Over in the UK, Fox Home Entertainment has decided to unleash a sizable number of Blu-ray catalog reissues in SteelBook packaging this year. Notably, a bunch of them are war movies. Unfortunately, most of those will arrive too late for the Memorial Day holiday in the U.S., yet the British equivalent (Remembrance Sunday) isn’t until November.
All but one of these movies is about World War II. (Joel Schumacher’s ‘Tigerland’ is about boot camp training for Vietnam.) ‘The Thin Red Line’ has the most interesting cover art design. The others look decent enough, but are standard home video art used on other DVD and Blu-ray editions. Sadly, Fox has a tendency to region-lock its Blu-rays, even when the same studio releases the same titles in multiple countries. I can’t confirm region coding on all of these (some might in fact be region-free), but they’re all listed as Region B.
I already have the domestic Criterion Collection release of ‘The Thin Red Line’, the Digibook for ‘Tora! Tora! Tora!’, and ‘Patton’ in a regular keepcase. (I have no idea whether the SteelBook contains the original flawed copy of ‘Patton’ or the improved remaster.) I don’t feel the need to rebuy any of those just for SteelBook, and none of the others do much for me. (Keep in mind that ‘The Longest Day’ is one of the most notoriously awful video transfers released to Blu-ray.)
I think I’ll pass on this entire wave, though I do find them interesting.
‘The Thin Red Line’
Available at: Amazon UK
Release date: May 12, 2014
Price: £18.50
Region code: Listed as Region B
‘Patton’
Available at: Amazon UK
Release date: June 2, 2014
Price: £19.75
Region code: Listed as Region B
‘Tora! Tora! Tora!’
Available at: Amazon UK
Release date: June 2, 2014
Price: £19.75
Region code: Listed as Region B
‘The Longest Day’
Available at: Amazon UK
Release date: June 2, 2014
Price: £19.75
Region code: Listed as Region B
‘Battle of Britain’
Available at: Amazon UK
Release date: June 2, 2014
Price: £19.75
Region code: Listed as Region B
‘A Bridge Too Far’
Available at: Amazon UK
Release date: June 2, 2014
Price: £19.75
Region code: Listed as Region B
‘Hart’s War’
Available at: Amazon UK
Release date: June 2, 2014
Price: £19.75
Region code: Listed as Region B
‘Tigerland’
Available at: Amazon UK
Release date: June 2, 2014
Price: £19.75
Region code: Listed as Region B
Chris B
Did the North American release of The Longest Day contain a colourized version of the movie?
Chris B
I’m not a big fan of The Thin Red Line steelbook, the back cover looks like it has a used tampon dangling from the top…
Josh Zyber
AuthorNow I can’t unsee that. Thanks a lot! 🙂
The Longest Day – only the cover art is colorized, but the Blu-ray video is DNR’ed to hell and back. All the actors look like they’re made out of rubber.
William Henley
Ugh! That is burned into my mind now! Thanks a lot, Chris!
NJScorpio
I didn’t care for ‘The Thin Red Line’. I’d far sooner rewatch ‘Patton’. I had the flawed original BD, but sold it anticipating buying the remaster (which I have yet to do).
Chris B
That sucks about The Longest Day. I was actually born on the 39th anniversary of D-day, when I was a kid me and my dad would always watch it together on my birthday. Had there been any talk of them releasing a new version with a proper transfer?
Josh Zyber
AuthorNo. Much like Predator, this is one of those situations where Fox refuses to admit that anything is wrong with the existing disc.
William Henley
Just buy Preditor 3D. Although I think the 3D is sourced from the same transfer.
But hey, the Top Gun 3D was better than the 2D release
William Henley
Several of these sound interesting – I like all of these, and don’t own any. Problem is, they are like all 20 GBP. As much as I like steelbooks, I usually order them when the price of the UK steelbook is less than the US regular release. Zaavi is really good at discounting their steelbooks to around 10 GBP if you don’t mind waiting six months to a year on them, and risk them running out of stock. I’ve probably bought 10 steelbooks in the past 4 months.
Tim Tringle
Only get the Zavvi exclusives there as they don subtract VAT as Josh will tell you. Any that are available through Amazon I buy there. Can save more than a few dollars that way.
William Henley
Yes, but Amazon charges 3.99GBP for shipping, Zaavi charges 0.99GBP for shipping. So even though Zaavi doesn’t subtract VAT, depending on price, you can save a couple of bucks on Zaavi. Ordered something today that, while cheaper on Amazon, it wasn’t sold by Amazon (just Amazon fullfilment), so they wouldn’t subtract the VAT and it was still 3.99 GBP for shipping. I saved about $4 ordering from Zaavi even though the item price was higher.
Dan007
If I am not mistaken, is the title of this post “war was it good for” inspired by Seinfeld?
T.J. Kats
Didn’t watch Seinfeld so I don’t know if the show was referencing the song or not but the post title comes from this https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&persist_app=1&v=dpWmlRNfLck
Josh Zyber
AuthorThe Seinfeld ep was indeed referencing the song. I did not think of Seinfeld when I wrote the post headline, just the song.
Timcharger
(Let me sound like the old bugger I am)
Kids these days! They don’t know the source of a reference.
They think Justin Timbeaverlake or Jay BeyonZe or PuffyDiddy-
Daddy wrote about what-is-war-good-for or every-breathe-you-
take or any Shakespeare reference. Damn kids, get off my lawn!
Dan007
Got ya, it is amazing to this day how much of the seinfeld culture is stuck in my head…