's Flags, the so-so section of his two-film opus on the World War II battle of Iwo Jima, first arrived on DVD in February. The movie is mediocre. The DVD was worse. It's extras cupboard was bare.
This week, however, Flags is back. This time, it is done up right in a two-disc Special Edition. The film isn't any better -- or worse. But the context for Eastwood's monumental effort to tell the history of Iwo Jima is now clear.
The timing this week, of course, is obvious. At the same time, Letters from Iwo Jima -- the superior film as the Oscar nominee -- made its DVD debut. It is out in a two-disc Special Edition, which also provides historical, social and cinematic context.
Then there is a marvellous alternative: The five-disc box set, The Battle for Iwo Jima: Commemorative Collector's Edition. It has both new special editions plus a bonus fifth disc, Heroes of Iwo Jima, with the 100-minute, 2001 documentary hosted by Gene Hackman.
Here's the deal, with these titles and every other. The bare-bones edition of Flags should not have been released in February if a proper pumped-up edition was coming three months later. Especially if fans and historians were going to have the option of getting everything in a superb five-disc box set.
I have rules to propose, not that the studios will listen to one critic.
One: No double-dipping until at least one full year has passed.
Two: The studios should announce plans to double or triple-dip in advance so we know what is coming before buying.
Three: There should be a buy-back or trade-in option with customers getting a rebate (at least five bucks) for bringing back the original and buying the new one.
Let me know what you, Sun Media readers, have to say about it. E-mail me your stories. Studios might listen to real people -- the consumers.
