Cheap Robocop (20th Anniversary Collector's Edition) (DVD) (Paul Verhoeven) Price

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Customer Reviews of Robocop (20th Anniversary Collector's Edition)

Another hit as featurettes drive this new release, A must for any true RoboFan
I've owned the Criterion edition of "Robocop" for years now so I bought this 20th anniversary DVD strictly for the featurettes. The Commentary with Director Paul Verhoeven, Writer Ed Neumeier and Executive Producer Jon Davison (A+) is still great and worth the price of admission right there. I would rank the best featurettes in this order (No spoilers): Villains Of Old Detroit Featurette(A+) , Special Effects: Then And Now Featurette(A), Robocop: Creating A Legend Featurette(A), (all three recent productions) Flesh And Steel: The Making Of Robocop Featurette(A), Shooting Robocop Featurette(B) & Making Robocop Featurette(B) (Older productions). <
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>Since we've all seen the movie, I would recommend that if this movie is in your top ten all time, buy this 20th anniversary edition, those first three featurettes plus the commentary are worth the purchase price alone. I was disappointed by the deleted scenes. I had read about their content but they ended up adding nothing to the experience but no matter, still nice to see them.<
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>If you are debating on purchasing the Robo-trilogy instead to save money, don't even considering buying the 20th anniversary edition. IMHO, the 20th anniversary edition is strictly for the Robo-connoisseurs, those who truly love and "get" the movie with all it's extreme violence, innuendoes and political satire. "I'd buy that for a dollar!"<
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>The movie is the movie, we've all seen it. It's Verhoeven best work. The violence and intensity pull you in and pound you senselessly. The humanity and humor make it roller coaster ride with an ending that is as satisfying as it is unexpected. Easily one of the best Sci-Fi or action movies of all time.<
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>Two versions here, the theatrical version and I believe the director's original "X-rated" version. I have to defer to others as to the exact cut of this version vs. what appears on the Criterion disk, no frame by frame analysis here.<
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>Peter Weller does appear in some of the featurettes as well. If you are wondering what he's been up to outside of the entertainment industry, Weller holds a Masters Degree in Roman and Renaissance Art, and is an occasional lecturer at Syracuse University on the subject of Hollywood and the Roman Empire. Wow, how cool is that? "Good business is where you find it." Go Robo!<
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Great.. but where is Peter Weller
I love this film. It's one of my favorites and I've bought it several times. I even own the criterion version of this film and I bought this one, hoping that it would finally be the proper ultimate edition and include commentary from Peter Weller. Weller has done great commentary tracks for other films of his, like "Naked Lunch" and "OF Unknown Origin" and Robocop needs a Weller commentary. The DVD gets only 4 stars for again missing the oportunity to make this the final word of the film.

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Murphy's Law
On the cusp of HD, RoboCop gets re-released in a 20th Anniversary Collector's Edition DVD that portends quick obsolescence but you shouldn't let that dissuade you from purchasing this standard def DVD to tide you over until the HD format war has ended. However, it appears that there is a "glitch" more severe than a malfunctioning ED-209 present on both US and Canadian versions of disc 2. The Canadian release has a duplication of disc 1 onto disc 2 and the US release has an authoring glitch that will not allow you to select the DTS, commentary or French language dub audio tracks, you can only play the Dolby 5.1 audio on the Extended Cut on disc 2. I can already hear the Old Man at MGM yelling "You call this a glitch!?" Hopefully MGM Home Video will rectify this and issue replacement discs for those of us who have already purchased the defective copies. If you own the legendary Criterion release featuring the "Extended Cut" you will be pleased to know that the upgrade is well worth getting, though you will probably want to hold on to your original Criterion disc for some of the extras that didn't make the migration over to the new 20th Anniversary disc.<
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>Disc 1 features the original theatrical cut in anamorphic widescreen and Dolby 5.1 and DTS sound but the real treat on this disc is the excellent documentary "Flesh & Steel: The Making of RoboCop" featuring interviews with Paul Verhoeven, Jon Davison, Ed Neumeier, Basil Poledouris, and Peter Weller. There's also a couple of 8-minute 1987 featurettes: "Shooting RoboCop" featuring Miguel Ferrer in character as Bob Morton introducing RoboCop like an OCP publicity gimmick and "Making RoboCop" with a behind-the-scenes look at the production and interviews from back in the day. "The Boardroom" is a storyboard-to-film comparison of ED-209 accompanied with Phil Tippet commentary, 4 deleted scenes and the theatrical trailer with music from, appropriately enough, "The Terminator," another cyborg sci-fi smash from Orion Pictures.<
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>Disc 2 features the "Extended Cut" in anamorphic widescreen and Dolby 5.1 sound. Unfortunately I cannot play the DTS mix on this disc because of an authoring "glitch" that does not allow you to select the other audio streams. I have tried this in numerous DVD players and interestingly enough when I play it on my computer it shows that the DTS stream is encoded on the second track and the commentary is on track 3 and the French dub on track 4 but you can only play the Dolby 5.1 mix on track 1. Has anybody else noticed this? Looks like I'll be giving MGM Home Video a call because I prefer the more graphically violent cut running a mere :23 seconds longer over the edited theatrical version but the 5.1 mix is still phenomenal compared to the stereo surround mix from the old Criterion release. The edited footage has been seamlessly restored back into the film. On the Criterion release you could see where the cuts were made and the old, unrestored footage had been inserted back in with changes in film density and unmixed sound. Why they couldn't just make this a seamless-branching feature on the same disc as the theatrical version and put all of the bonus features on the second disc is puzzling though. Disc 2 also features another outstanding featurette: "Villains of Old Detroit" with new interviews with Kurtwood Smith, Ronny Cox, Miguel Ferrer, and Ray Wise and is a terrific follow up after watching the film. "Special Effects: Then and Now" talks about the advances in digital compositing versus the in-camera matte shots and stop-motion animation employed on creating ED-209. "RoboCop: Creating a Legend" features interviews with Peter Weller, Paul Verhoeven, Rob Botin, et al. about designing and engineering the suit and took between 10-11 hours each day to fit Peter Weller into before shooting. <
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>Unfortunately I ended up having to return this to the store I purchased it from. I told the department manager and we tested this on another disc in the store and it had the same issue with not being able to select the alternate audio tracks on the second disc. They subsequently pulled all of them from the new release shelf to send back because of it. Until MGM Home Video acknowledges this glitch and issues replacement discs, I am DVD-less. It probably will be corrected on the upcoming Blu-Ray disc though but too bad it won't be a hybrid disc. I'd buy that for a dollar.