Lucasfilm screwed the fans with this DVD

After all the years of waiting this is what we fans get? "The Incomplete Adventures of Indiana Jones - The Stripped Down Wal-Mart Edition of Doom????"

No deleted scenes, no storyboards, no commentaries.....

What's up with Lucasfilm and Spielberg? Have they lost their minds? Other than the wonderful restoration, the rest of the set sucks.

The press release stated that this set was what the hardcore fans were waiting for. Well I'm a hardcore fan and I'm not in the least bit pleased. I even have the Indiana Jones pinball machine in my living room, that's how much of a hardcore fan I am. I could have produced a better set than what we're getting, and that's pathetic.

Here's a list of stuff I personally wanted to know about but never will, thanks to the bunch of idiots in charge of this DVD project. I took it from a review of the set someone else posted online:

"More anguish for us fanatical fans....Sadly, more than a few geeky things I was hoping to learn more about were simply not discussed. At all. There's no talk about the abandoned sword fight in the marketplace (not even storyboards, which BTW would have been a wonderful extra). We don't learn about a fairly notorious abandoned scene where Indiana Jones was hanging onto the U-Boat periscope, explaining how he made it to the island without drowning. We don't hear an anecdote about the fly crawling into Paul Freeman's mouth. There's nary a peep about the legendary behind-the-scenes tomfoolery where Barbra Streisand walked on the set of Temple of Doom in a dominatrix outfit and started whipping Harrison Ford while he was chained to a rock . (Actually, maybe that's an Easter egg I haven't discovered yet.) Nobody mentions that the full-scale U-boat replica - which Spielberg borrowed from the Das Boot production - sank shortly after the Raiders crew returned it. And there's nothing about a tantalizing bit of Raiders storyboard art (you'll find it in the Raiders soundtrack CD liner notes) that revealed there was originally this goofy
Nazi character with a machine gun for an arm (see inset). And dear Lord - in this DVD set's own press notes, they admit that there's a much longer cut out there of the ending sequence where they open the Ark of the Covenant!
Also, some of best behind-the-scenes footage I remember from my youth is nowhere to be seen, either - I'm thinking specifically of this fantastic bit where Spielberg (a known yeller on his sets) gets visibly pissed and exasperated when a truck crash on the Raiders set isn't spectacular enough, to the degree that a fellow crew member has to calm him down. I'm sorry, but all these oversights keep the extras from feeling definitive for me. Maybe
the eventual box set they release with the fourth Indy film will address all this. Somehow I doubt it."

Utterly inexcusable bull****. End of story. From the dawn of DVD I waited for a comprehensive, cover-all Indiana Jones DVD collection and this is what us fans get? Atrocious.

I didn't buy the DVDs, so I can't really comment on the extras, but I was disappointed to hear that it won't have commentary. I mean, come on, we've all seen the movies more than enough times, that's not why we're buying this, is it? If you're going to release an old movie (especially one that happens to be shown ad nauseum on tv), you really should include plenty of bonus material. Oh well. $50 more in my pocket, I guess, unless someone on this board can convince me that the fourth disc contains enough great stuff to warrant, say, a $40 purchase (I'll be willing to pay $10 for the three movies, thereby paying a total of $50.)

I like it

Hey, you can't have everything.

As it is, why have commentary when the 4th DVD has well over 3 hours worth of documentary info? It would just be a rehash of what is there.

I RARELY ever listen to commentary. I can only handle it for so long before I get bored. I'd rather see a narrative of what went on behind the scenes rather than hear what went on while watching the actual movie.

I think they did a bang-up job with this release. It's amazing how you just can't please everyone, but then, everyone is allowed to have their opinion.

For me, this set is perfect and just what I was waiting for. I'm happy that I finally have all three movies again, as I was stupid a few years ago to sell my VHS tapes, thinking that these were already on DVD.

I haven't had a chance to review everything yet, so I'll update when I have. A couple of things though.

The first priority MUST be the movies themselves. If they transfers and sound had been less than the best they could be, then all the special features in the world wouldn't have made me happy.

A good 2 hour documentary (if this one is) can take the place of 6 hours of bonus material if it's well constructed and entertaining (see the original JAWS doc on the Laserdisc). Reems and reems of minor subsections I can live without.

Commentaries. Spielberg doesn't do them. It's that simple. If he did, and just decided not to do one for these movies, then you could be pissed. Lucas could have done one, but without Spielberg it would have seemed moot.

I've seen the movies 1 zillion times. I love the fact that the films have been restored to amazing brilliance. I'm not disputing that. What sucks is the bare bones packaging, no collector's booklets, no extras, nothing whatsoever. This was, according to Lucasfilm, "An Indyfan's Wet Dream." Of course they didn't phrase it in those words, but that's the heart of what they said.

What pisses me off is the fact that I've waited eons to see the deleted scenes and now they're not there. There's tons of stuff (see my first post) that frankly the die hard fans are screaming to know about, and they never touch on any of it!

Instead they pass off lame trivia as the meat-and-potatoes of the special features.

"Did you know Indy was named after Lucas' dog?" Yeah, I've known that since I was 5!

The hardcore are pissed, make no mistake.

1. Where's the original Cairo Swordsman fight?
2. Where's the original "Word of God" footage where Indy puts his foot in a tarantula nest?
3. Where's the extended "opening of the ark scene?"
4. Where's the footage of Indy lashing himself onto the sub periscope with his whip?
5. Where is the scene where the Nazi's blow up the canyon of the crescent moon to expose the hidden entrance?

