Spot The Wrongness

[Andrew]

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=66896&skin=102

The rule is that with each post you’re only allowed to identify one wrongness.

I could start with the fact that the ‘main feature’ seems to have been misidentified, though I’m going to let them off as it IS kinda confusing.

So: “Doug Grant and Rob Naylor”…?

[Jo]

Red Dwarf opens with Lister being placed in suspended animation for numerous offences against the rest of the crew, notably Arnold Rimmer. Whilst in stasis, an on-board leak of radioactive Cadmium-2 kills everyone on Red Dwarf. Millions of years pass and Lister remains in suspended animation.

Just in case you forget the next paragraph starts…

Series 1 of Red Dwarf begins with Lister being put into suspended animation and the radiation leak killing the crew. Set free after three million years, Lister finds himself with Rimmer once again…and, not quite counting the Cat, no one else.

As I’m only allowed one I won’t pick up on the error in the first quote.
GAH!

[Dave]

“what we have is a reasonably presented set of twelve episodes”

Twelve!

[Jonathan Capps]

The biggest problem I have with that interview is the massive length he goes to to recap the series. It’s just hideously boring and makes the whole review far too bloated.

[Seb Patrick]

LISTING SPECIAL FEATURES IS NOT THE SAME AS REVIEWING THEM.

Someone else post, quick, I’ve got loads more.

[Jonathan Capps]

I bet he has a stupid face!

[Andrew]

“But The Beginning only takes the making of Red Dwarf only so far” –

Well, to the end of Series I, actually, which is pretty much where a Series I doc SHOULD end…

– “which takes It’s Cold Outside (69m55s) to look at how the show got its second series (and more)”

Well, and MADE it, anyway…

[John Hoare]

It makes my review look like… well, I believe “fucking Tolstoy” is the phrase.

[Danny Stephenson]

>The biggest problem I have with that interview is the massive length he goes to to recap the series. It?s just hideously boring and makes the whole review far too bloated.

You’d think he doesn’t even know what he’s talking about, wouldn’t you?

[James]

“Lister is left burning his beloved guitar for heat”

Who’s? Guitar?

It’s sad really, more mistakes than the French stock market.

[Ben Paddon]

That review is about as reliable as a plumber’s estimate.

[Joey TORDFC]

>>That review is about as reliable as a plumber?s estimate.

You mean, as in a plumber always goes over budget?

*Sorry, just in the vein of the other thread ;)

[Ben Paddon]

Arf.

[Seb Patrick]

This one’s me taking a guess, but presumably the whole letterbox issue isn’t a result of the DVD transfer, but of the Remastered episodes themselves? Admittedly I know bog all about aspect ratios and that sort of thing, so I could be completely wrong, but an inordinate amount of time seemed to be spent discussing something that, given how much of a geek Andrew is, I doubt would have been a fault in the DVD production process.

[Steve Harris]

“An ever-dwindling number of fans”

[Andrew]

> This one?s me taking a guess, but presumably the whole letterbox issue isn?t a result of the DVD transfer, but of the Remastered episodes themselves?

Correct. The 14:9, whatever you think of it, is as per source. There never was an anamorphic edition. If you buy Cracker on DVD, say, it has the same issue.

I like this one: “Back at the beginning, Red Dwarf was a decent and sometimes funny sitcom”.

[Anonymous]

“The four episodes are Dad, which was the potential cliffhanger for Series 3”

Errr….surely the first episode of series 3 and the resolution of series 2’s cliffhanger?

[Anonymous]

I do however agree that it was a disappointment to see a non anamorphic widescreen picture in the remastered episodes…so all you really have is a cropped 4:3 picture.

[Andrew]

> I do however agree that it was a disappointment to see a non anamorphic widescreen picture in the remastered episodes?so all you really have is a cropped 4:3 picture.

Well, there were two ways to handle it. One was to present the fullscreen versions, the other was non-anamorphic 14:9. Because we can’t ADD quality to make it anamorphic.

We decided against the fullscreens mostly because we wanted to offer up eps that were as different as possible from what people already owned, that represented the ‘fullest’ remastering. Generally I’m finding that complaints over this revolve around not liking the cropping in the first place. But if we corrected everything in the remastered eps that people didn’t like we’d have…well, the original shows. :-)

[Wayne]

That guy must have been dropped on his head as a baby or something. So many inaccuracies in one article that it almost makes you go crosseyed. Where do they find these numpties? Maybe that article should be subheaded ‘I’ve got an agenda and I’m gonna use it!’

