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Region 4 Winners and Losers

Region 4 Winners and Losers

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Title Best
Dances with Wolves: Collector's Edition (Extended version)R4

    The previous R4 release is a pure joke by comparison to this version. While it was the slightly shortened Australian theatrical version (not the US theatrical version which had some slight modifications), it was not 16x9 enhanced, not in the proper 2.35:1 aspect ratio, and had shocking picture quality. This new R4 release trumps that previous release hands down.

    There have been three R1 DVD incarnations of this film. Firstly, the THX-mastered US theatrical version, which has a couple of additional scenes to the Australian theatrical version, with only a 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack and no extras. Secondly, there was a 2-Disc DTS special edition, which was not the extended version but the US theatrical release with an audio commentary by Kevin Costner and a forced intermission. Thirdly, there is now a single disc Special Edition released by MGM which has: (i) the Extended Director’s Cut; (ii) 2 audio commentary tracks featuring Kevin Costner and producer Jim Wilson on one track and director of photography Dean Semler and editor Neil Travis on the other track; (iii) a retrospective documentary entitled “The Creation Of An Epic”; (iv) the original making-of featurette; (v) a photo montage; (vi) a poster gallery, and; (vii) a music video. However, this release only has a 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack.

    There is also an R2 German release which is the original extended version that is available on VHS, but the aspect ratio is off (it is presented in only 2.20:1 cutting off the edges of some of the award-winning cinematography) and there are no extras and various subtitling problems.

    So which release is the best? Reports on the new R1 Extended Edition suggest that the picture and sound quality are not as good as that on previous R1 releases, suffering from much the same film-to-video transfer artefacts that are present on this new R4 release. By contrast, the image on the THX mastered R1 release was very good, with only minor aliasing resulting from the reduced number of horizontal lines in the NTSC image. However, the THX mastered release had only a 5.1 Dolby Digital track that is quite shallow in comparison to this new DTS soundtrack on the new R4 release.

    The final verdict? If you want the theatrical edition, then the R1 THX mastered release is the hands-down winner. If you want the new extended edition, I would suggest going with this new R4 release. Sure, it misses out on a few of the documentaries and such that the new R1 release has. But such things are generally promotional, and the R4 edition has the most important extras here which are the audio commentaries. It also has the best sound and the best picture available for the extended version, even allowing for the very mild inconvenience of the intermission. If you are the kind of DVD fan that values extras over picture and sound quality, take the new R1 release. But I am giving this to the R4 release for superiority in sound if not also maybe picture, because ultimately it is the movie that matters most.