That New Dwarf DVD Boxset Fingy News Posted by John Hoare on 9th October 2008, 18:04 Announced nearly two weeks ago. And that’s an awful long time for us not to have done a news story on a new Dwarf DVD release – despite the talk in the forums. What’s up? One answer, as usual, is that I’m a lazy bastard – but the other is that I just don’t find it that exciting. All eight series, vanilla release, in one box? Think: my initial reaction to Just The Shows, x100. Oh, sure, the artwork is gorgeous, with the black cover and red foil logo I can imagine being hugely striking – possibly more striking than any other DVD cover I own. And the inside graphics look great. But as much as I’m a packaging freak, I can’t bring myself to buy the release just for that. So, what about the casual viewers? The thing is, they’ve already had their release – the two Just The Shows volumes. Now, certainly, I’d rather own this than Just The Shows, if only for the convenience of having one box, but… y’know, Just The Shows is already out there! (A release that, in the end, I did come round to – it served an audience.) The answer, of course, lies in big letters on the cover – the word “anniversary”. This is clearly intended for people who don’t own any of the current DVDs, but have seen Dwarf is coming back, and want to catch up. Which is great, of course – and with the new visitors to this site, and the masses of coverage on the net (albeit mainly repeating what’s already been announced with “great!” or “not great!” attached to the end), there’s clearly renewed interest in the show. But with the Dwarf DVDs being some of the best selling BBC comedy DVDs ever, how many of these people don’t already own the episodes in some form? I don’t have an answer to that – I’m just putting the question out there. (Incidentally, anyone who thinks this has been released purely to screw the fans into buying the episodes one more time should remember that Dwarf fandom really isn’t in good shape at the moment. There aren’t enough people who would buy a DVD purely for collectors reasons to justify such a release. It was the same with Just The Shows, and it’s the same now.) In the end, though, I’m left cold. Selling the episodes once? Great. Selling the episodes twice? Fine. Selling the episodes three times? Blah. The market supports what the market supports, of course, and this is clearly being targeted at a different audience than the previous two releases – but I can’t help but wish that 2|entertain had found something different to release instead. Something that hasn’t already been released. New people to the franchise already have a choice of two different releases that are already out there, on shop shelves, RIGHT NOW. Do they really need a third? November 10th is the date, people. Buy it… or don’t.
>Selling the episodes once? Great. Selling the episodes twice? Fine. Selling the episodes three times? Blah. Four times for Series 1-III. Once = Double-Disc Special Editions Twice = Just the Shows Thrice = The Bodysnatcher Collection (Remastered, but it still counts) Fourth = All the Shows. I’m sure this will find a decent Christmas market. Don’t like the logo though. Why Red? Does it help people relax?
I count the Remastered series as being different. Put it like this – if they’d *just* released that, I wouldn’t be happy, and would be demanding the originals. If it’s different enough that I wouldn’t be satisfied with only them being released, then they’re different enough that I don’t count them as a re-release. And I bloody love the red foil logo. I can just imagine it looking beautiful against the black background. Can’t wait to see it, actually! But agreed about the Christmas market thing – I’d forgotten about that, and it does give the release a bit more context. I’d be intrigued to see how many it sells, though. It’s just faintly frustrating when there’s so many other things to be released from the BBC archive.
> Why Red? Does it help people relax? Avoiding the obvious comment, I really like the idea of using a solid colour (they did the same on the Just the Shows boxes, after all) as it works well against a solid background. It’s basically everything a 20th Anniversary boxset cover should be; clean, iconic, simple and striking. > Once = Double-Disc Special Editions Twice = Just the Shows Thrice = The Bodysnatcher Collection (Remastered, but it still counts) Fourth = All the Shows. The thing is, the first three releases are not contentious in the slightest. Each of them released for a specific purpose and not just for quick bucks (hell, they even double dipped in a way that didn’t screw the fanbase.) You can’t really argue the same for this boxset, though.
>I count the Remastered series as being different. I had a feeling. I’m sure it was bought by casuals simply because a)It was a new release, and b)It was good value. Even if, c) The Remastereds deserved to buried in a landfill site with the Atari ET game. >Avoiding the obvious comment, I really like the idea of using a solid colour (they did the same on the Just the Shows boxes, after all) as it works well against a solid background. I’d argue that almost anything looks good against a black background and the traditional Red Dwarf logo usually ends up against one. I’m sure the red foil looks perfectly fine in the flesh, but viewed on an online store (where I do the vast majority of DVD/BD purchasing) I don’t really get the effect. It’s just a bit…dull. >It?s basically everything a 20th Anniversary boxset cover should be; clean, iconic, simple and striking. I wouldn’t disagree with any of these intentions. I’d just rather they celebrated the anniversary by using the traditional colours.