The list is endless. The fans were robbed.

I'am just happy they finally made it to dvd with excellent picture and sound.

So are the rest of the masses that this half-baked set was intended for.

stop complaining

why? I mean, the stuff they have is cool, but compared to other DVDs? these are kinda lacking

shows how much Lucasstuff cares about Indiana Jones, compared to Star Wars

I was REALLY excited about the deleted scenes, in fact, that was the thing I was most looking forwards to, all we got was a split second of Sallah's 'Almost execution' and that was to show that it was the time when John Threw up

I mean, these are nice DVDs, but they do not compare with other stuff you see out these days

Star Wars: Holy smokes! I've never seen so many features!
James Bond: WOW, awesome amount, even considering that they had to do TWENTY DVDS in a few years
other modern action films (which suck) have more then this....




great to watch, but it's all a short distraction to 'please' us

I got the set today, and I'm disappointed too... I could understand the utter lack of deleted scenes, etc. if they had released it fairly quickly, and even then I would expect a special edition in a few years... but to have this as the supposed ultimate edition is just absurd. After making us wait years and years, I say they owe us. Big time. What were they doing all those years? The joy of having some of my favorite movies on DVD at long last is squelched by the knowledge that they either could be much better or could have been released much sooner.

Oh, and another thing... thanks for screwing over anyone who doesn't use Windows, DVD guys. No indianajones.com goodies for me, whatever they might be.

Is there anyone here who is happy with their box set?

Please spare a thought for me, as I am still waiting for my DVD's.

Well I'm pleased - it was the picture quality I was after - although I could have waited a few months for the inevitable 4 month price crash...

I do think tho that you have to bear in mind that in the eighties, when the movies were made, the idea of extras/special features was non-existant. Directors for the last few years have specifically done things like on-set interviews, and kept hold of the bloopers and the bits that end up on the cutting room floor, specifically for DVD release, which is why the recent Star Wars has such a truckload of (largely dull-as anything) extras.

I don't think Lucasfilm really had a lot of stuff to work with on this - but when indy 4 rears its ugly head I am positive there will be a supa-fab-extra-shiny-2-disk-feature-packed edition on DVD.

Canyon said:

Is there anyone here who is happy with their box set?

Please spare a thought for me, as I am still waiting for my DVD's.

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Canyon don't lisen to these guys the DVDs are cool but we are all going to say thare should have been more I meen come on whare Indy nerds. 3 hours of bonus material it should have been more like 48 hours and 10 DVDs.

I'm quite happy with my DVDs. I most say that they are lacking due to the fact that there are no deleted scences but other then that I would say I'm quite pleased.

I'm pretty darned pleased with mine. I got mine at Best Buy for $45. For 3 movies that's $15 a pop. ($11.25 if you count the 3 hour special feature disc.) Well worth it in my opinion. Plus I get that nifty box that looks great in my DVD section of my entertainment center. I would pay $15 just to have the Raiders disc. I am completely satisfied with my purchase.

I'm happy to have a copy of the theatrical trailers since I never got to see them on the big screen. OK, maybe I saw the LC trailer, but not the teaser one (hope they make a trailer like that for the fourth film - it's cool!).

I haven't had time to watch everything on the extras disc, and haven't started on the films yet, but so far I'm pretty pleased with the set.

I have one question though - why doesn't Temple of Doom have the additional subtitles, etc, that the other two films have? (Region 2 DVDs anyway) What if I wanted to watch ToD with Hungarian or Czech subtitles!? It seems a bit stupid to have only 2 out of 3 films with this option...

So far so good...

I have been enjoying mine, so far. I'm still on the Bonus Disc and have immensley enjoyed that interviews for each film.

I was disappointed that the trailers weren't complete and that it would have been even neater to add the Pepsi commercials and such too.

I can't wait to see the films - starting with TOD tonight!

westford said:

I'm happy to have a copy of the theatrical trailers since I never got to see them on the big screen. OK, maybe I saw the LC trailer, but not the teaser one (hope they make a trailer like that for the fourth film - it's cool!).

I haven't had time to watch everything on the extras disc, and haven't started on the films yet, but so far I'm pretty pleased with the set.

I have one question though - why doesn't Temple of Doom have the additional subtitles, etc, that the other two films have? (Region 2 DVDs anyway) What if I wanted to watch ToD with Hungarian or Czech subtitles!? It seems a bit stupid to have only 2 out of 3 films with this option...

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I don't know wheter you're British or wherever you're from, but there are different cuts of the movie available. The British version for example doesn't have the shot where Mola Ram pulls out the heart of the guy in ToD. This might be the case with the other countries as well, so they weren't able to mass produce them like the others, all at once and put them in the same sets.

Re: What's for lunch?

Renderking Fisk said:

Not to sound like a leftist... but there are people starving in other countries, some with out enough clean water and clothes, heat. This is a freaking luxury... it's not something as esential as getting a bite to eat or the security of knowing that you're going to see your family tonight safe and sound.

Who want's an plate of grow the funk up with a side order Snap out of it?

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You're right, there's always someone worse off than you, so you should never complain about anything. EVER.
Let's not even mention that if fans hadn't been complaining about it for years, it might STILL not be out on DVD...