My plan for a better tomorrow.

Yesterday, in what was a completely necessary bout of retail therapy after the issues that never fail to pop up at work, I purchased three movies in anticipation of what will be a glorious movie weekend extravaganza in which I will be a total hermit and probably not change out of my pajamas once.  These movies along with the new Netflix movies that should be heading my way (I sent back three movies today that I'd had for over a month and didn't manage to watch a single one the whole way through.  I don't know how I managed to get three depressing movies all at once, but I will have to be more careful in the future.  In case you care, they were Magnolia [boring and depressing], Atonement [couldn't bring myself to keep watching a movie I knew would only get more depressing as it went on], and The Crow [which I did not remember putting in my queue and couldn't even convince myself to take out of the little sleeve]) should pretty well keep me entertained for two days.
 

Anyway, while making my purchases online yesterday, I was made more aware than ever of a disturbing phenomenon that is ruining this country (or at least, it's really annoying).  Every single one of the three movies I bought (Sex and the City, Iron Man and Forgetting Sarah Marshall) had special collector's editions of the DVD available.  And I know that at least in the case of SATC, the collector's edition came out before the regular edition.  These are all movies that were released on DVD within approximately the last month.
 

People, please.  Stop the madness.

 

On principle, I bought only the regular DVDs.  I can live with spending $17 on a movie, but I see no reason to spend $23 for a cover sleeve and bonus features I will never watch.  However, it's about more than just the money.  You shouldn't be able to take just any ol' flick, slap a fancier cover on it, put a bunch of random stuff on a 2nd disc (or 3rd) and call it a "collector's edition".  I brought this theory up with Toni today and we determined that some conditions need to be met before something has earned the right to have a "collector's edition":

 

1.  The movie needs to have held up for a MINIMUM of 15 years.  As in, people still need to love it.  The Godfather, The Sound of Music, The Princess Bride, stuff like that.

 

2.  The collector's edition should absolutely not come out BEFORE the regular edition.  That shouldn't even require explanation.

 

3.  Any collector's edition should come with some sort of prize that makes it worthwhile.  Because as previously mentioned, most people will never actually watch all the bonus features.  Most movies don't need them.  Not unless...

 

4.  There should be some sort of drama surrounding the initial release of the movie, some sort of untold story that needs to come out, or a director's cut that blows the original out of the water but was not released theatrically because the studio never thought it would work, something like that.  This is not absolutely mandatory, but it doesn't hurt.

 

5. It should be part of something bigger that would cause someone to actually have a "collection" (and not just a movie collection).  A series of movies, a cultural phenomenon, etc.  This ties right in with the prize thing.

 

I don't think this is an unreasonable list of demands.  Can't we all agree?  Now, I admit that I do own several collector's editions, and that not all of them meet all the requirements.  But the buck stops here from now on.  No more.

 

Let me tell you what the absolute best collector's edition I have ever come across is.  The Ultimate Superman Collector's Edition (which I got for Christmas last year) meets every one of the above mentioned conditions.  The original movie it still great 30 years later, each movie was released on its own before this came out, it included both the 2000 extended version of the original movie and the Richard Donner cut of the 2nd movie (meets the requirements of #3 and #4), and it includes all 4 of the Christopher Reeve movies as well as the 2006 movie, not to mention a cartoon and several of the bonus feature discs, which I haven't watched.  But that's ok, because even though I'll probably never watch all that stuff, it was still totally worth it just for fact that it came with seven movies and a cartoon!  There might even be a mini Superman comic in there, but I'm not quite sure (and I'm not at home to check).
 

And while I'm ready to admit that the day might come when any of these three movies might merit a collector's edition (though I have serious doubts about at least one of them), that day has not yet come.