Ok…this is an opinion piece. If you don’t agree with me, that’s fine. Let’s get it rollin’…
Recently I have been annoyed by the need of a group of nerds to push their opinions on the casual movie watcher. Yes, I am talking about the plethroa of 1-star reviews of the bluray release of The Lord of the Rings on Amazon.
To be fair, these fanboys have somewhat of a valid argument. Why should I stand for the unknowing public buying this turd of a release?? They have fooled us once,we won’t be fooled again!! After all, the extended editions have been released before, why should I even bother with this inferior release? Or, for that matter, why should anyone else?
Ah, the wonders of marketing, but we’ll get to that later. First some history.
Star Wars (a.k.a. the beginning)
We all remember when George Lucas decided to bless us with enhanced versions of his classic trilogy. These new enhanced versions were the first (to my knowledge, anyway, lol) to be graced with the now ubiquitous Special Edition moniker. Even if they weren’t the first, they certainly popularized the term.
Now you see it slapped on everything released under the sun (which is part of the problem). I for one welcomed the enhanced computer graphics, but the Star Wars faithful decided that they didnt’ want Georgie messing with their baby. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Star Wars, but I could care less who shot first.
To make a long story short, these special editions sold like gangbusters and solidified the position of Special Editions for eternity.
LotR
Another milestone in this area were the Extended Editions brought about by Mr. Jackson. Again, the fanboy rears his ugly head, but in this scenario he declares that you aren’t watching LotR unless you watch the Extended Cut. I can’t tell you the amount of times I have wanted to punch someone in the face for telling me that. Not only were these movies longer (3 1/2+ hours? Are you serious??) but they were also more expensive.
I really enjoyed Lord of the Rings, but I certainly don’t want to spend more money and time on a series that already has tested the limits of my bladder control. But, alas, for the fanboys, there is only one road.
Dragon Box (yes, I’ll pick on myself for good measure)
I have taken issue with every release of Dragon Ball Z up until this point. The Dragon Boxes are everything I could ever want out of DBZ. This is the definitive version! However, even I will admit that these sets aren’t for everyone, especially if you have already invested money in the series. If you aren’t a DBZ fanboy like me you could probably care less that the series is finally using the original music in the dub, and has the correct colors and aspect ratio. Besides, the previous release of the entire series sold like crazy, and can be had for a lower price. Yes, where it matters (sales), the fanboy loses this one too.
Tying it together
In all of the examples I have listed above, the version that fanboys deemed inferior has sold far more than the “better” version. Why, Obi-wan, WHY?
The truth is that the average movie watcher just doesn’t give a shit. You can dress it up all nice with words, you can load the product listing with 1-star reviews, but the only thing you are doing is wasting your time (and playing into the hands of the studio).
Why do they release two versions of the same movie? Have you ever even thought about this?
1) The average person will buy the first version and never look at anything else.
This is where the bulk of the sales will come from (in more ways than one, but i will get to that).
2) They know that the fanboys will buy the “better” version later
Self explanatory, ne?
3) And the Super Nerds will probably buy both versions
There is a running gag on Daizenshuu EX about how Mike Labrie (Vegetto EX) has like 5 copies of the first Dragon Ball Z movie “The Dead Zone.” Not to discredit him in any way, but I think this goes to show how dumb fanboys are sometimes.
-We can’t wait to watch our favorite movie at home, so we buy the first version that is released.
-We then buy the special edition because we want to have every little piece of information there is about our favorite series.
-Movie studios know this!
My whole point in writing this is to say that if you want movie studios to stop double-dipping, then we need to stop buying every thing that has Gandalf on the front of it. Money talks, which is why I don’t think all those 1-star reviews on Amazon will affect much. They are trying to pull the same crap with Avatar, but it isn’t working.