[John Hoare]

It’s that old confusion of DVD reviewers thinking shows shot on video can be treated the same as films – so you often get crap about the quality of the “prints”, the “film stock”, and so on. So they just reckon that it’d be easy to create an anamorphic transfer for Remastered, when it doesn’t work like that at all.

[peas_and_corn]

What’s with all the time he uses “meanwhile…” when he really means “In another episode…”

[Seb Patrick]

You know, I don’t think he’s aware that the episodes have already been released :

“As one who has no particular emotional attachment to Red Dwarf, either in original or remastered flavour, I wasn’t upset either way. Had 2 Entertain included only the former, viewers might have complained at the lack of remastered versions while, in only releasing the latter, there is the suggestion that fans of the original won’t much appreciate the tinkering.”

WELL OF COURSE THEY WOULDN’T HAVE INCLUDED THE NON-REMASTEREDS, YA MOOK.

[Andrew]

“audio effects are often excellent thanks, I suspect, to the BBC’s history with its Radiophonic Workshop”

Yes, I’ve heard of that, too. I guess if it has BBC in the title it must be directly relevant.

[Ben Paddon]

As someone who has often been implicated as a Journalist, I have to say that this review is exceptionally poorly written. I wouldn’t be surprised if it had been penned* by a twelve year-old.

____________________________________________________
* Interesting sidenote: If something is written on a computer, is it then “Keyboarded”?

[John Hoare]

I must say, there’s something wrong with the editorial procedures at DVD Times for that to go out. This goes way beyond disagreements of opinion. It’s factually one of the worst pieces of writing I’ve ever read.

[Ben Paddon]

We should probably register on the DVDTimes forum and link to this thread.

[Andrew]

Bizarrely, there’s already a link at the bottom of their page, tracked from the link at the top of this one.

[John Hoare]

Hmmm. When I just tried to go there again:

Welcome to DVD Times. This is the search engine-friendly version of the site.
It appears this way because your ‘User Agent’ has been identified as a search engine spider.

No I’m not! I’m using Camino on my Mac! It didn’t do that before, either. And besides, if you write your site well enough, you don’t need special search engine pages.

Anyway, yes, the site automatically tracks any links made to it. Very useful, and something I should probably implement here again – G&T used to do it, but in a very limited fashion.

Annoyingly, that Dwarf review is currently linked to on the front page of Chortle, meaning a piss-poor review is getting fairly well read. A lot of people who don’t know about Dwarf might get completely the wrong idea about the release – although I’d hope that the smell of bullshit was pretty strong regardless…

[Ian Symes]

I got that exact same message. What a pile of shit.

[Seb Patrick]

Me three.

[Ian Symes]

Whereas if I get at it from the front page of the website, it works fine. So it’s only a referral from G&T that causes this. Hmm.

[Somebody]

I got it yesterday as well, clicking through from here in Firefox, but not today.

Honestly, I think I prefer the search engine version…

(incidentally, for a “wrongness” – sidebar says 1.78:1 non-ana. It’s actually 1.56:1 non-ana)

[James]

It still works for me.

Some of the comments in reply to the review. Copied.

This DVD set is basically a final collection of extras — everything that didn’t go on the individual series releases. So it’s for serious fans only. It gives you the Remastered versions of the episodes for anyone who wants to see them; 80-minute documentaries for series 1 and 2, because they only got 25-minute docs originally, and the docs got better with each release; and everything else they have in their archives.

Red Dwarf fans hate the Remastered episodes anyway. Always have done. They call it “Re-hamstered” or “Re-masturbated”. The reason is mostly because of all the scenes that were cut to make room for CG ship shots.

14:9 is an annoying aspect ratio. At that time, the BBC were using 14:9 for analogue broadcasts, presumably to ease people into widescreen. I think Japan was embracing 14:9 also, which was the main territory they were sprucing Red Dwarf up for. The real bitch of it, however, is that uncropped (but still filmized) Remastered episodes have aired on UK Gold. So they didn’t have to give us 14:9 crops.

I’d give a score of 10 for the “Extras”, personally, since it’s an entire boxset of extras. It’s amazing how much work they have put into these Red Dwarf releases, when, like you say, the fanbase is so small now.

[Dave]

>the fanbase is so small now

Are we the last living souls?

[Author]

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