The stars which are used to rate this product are for the technical specs of the product itself, not a rating on the merits of the films. I am a huge Rocky fan, so the films would get five stars, no matter how they were packaged. Ok, now that I've cleared that up:
From The Digital Bits news today: "In other release news, MGM has just set a Rocky: The Complete Saga DVD box set for release on 12/4 (SRP $59.98). The set will include Rocky, Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV, Rocky V and yes... the recent Rocky Balboa. Unfortunately, according to the studio's press release, the only extras on the set are a pair of trailers (one for Rocky and one for Rocky V). Yo, Adrian! Where's the beef?" If that is true--and it probably is since The Digital Bits is the most reliable site for DVD news--why bother releasing this set?
Here's the DVD history of Rocky: MGM originally released individual standard DVDs of the Rocky movies many years ago as the DVD format became more popular. The DVDs were, to put it charitably, poorly produced. Subsequently, MGM released a Rocky I-V box set back in 2001 to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of Rocky. Although the packaging was nice, there wasn't much improvement to the DVDs themselves as far as audio and video transfers; the most significant detail of the set was the addition of interviews and other special features to the first Rocky disc. A few years later, the set was re-released with different packaging, with some improved audio and video transfers on some of the movies (Rocky V was notably left untouched). And last year, to coincide with the release of Rocky Balboa, the set was re-released again, this time with the cheap, thin DVD cases now being used in tv season DVD packages as the only difference from the previous release. Inexplicably, rather than being included in the re-re-released box set, the first Rocky movie was also separately re-released on DVD in a 2 disc 30th Anniversary special edition (Well, I guess greed would explain it...). So, if you bought any of the box sets, you still had to purchase the 30th Anniversary edition of Rocky to be a true completist.
With Rocky Balboa having been available on DVD for over six months, MGM has now chosen to release the complete set of films in a new box set. But what a missed opportunity this represents to include special features which have been omitted from previous releases. I do not know if there are cut scenes from Rocky IV in the MGM vaults, but I know for a fact that there is massive material for Rocky V, as a bootleg "uncut" version of the film has been circulating online for years. Also, why not finally upgrade the video transfer of Rocky V? Perhaps the most egregious omission will be special features for Rocky Balboa. Listening to Stallone's commentary on the DVD, he repeatedly refers to a "director's cut" which he would like to release at some point. This would have been the perfect time.
