Your fav SPECIAL EDITION DVD and why?
 

Let's keep the "filmmaking" topic going - I'm learning a lot!

Favorite SPECIAL EDITION DVD (in no order):

Se7en:
- Awesome transfer! If you can - buy the Special Edition of this DVD. It's got some great artwork and extras. The commentary is great and their are some great extras for filmmakers.

Fight Club
- Same as the previous, but this one has all kinds of little trinkets in it. If you really want to have some fun - stop the DVD frame by frame and see the flashes of Pitt. It's neat.

Black Hawk Down:
- Ridley, that guy has a great sense of color. I think the film is an awesome depiction of what it was like. It's great that there are no stupid love stories or lame subplots. He said, "I am making the film like this, so get out of my way."

JFK
- Oliver Stone gives great commentaries, so if you want to be entertained for like 4 hours...watch the movie and then listen to him. Also, the latest SP to come out has an extra documentry that is really cool. The editing on JFK is THE best editing/storytelling I've ever see to this day.

Indiana Jones Trilogy:
- It's about time we get a real classic remastered! I'm dying to see the HD version of this that'll come in in 20 years!! It takes them forever to get this stuff out, so hopefully that won't happen. But, this DVD set would be my favorite if it had commentaries...but, apparently they don't exist in Speilberg's world....Lucas has done a few though.

Swingers:
- It's a great movie that I lived for real, so it's cool. It also has a great commentary!

Pulp Fiction/R. Dogs
- Hey, it's 2 of the best movies of the 90's...need I say more? Ok, I will...they have some cool things on the disk. But, damn it..no commentary.

Ok, bring yours on...I own 100's of DVD's, so this is hard!

Murph

How can you not mention The Lord Of the Rings extended DVD's
(I own the two that our out at this moment) and The Matrix (which
was unbelievable when it came out on DVD - remember most of
the discs you mentioned weren't even out back then!).

So to add to your (excellent!) list:

- Lord of the Rings extended DVD sets

- The Matrix + Matrix Revisited

- Akira limited edition (nice case)

- Band of Brothers (AWESOME case)

- The Godfather trilogy (wow)

- Any DVD from The Criterion Collection, I own a couple (like Armageddon & Traffic)

- Amelie special edition

- Men In Black limited edition

- The new Star Wars movie discs are pretty packed

- Cast Away special edition

This list has some items with amazing casings. The worst discs
probably are American History X (burned in subtitles, full frame
here in Holland... yikes), Taxi 1 (stereo!) and Batman 1 (what
a waste that disc is) closely followed by Heat (which is finally
getting an SE release this summer).

The Alien Quadrilogy -
Theatrical and extended versions of each film (on the same DVD) with commentary plus a bonus disc for each film loaded with hours of interviews/behind the scenes/how they did the special effects/concept drawings. Plus a DVD with documentaries on the series (haven't got that far yet!).

On a sadder note, the worst special edition dvd I own is Tombstone. The extras aren't that great and the I was only able to get through about half an hour of the directors commentary. All he did was describe what was happening on screen as you watched it, the only extra thing I learned was that all mustaches in the film were real (which is pretty cool!). But it does have DTS and Dolby Digital (I was even more dissapointed at the original DVD release that had stereo sound). Also the case and styling off the DVD is top notch.

BTW Rob, I'm looking forward to that Heat SE DVD as well ever since you mention it here!

Cheers,
Brian

The Goonies - I know its not a special edition dvd, but you can't beat all the kids getting back together to do an on-screen commentary. And, of course, let's not forget the infamous octopus scene.

Tron (20th Anniversary Collector's Edition) - I know a lot of people didn't like this movie, but I sure did. Throw in deleted scenes, animation tests, a "making of..." documentary, and you've got a great dvd.

The Abyss (Special Edition) - 28 minutes of footage that made the ending actually make sense, with documentary and storyboards.

Hey Guys, what about T2, the directors cut.

From memory, about 25 mins extra of scenes, which helped the story make a bit more sense. And what a movie :)

I thought for a while the most thorough DVD was the APES remake by Tim Burton. Man, that was a LOT of stuff.

I gave up buying DVDs when they come out if they have nothing on it, like the first editions of BLACK HAWK DOWN, TRAFFIC and PANIC ROOM (which is getting the special edition packaging). So why hasn't THE GAME gotten it? Heck, even THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES got Special Edition status!

On my film, SKYE FALLING (plug plug), I didn't have much stuff in the way of special edition material. All the interviews were done last year (the movie was shot in 1999, came out in 2001), and we only had like one deleted scene. We cut one other scene out before we shot. And I had an alternate scene which requires people buying a Radiohead CD to play along, a la the ALMOST FAMOUS UNTITLED DVD...

heath

The choices I have seen above are wonderful. If I had to pick one I'd pick the 3 Disc Black Hawk Down. So much information and special features. I have totally junkied on this particular release.

I own about 50 DVD's (Not all Special Editions) and that one really stands out.

Addtionally

One of the best commentaries I have heard is Three Kings. Talk about 'filmschool in a box'.

I forgot, I waited YEARS to see the ALIENS special edition. It was on a laser disc, then the first DVD in 1999. Of course, they neglected to put the original cut, so I had to buy the Special Quadrilogy in 2003. Er, got it for X-Mas. Of course, I had the original Alien Trilogy in 1995 from my Grandparents on VHS...

I'll go through both ALIENS DVD sets and see if they both have the same stuff. The two MEMENTO DVDs didn't have the same extras, so we were stuck with both versions.

Also, I'm waiting for a super duper multi-DVD set on THE LORD OF THE RINGS that includes both the theatrical and extended cuts, ALL the special features and extra discs. probably be about 40 feet long! Then again, the Alien Quadrilogy is around 10 feet long unfolded.

heath

The Dual sided El Mariachi/Desperado DVD was a great SE, both had good commentaries and there was a little "10 minute film school" by Robert Rodrieguez on the El Mariachi side among other things. Was really interesting to see how he put it all together for so cheap. (like the guy that's described as"he's always dressed in black and carrying a guitar case" has a navy blue shirt on because it was the darkest shirt he had and they wouldn't buy a black one! It was amazing seeing all that packed on one DVD, and the best deal at the video store, $2.49 for two movies on DVD! Now it's sold as a pack with two DVDs.

Heath,
I watched a VHS copy of Aliens taped off of TV all the time as a kid, it had the extra footage of the SE in it. I kept planning on buying it once it came out on DVD but never did, then I started freaking out when it went out of print and prices on ebay/used amazon went up to +$35. I couldn't believe it, but now I have both versions and with commentary and all that other stuff so all is well. Now you can buy the individual SE Alien DVDs so you don't have to deal with the not so great films of the series if you don't want them.

Cheers,
Brian

Brian,

According to The Digital Bits it's coming in July this year.

No word yet on what will be on it. I think it will be a 2 disc set.

Lord of the rings extended version all the way. You will learn SOOOOOO much, plus they are funny.

However, all in all i usually find the commentaries to be the most informative part of almost all DVDs.

I'll have to throw Monty Python and the Holy Grail in this one as well, TONS of completley useless and senseless extra features. Nobody can live without it!