'The Siege' - High-Def Digest Review

[Attebery]

Aaron has reviewed 'The Siege.' He says you're only gonna wanna buy this one if you're a fan. This Blu-ray's picture is all over the map, the audio is just decent, and there are no extras. This may start some conversations, but it's not much on an HD purchase.

Full review here:
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/2207/siege.html

[wormraper]

politely I disagree to only get the movie if you're a "fan". This movie THRASHES the DVD version in sooooooooooo many ways. I have the DVD and the Blu and A/B'd, them. Not even CLOSE. I'm seeing a lot of these reviews lately that seem to say "eh, it's not Ratatouille, skip it" type mentality.

[Filmmaker]

Mine arrived from Amazon Friday; I ordered it before realizing it was being released sans extras because, really, what BD release these days doesn't port over at least most of the extras found on the SD-DVD counterpart? And this is Fox we're talking about, which tends to be one of the best studios about this kind of thing. Well, the BD's still sealed and it's going back to Amazon for a refund in the morning; I don't know how much losing my measly $19.99 will hurt Fox but it's the only message I can send them. This is grossly unacceptable.

[paaron46]

Originally Posted by wormraper

politely I disagree to only get the movie if you're a "fan". This movie THRASHES the DVD version in sooooooooooo many ways. I have the DVD and the Blu and A/B'd, them. Not even CLOSE. I'm seeing a lot of these reviews lately that seem to say "eh, it's not Ratatouille, skip it" type mentality.

Hey, wormraper thanks for your comment. I get where you're coming from, but in my defense I wasn't giving it a "buy it only if you're a fan of the movie" conclusion just because the PQ is a little off. That mostly comes from Fox not spending one ounce of time or energy trying to port over any extras at all.

If we did buy every Blu-ray that was better looking than the DVD we'd be out of money fast But, I did feel that with the quality we've come to expect from Blu-ray even though the PQ is above the DVD, it's still not up to par. That's all I was saying. I'll totally agree that it's much better than the DVD, and at times - during explosions - it is downright amazing.

But, mostly my conclusion came from the non-existent extras.

Thanks for reading and commenting on the review.

[Miles Archer]

Thanks for the review Aaron. In case you were not aware, the majority of the people interned by the U.S. government on U.S. soil during WWII were actually Americans with Japanese ancestry, not Japanese (though Japanese citizens also were interned).

[horrorbusiness]

I've never seen this movie before and I plan on renting it at least once. Worth at least checking out on Blu.

[paaron46]

Originally Posted by Miles Archer

Thanks for the review Aaron. In case you were not aware, the majority of the people interned by the U.S. government on U.S. soil during WWII were actually Americans with Japanese ancestry, not Japanese (though Japanese citizens also were interned).

I was aware, but thank you for clarifying

[Mayhemm]

Can't say how disappointed I am to see a BD-25 MPEG2 transfer with no extras in a June 2009 release.

I like this movie, but Fox can suck it.

[paaron46]

Originally Posted by Mayhemm

Can't say how disappointed I am to see a BD-25 MPEG2 transfer with no extras in a June 2009 release.

I like this movie, but Fox can suck it.

agreed! It's insanity.

[Paul R.S.]

Originally Posted by Filmmaker

. . . I ordered it before realizing it was being released sans extras because, really, what BD release these days doesn't port over at least most of the extras found on the SD-DVD counterpart? And this is Fox we're talking about, which tends to be one of the best studios about this kind of thing. . . . This is grossly unacceptable.

Agreed on unacceptable but I disagree with Fox being "one of the best studios about this kind of thing." I just got mildly suckered: I love Ed Zwick's work and was happy to see this hitting BD (likely motivated by Defiance also having recently hit BD). Didn't even look at reviews first; I assumed that enough time had passed for Fox to correct their ways from so many supplements exclusions of past BDs (Cast Away, Speed, Die Hard, their release of Ronin).

Not. Ridiculous that not even the commentary was ported over. I'll Netflix the "Martial Law Edition" DVD to grip that and the three featurettes but Fox is going back into my doghouse due to this issue. It seems to me that they are strategically withholding supps, getting a placeholder disc on shelves for the "early adopters," knowing they can release a "Even More Martial Law Edition" BD later when the number of BD households is greater in, say, two years.

Money's too tight for me to tolerate much of this. And there are plenty of Warner titles on my Wish List that don't have this problem.

[Paul R.S.]

Oh another thing that makes these such situations annoying is that Netflix does not make it clear (via artwork or other indication) which of the two DVD releases they rent (the 1999 release is movie-only; "Martial Law" has the featurettes and commentary). Often they don't have the newer release and ship the older.

