Customer Reviews

Stanley Kubrick Collection [VHS]

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(30)

 

 

I finally bought this collection after some wariness from reading all these posts. Then I did some research about the films on the IMDB. The films that people are complaining about as being Pan & Scan are nothing of the sort. The original negative ratio of the films is 1.37:1 which is APPROXIMATELY the same as the aspect ratio of your TV set. The films were matted on the top and bottom slightly to give a theatrical ratio of 1.66:1 . For home release these films were left open matted which may be full screen but it is hardly pan & scan. I think these films look rather good, a couple of specks here and there through the Shining but hardly anything distracting...no problem with the sound being mono...that's how they were filmed, that's how kubrick wanted them. It's interesting how viewers who want to see the movie the way the director intended it are always so eager to modify that vision when it suits them.

All in all a great set for a tremendous kubrick fan. Some more extras would have been nice but for $69.00 shipped, I'm hardly complaining;)

I recently bought this box set and I cant quite understand all the criticism it has received here. I have fairly good TV with s-video and a barely one month old dvd player. After reading the reviews here I was afraid to put these movies into my player, from fear that it may explode or something! I have watched all of the videos, some of which while viewing I asked my girlfriend, "whats so terrible about this?" She couldnt figure it out either! The picture is a hundred times better than VHS. Keep in mind that only Full Metal Jacket was filmed in the 80's...of course the rest are not going to be up to the standards of today's films. Kubrick films never were good money makers (unfortunately) so of course youre not going to see WB shelling out money for THX re-masters. Another thing people complained about was sound. Kubrick only filmed one movie (eyes wide shut) in stereo. 2001 and Spartacus were re-mastered for stereo years later. He wanted the movies in mono, why cant people understand that? Just because you own a $3000 sound system , that doesnt necissarily mean that we should alter a director's vision just so you can here a few extra bullets and music. I would not want these films in anything BUT mono. Anyone familiar with the remixing of the Beach Boys Pet Sounds album into stereo is witness to how awful the results of stereo remixing can be. Unless you have HDTV or some space age technology that can expose flaws in anything, dont be afraid to buy this set. I am not disappointed at all. And come on folks, the transfer on Barry Lyndon isnt THAT bad (you really think this movie that bombed in the US will ever get a THX remaster? No way...though it may deserve it, it all comes down to $). Only complaint with the set is that Dr. Strangelove is advertised on the back of the box as a multi-aspect widescreen edition, when in fact it is pan and scan. If that bothers you, buy them seperate, but they are not as horrible as everyone says...and I am a VERY fussy viewer and life long Kubrick fan.

Well, here's your chance to find out. First off, you have to deal with the fact that these DVD's are as good a presentation as you're ever going to get. Most of his films were released in Mono, and many in matted formats, which means that when they're presented on TV, you don't get the black bars at the top and bottom. Complaints about this last bit are meaningless, as 2001 was his only film released in scope, and the ones that would really need it -- Lolita and Barry Lyndon included -- are released in widescreen. Kubrick deliberately shot The Shining and Full Metal Jacket in 1:1.37 for masking in the theatres and because he couldn't have forseen the letterboxing craze we're currently in. Many directors chose to release films not in widescreen because of this (read any one of the biographies for this info). So, what you're left with are seven of the greatest films ever made, and released on DVD for a relatively cheap price. How can you pass this up? Kubrick's view of the universe is dark, totally Hegellian, and sometimes too depressing for the average viewer. But, those who venture into the unknown presented within his films are rewarded with a series of brilliant images that resonate symbolically in ways very few directors could ever hope to achieve. Renoir, Welles, Kurosawa, Ozu, Tarkovsky -- these are the acknowledged masters. Add Kubrick to the pantheon. Nothing will ever equal the experience of seeing 2001 in a theatre, but this is as close as you'll get -- and it is in widescreen and 5.1 Dolby.

When I popped the first movie, Full Metal Jacket, into the DVD player, I'm sure the look of pure horror that came over my face was quite terrible for my wife who had just bought me the set for my birthday. I love the movies, but I just couldn't understand why I was getting pan/scan on a DVD. The "this movie has been reformatted to fit your screen" message almost brought me to my knees. Still, I love having these movies on DVD, and it appears this format is the only option they'll appear in, barring permission from the Kubrick estate. I recommend the set, but please brace yourself.

For those of you thinking about getting this set, save your money. This boxed set was rushed and poorly done. The new remastered editions come out in June 2001.

