I bought bodysnatcher

[peas_and_corn]

OK, I haven’t watched all the stuff yet. My only complaint is the packaging- why are the DVDs laid on top of each other like that? I expected something like the Scrubs DVDs. However, if that’s the only thing that I don’t like about a DVD with that much content, that’s pretty good. Loving the text tracks :)

Topic

[Phil]

I’ll get this eventually. Every time I think to pick it up, my wallet gets distracted by something else.

[James]

Same as the Series VII DVD then? Keeping cost down of an expensive clam case (at the time of production) and not being passed on to the customer I would say for the stacking. How much did you pay for it?

[Somebody]

I prefer stacking to the things that rattle around inside, myself.

*Got it for ?18.50 off a “PlayTrader” at Play.com a few weeks back, and watched the extras, including commentaries – but not the text track beyond The End, nor the remaining episodes (incidentally, what pea-brained goit decided that making it impossible to have the text-tracks on WITH the commentaries was a good idea?!). Feels he paid too much having seen it.*

[peas_and_corn]

I got the DVD for quite cheap, really. Most stores were selling it at around $70, so when I saw it for $62 I was “what the hell”. When it scanned, it came up $52, which made me quite happy :)

I’m not sure how the UK series 7 DVD was laid out, but the Australian version had that plastic thing in the middle so they were all seperate. The Bodysnatcher case has two on the left side and two on the right, with the DVDs overlapping each other.

[Phil]

>(incidentally, what pea-brained goit decided that making it impossible to have the text-tracks on WITH the commentaries was a good idea?!)

Is this true? It doesn’t sound likely to me unless the commentaries are laid over a separate video track than the subtitles are, which I really doubt.

You may not be able to set them both to come on at the same time in the menus, but try setting the commentary to on and then just cycling through your subtitles with the subtitle button on your remote when the episode begins.

If THAT doesn’t work–or if you’ve tried that already–then yeah, I agree, that pretty much stinks.

[Zombie Jim Undead]

Yep, it is correct – you either have subtitles or commentary, not both. Shame.

[John Hoare]

Yes, it is true – and you can’t select individual episodes to play with them, either – you start from the beginning and have to skip through the chapters if you want to play them on later episodes…

[Zombie Jim Undead]

..which is even more annoying.

[Phil]

>you either have subtitles or commentary, not both.

B-but that’s…AWFUL! It seems like it would have been more effort to author the disc that way–unless I’m completely ill-informed here. (Which is probably the case.) What’s the point?

>and you can?t select individual episodes to play with them, either

Yeah, I remember that from the review, too. That’s annoying even just sitting here reading about it.

[Andrew]

Just to apply some perspective – it’s not great, and it’s an oversight caused entirely by the time crisis that hit the production towards the end (you may recall the delay to the release). Nobody requested the elements be handled this way – it was not ‘a decision’, and I suspect part of an authoring template that never got changed – but with minimal time and money, something always seems to slip though.

But purchase-ruiningly “AWFUL”…?

It takes as long to skip the chapters ahead as it does to go off to the episode/scene selection menu, so that one’s not hard to cope with. (I can’t be the only one that goes through movies this way to find where I left off, rather than menu-naving and trying to figure out what chapter title matches what I remember.)

The text track skipping is a pain. But only two episodes have commentaries in each series, so it’s not like you’re watching the entire series through three times. Plus, when half many changes are to the audio, you wouldn’t hear what the track was referencing if you had the commentary on…

So yeah, not great. But not the end of the world either.

> Feels he paid too much having seen it.

Despite being out of the regular Dwarf game, I gotta ask – you paid less than 20 quid, got all the docs, commentaries and lost/archive material that was listed, plus the three series of the show. What else were you expecting, and how was it not value for money at that price?

[TheLeen]

> (I can?t be the only one that goes through movies this way to find where I left off, rather than menu-naving and trying to figure out what chapter title matches what I remember.)

I do that sometimes to avoid spoilers. If it’s something I haven’t watched before, I don’t want any chapter titles or thumbnails.

[Zombie Jim Undead]

Though selecting episodes from a main menu is MUCH faster than skipping through previous episodes to get to them. Especially anything past episode 2 or 3.

Unless it’s the earlier Dwarf DVDs with the ridiculously lengthy menu animations.

I still love them, mind. ;)

[Phil]

>But purchase-ruiningly ?AWFUL???

I never said purchase ruining, or even suggested it! I intend to buy it, as I mentioned above.

[Andrew]

Which was why only ‘awful’ was in quotes. (“Irritating” would have been a more in-perspective word, I guess is what I’m saying.)

[Phil]

Ah, so that’s what you were gay-sexingly “saying.”

Attaching irrelevant adjectives to one-word quotations is fun! :-)

[Dave]

Attaching irrelevant adjectives to one-word quotations is felch-smearingly “fun”

[Phil]

Dave, you can smear my felch annnnytime.

[Nakrophile]

I hate that style of packaging, but everything else is a winner.

[peas_and_corn]

Well, it’s the only problem I have with the set, which is brilliant otherwise.

The End: The Original Assembly is really interesting, especially since the performances just look so… awquard. There’s heaps of gaps between lines, like the actors aren’t quite sure of themselves (which I can understand considering that one of them doubted that the show was even funny, and the audience that was there…)

[Danny Stephenson]

So would I be right in assuming that if they hadn’t had the space for a 7th episode to go back and re-shoot. That episode on The Original Assembly would have been the final version?

[Andrew]

> So would I be right in assuming that if they hadn?t had the space for a 7th episode to go back and re-shoot. That episode on The Original Assembly would have been the final version?

Hard to say. More or less, I suppose, though no doubt Rob and Doug would have fought to reshoot PARTS, at least, during the regular shooting schedule. And Paul Jackson certainly knew how important the opening show was.

One thing: We’ve never been able to track down the The End reshoot tapes in full, which is probably my biggest Bodysnatcher disappointment. I have a massive suspicion that the funeral scene was reshot at some point, and then excised anyway. (I base this on the one funeral still taken on-set, which shows Rimmer in a different, darker outfit to that of the scene we’ve recovered. Could just be a rehearsal, but I doubt it – making the scene darker was certainly on the writers’ minds.)

[Author]

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