> The Remastereds deserved to buried in a landfill site with the Atari ET game. To summarise the obvious position: Blah blah…”same scripts and performances”…blah blah…”only suffer in comparison”…blah blah…”still 18 episodes of remarkable SF comedy”…
What I don’t get is why its’ not a boxset of the DVDs as-released-individually, including the extras (I include the Bodysnatcher disc from TBS in this for the RDI & II documentaries, swapping out Re-Dwarf for some of the non-episodic stuff from the other discs, perhaps). Surely there’d be more of a market for that than for this after Just the Shows. *remembers the time he managed to talk someone into getting the Dwarf DVDs… only after I pointed out that they were available as a set (he was Canadian, and so could get the “eight DVDs in a box” set).*
What I don?t get is why its? not a boxset of the DVDs as-released-individually, including the extras (I include the Bodysnatcher disc from TBS in this for the RDI & II documentaries, swapping out Re-Dwarf for some of the non-episodic stuff from the other discs, perhaps). Surely there?d be more of a market for that than for this after Just the Shows. Oooh, I meant to mention this as well! Still, people are filling in the gaps in my shoddy reporting, so that’s good. And: yes. It would have made a lot more sense. Although you’d then get whinging from people who really wanted the box. As though owning the DVDs for years before the boxset was released wouldn’t be enough!
>To summarise the obvious position: Blah blah??same scripts and performances??blah blah??only suffer in comparison??blah blah??still 18 episodes of remarkable SF comedy?? Yadda yadda yadda…”different Holly performance that even Doug wasn’t happy with, genuinely funny bits from performances cut out”…waffle waffle…”only suffer in comparison because it’s a piece of turd that even the PTB admit was a mistake”…blah blah …”18 episodes of remarkable SF comedy that should have been left alone” Black card, end of conversation.
Maybe it’s for people who bought both Just the Shows releases but didn’t like the boxes they came in.
My my, who’s a bit of a Moaning Michael tonight? This release was inevitable and IMO a lot better than just slapping the two Just The Shows boxes together which WOULD have been lazy.
Calling it an "Anniversary Edition" though… Now, strictly speaking, it’s accurate (of course, strictly speaking you could toss out an "Anniversary Edition" a year) – but "Anniversary Edition"s and synonyms thereof tend to mean special-whiz-bang-gee-golly-gosh editions. Not vanilla.
I had blue sherbert ice cream the other day at the cinema. It was lovely but made my tongue look like it had been licking a smurf.
That’s odd; I was licking a smurf the other day and it made my tongue look like I had been eating blue sherbert ice cream.
I guess it’s good that there is a release out there for xmas. It keeps ‘Red Dwarf’ as a brand on the street and it’s all about that really isn’t it? Making sure the name is in people’s heads so when the new shows arrive on Dave we get a bigger audience and the Dave audience that hasn’t allready done so can go out and buy the shows. The one thing we seem to be discovering about dwarf is that the audience keeps renewing itself. So even if it’s the same product. It’s the same old product in a shiny new and appealing wrapper.
I might buy it in a few years if I can’t think of anything else and it’s gone down a lot in price. It is nice, afterall. And I do like my boxsets.
It keeps Red Dwarf on the shelves, it’s visual advertising and it keeps people interested in Red Dwarf, people pay millions for that type of advertising! I hope lots of new people buy it, enjoy it, and then get excited over the new Specials.
I suppose it’s just got to the point where being an archive telly fan has overtaken being a Red Dwarf fan. I’m happy that Dwarf is being kept in the public eye. But I’d be happier to see something else that hasn’t already had two releases happen instead. Besides, Dwarf DVDs ARE still on the shelves of pretty much every DVD stockists I go in!
Haven’t bothered with this set yet because, let’s face it, we’ve already got all the shows. Yes, it looks nice, but it’s just one of things I’ll get round to getting. However, I was in HMV yesterday, and actually saw it for the first time, and after seeing the size of it…well, I’m impressed now.