5 stars for the movies, 1 star for the DVDs.

Kubrick is my favorite director and he made some of my alltime favorite movies including Strangelove, 2001, and Clockwork Orange. Definitely see these movies (several play almost yearly in some theaters), but I highly suggest viewing (renting) at least some of the DVDs before buying this box set.

These are among worst quality DVDs, I have purchased. Maybe it's becuase I work with digital video and notice these flaws more than others, but still the problems with the quality is significant and you must be warned. These could be great and they are not.

They are bad not because the older films are all mono and not widescreen. And it's not due to the lack of extras, although I personally would enjoy several commentaries for each. It's that there are quality issues which had these DVDs been done properly would not be there. These films were not digitally re-mastered or restored, rather they are 3rd generation copies digitized/encoded from the analog D-1 video masters (made from the films) and it shows. As a result the DVDs are filled with every example of bad MPEG encoding - color banding, moires, mesquito-ing, draping, etc. For example, in 2001, starfields jitter and jump, at times the blackness of space has ugly chunks and stripes of draping, jittering black mud, the smooth gradients of the sunrise were turned into an ugly sequence of color-by-numbers quality color banding, just to name a few.

None of this is in the original of course, and most of this wouldn't show up in viewing of the analog laser disc. Some of the bad MPEG artifacting could have been avoiding with just smarter encoding software that made better choices about palettes and keyframes. Nonetheless, they should fully restore/remaster these digitally for DVD to match the original intended theatrically experience as much as possible (relative to DVD format).

That's not to say all the mono should be remastered into an artificial 5.1, but at least do basic clean up and set the levels properly and if a stereo source was mastered to mono for theaters consider doing it in stereo. (I know it's minor, but how could someone let audio like that one the Clark speech extra on the 2001 DVD be that bad?). Digitally remove scratches, and repair damage to video, etc

We can only hope that the Estate of Kubrick decides to do these right. These are great films and they deserve better.

Of course, Kubrick was a genius and all these films are great, but this set is really lacking, with horrible sound and atrocious picture quality. Happily, WB quickly rectified the mistake by msking "The New Stanley Kubrick Collection." What sounds like a cash cow turns out to be a carefully planned, beautifully remastered set with ample special features that I'm pretty sure would satisfy Kubrick, and I'm completely sure will satisfy any fan. Go order that set.

PS: This set is out of print now, and for good reason.

Format debate aside, the transfer is horrible. Grainy, bad sound mixing, washed out color in the color pictures. It's worth waiting until someone who loved these wonderful films decides to put together DVDs worthy of the films on them.

All of the people giving negative reviews to this collection need to know something. FULL METAL JACKET and THE SHINING were filmed in full screen, and they cannot be shown in widescreen, the way KUBRICK intended it. ALL video versions of these movies are in the 1.37:1 ratio. get over it, as much of a fan of widescreen that i am, this does not bother me since kubrick liked it this way. and ALL of his movies were filmed in mono, i read a biography on Stanley saying that he does not trust stereo sound, therefore all of his films are in mono. this should clear most of the confusion

I have read all your reviews, and like you, I was sorely disapointed with the mono sound and full-screen formatting of THE SHINING and FULL METAL JACKET. I wrote one of the first (scathing) reviews of this video on June 29th. I did read one review, however, which said that THE SHINING was originally shot in the full screen format. That can't be true, I thought to myself, because how would they have shown it in the theaters on the big screen? Even so, I decided to do a little research on the matter (the easy way) by asking someone who knows. In this case my expert was Murray Kraft, creator of a web site devoted entirely to THE SHINING. As it turns out, THE SHINING was indeed filmed in the full-screen aspect ratio. When they showed it in the theaters, they used matting. As I understand it, this means that they actually cut off the top and bottom of the picture in order to achive the correct aspect ratio to fit the big screen. Basically, the bottom line is that the DVD shows the entire picture as it was filmed, and shows more of it than was shown in theaters, not less. And as for the sound being in mono, this is also true to the original theatrical experience. I read somewhere that Kubrick intended for the sound to be in mono because movies are shown on a two-dimensional screen and the sound should match. I get the feeling that Kubrick is very much a purist. He probably wanted people to focus on the characters and content of a film and not on gee-whiz sound and special effects. There are plenty of crappy movies out there with incredible special effects. These movies are like broken-down cars with awesome paint jobs. Kubrick is all about substance. His movies are classics and I wouldn't change a thing. I take back the things I said in my first review.