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Blu-ray Today: 3-1/2 Month Anniversary Extended Edition


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The gift-giving season is ramping up, and that means boxed sets and repackaged anniversary editions. Are any of them worth it? Let’s see if we can figure that out.

In advance of its upcoming remake, Oldboy gets a 10th anniversary edition, but if you’re a fan – and I’m a big one of this twisted, twisty Korean revenge tale – you’d be better off getting the pre-existing Vengeance Trilogy, which also includes the excellent Lady Vengeance and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, plus every extra that’s on this disc. Also celebrating a decade is Elf, but the only extra there appears to be steelbook packaging.

It’s been 15 years for Farscape, but the new anniversary edition doesn’t seem to have added much to previous releases; certainly not the Peacekeeper Wars fans wanted.

Scrooged, which I love, turns 25 while “Mickey’s Christmas Carol” turns 30. Like Elf, the former seems to mostly just boast a new steelbook cover. The latter, however, featured Scrooge McDuck in a most appropriate starring role before DuckTales made him a full-on hero, and would be a decent collection addition if not for the fact that a premium price is being charged for a film that’s less than half an hour long, and the transfer is apparently a textbook example of how not to do such things. I’ll stick to my Beavis and Butt-head version for now. The equally Christmassy Rise of the Guardians is only a year old, but already comes in a “holiday edition” that isn’t appreciably different from prior versions, and frankly, I didn’t care for Alec Baldwin as Russian Santa the first time. Then there’s Surviving Christmas, which WB can’t have really wanted to release now – it’s a prime example of why people hate Ben Affleck, as he plays a Christmas-obsessed nutcase who insists on spending the holiday with strangers and making them conform to his whims. (If that sounds in any way good, I’m not representing it well.)

Also 30 years old: The Right Stuff, finally coming to Blu. Classic story of the early space program that I wasn’t allowed to see as a kid because there’s a brief striptease at the end and implied masturbation. Clearly I turned out okay after I finally got to watch it at the age of ten.

Stephen King’s Under the Dome was this any good? The fact that it doesn’t say “Season 1” on it when I know there was meant to be more gives me a strong hint…

Game of Thrones Series 1 and 2 – Nothing different about the discs, but the three Funko vinyl figures this set comes packaged with are hilarious, especially the dragon.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – Extended Edition – Because you were saying to yourself that it could use 14 extra minutes, right? How about nine more hours of supplements? You know, Harry Potter fans are starting to bitch now that they didn’t get every single plot point from the page covered in their movies.

Twilight Forever: The Complete Saga – You shouldn’t buy this, but mentioning it gives me an excuse to show this video of the terrifying puppet they nearly used in the last film.

Doctor Who Series 1-7 Gift Set – Comes with a sonic screwdriver, exclusive comic book, art cards and a new bonus disc of extras. Hey, if you like the Doctor Who that you have, you can keep him; but if you want even more coverage, it’s BBC-care!

White House Down While we’re on health care metaphors, I’d like to give this one the death panel.

So, pretty big week. Anything else worth grabbing?