So I'll end up buying a cheap copy of the MLE DVD to grip the supps and then selling it via my Amazon store. Although these days I'll end up paying not much more than I would to rent the DVD from a b&m, it's a bit of meshugas to go through--especially for a title that one has avoided buying on DVD for a few years in eager anticipation of a high def media release--when Fox could just get the BD right the first time.

[Filmmaker]

Paul, do what I did (thanks to a helpful soul at the AVS Forums); order the region free Hong Kong release (http://www.yesasia.com/us/the-siege-...0-en/info.html), which contains the feature on a BD-50 (the domestic release is a measly BD-25), along with all the missing "Martial Law" extras! Oh, and yes, Fox had a craptastic first year or so with the BD format, but I maintain that the featureless domestic release of THE SIEGE is not in keeping with the class act they've been running recently (such as BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, PREDATOR 2, THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY, BIG, both versions of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, the X-MEN TRILOGY, NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, and on and on and on).

[Paul R.S.]

Thanks for the reply and Yes Asia link, 'FM.' Between an inexpensive used U.S. BD purchase and flipping an inexpensive used MLE DVD, I'll spend less than the cost of the import BD.

Although I see your objective point re Siege being an anomaly compared to other recent Fox output, the subjective but practical bottom line for me is that I'm not in the market for any of the titles you mentioned wherein the studio has improved over earlier BD days. I am/was in the market for a title that they regressed on. They don't get a pass on a disc I want because of their performance on other titles I don't. They're a recidivist offender.

After over a year of patience, it re-raises my concern/trepidation re how the other titles I do want will be treated in terms of supps after assuming (and being told by Steve Feldstein at Home Media Expo 2007) that things would improve with time. Maybe they'll re-release the four titles I mention above soon. But if they're back to gimping some current catalog title releases, that means they may compromise some of the following that I want done right the first time: The Girl Next Door, Fight Club, the Alien Quadrilogy, The Abyss; plus MGM titles such as The Thomas Crown Affair (1999), Thelma & Louise and of course Dances With Wolves.

In the interest of full disclosure, it just annoys me that this is still an issue for Fox, even if I (try to) set aside other issues like my lingering negative visceral reaction to Mike Dunn's BD braggadocio during the "format war" and the fact that Fox is also still futzing with BD+ enough to have 12 Rounds not playing on some BD players.

[Filmmaker]

Originally Posted by Paul R.S.

Thanks for the reply and Yes Asia link, 'FM.' Between an inexpensive used U.S. BD purchase and flipping an inexpensive used MLE DVD, I'll spend less than the cost of the import BD.

But remember, the video quality has been rated as better (being encoded across a BD-50 instead of the domestic's BD-25 surely helping), too. Just something to consider.

Originally Posted by Paul R.S.

But if they're back to gimping some current catalog title releases, that means they may compromise some of the following that I want done right the first time: The Girl Next Door, Fight Club, the Alien Quadrilogy, The Abyss; plus MGM titles such as The Thomas Crown Affair (1999), Thelma & Louise and of course Dances With Wolves.

The studio's spec sheet for FIGHT CLUB has already been released, and it is supplement rich. That one, at least, you should be fine with.

[Paul R.S.]

Re ". . . the video quality has been rated as better . . ."

I note this AVS thread (and your participation in it) and assume that's the basis for your comment. It's interesting to note that even self-described "Screencap addict" msgohan (who posts all those HD DVD and BD bitrate specs in the respective AVS threads) says "Going by the screencaps on DVDBeaver and Blu-ray.com, I think the [Siege] reviews may be going overly hard on the transfer just because it's encoded as MPEG-2." I'm happy that there's a BD50 alternative but will need to see a bit more support for the transfer supposedly being way better. I understand AlexBC is saying that the Brazilian/Asian Siege looks better (less noisy, less compression artifacting) but that doesn't appear to be the across-the-board consensus, at least in that short thread.

And although I appreciate your willingness to look on the bright side, at least according to Blu-ray.com, Fight Club has not been officially announced. They simply cross-posted Bill Hunt's features listing this past Monday. We just don't know quite yet for sure about FC.

And in any event, FC is something of an exception in these regards because David Fincher actually cares about his pics' home vid releases. He's very involved in them, supervises transfers, has a DVD/BD crew on set getting footage for production docus. With the exception of the The Game HD DVD, all of his home vid releases have been remarkable--and they're from different studios, arguably proving that it is his involvement that makes the difference.

It's the home vid releases on which there is perhaps less filmmaker involvement wherein the studio calls the home vid shots that are more indicative of how much the studio cares about uniformly excellent releases. Again, there's cause for catalog title concern with Fox. Hopefully Van Ling's involvement will preclude it from happening but it's not unfathomable at this point that, say, True Lies could hit BD as a movie-only disc after we've endured a movie-only non-anamorphic DVD for many years.