DVD Bonus Features

by Marko Peric

I love my DVD player, probably about as much as one can love an inanimate object that can't love you back. But perhaps even more I love my DVD movies. No need to rewind tapes, no having to fast forward to get to a certain scene, much better audio, and all sorts of added features that you just can't get on a tape.

The added features are of course the topic of this edition of Good/Bad/Ugly. While the whole notion of bonus features is certainly a very good notion, some of these features aren't exactly all that exciting.

Deleted Scenes: Probably one of the most over hyped things about DVDs are deleted scenes. Not all that many discs have these, especially on older movies, since some directors/producers/studios don't keep around the cut material. Often this stuff was cut for a good reason. Sometimes the deleted stuff is just a few alternate takes with slightly (or sometimes not so slightly) different dialogue. Fight Club has some good examples of this. Other times scenes are left on the floor because they just don't work, or the movie was too long. Some of these are excellent. But by and large deleted scenes just don't live up to the hype. Of course, I still watch them on every DVD that has them. Bad.

Alternate Endings: Essentially, an alternate ending is a deleted scene that happens to be at the very end of the movie. One would think that an alternate ending would be shocking and vastly alter the way one looks at a movie. One would be wrong. Most alternate endings I've seen aren't all that different from the original ending. Most times you can say "yup, I understand why they went with the first ending." This makes alternate endings Bad.

Second Discs: Not something that many movies come with, to be sure, but a very cool bonus feature. These are bonuses in the true sense of the word. How can you not love an entire disc filled with bonus features? Gladiator is perhaps the highest profile relatively recent release with a bonus disc, but I'm going to talk about the best example I've seen of a additional disc DVD set, which is the Criterion edition of Brazil. Disc one is a 142 minute final directors cut with a commentary, disc two has a pile of interviews with everyone from the screenwriters to the costume designer, trailers, and a 60 minute exclusive documentary, and disc three (that's right, a third disc) contains a 94 minute studio cut with a highly controversial happy ending. In case you haven't guessed, bonus discs are Good.

Still Galleries: Can you say space filler? I think I looked at the still galleries on the first movie I bought that happened to have them, and none since. Sure, the idea isn't bad, but when the movie is right there, in the player and ready to go, who really wants to see a still picture of a particular scene when that scene in its full live glory is available in a matter of seconds? This is just something they put on a disc so they'll have more to describe on the back. How Ugly is that?

Alternate Versions: No, I'm not talking about entire separate director cuts of a movie or unrated versions that are available on another disc for of course more money. This is all on one disc. For example, when I load my copy of The Abyss a menu comes up and asks which version of the movie I want — the original theatrical version or the special edition (which happens to be 28 minutes longer and explains a lot of stuff). This isn't terribly common, if you're wondering. But it is pretty cool. Sometimes the edits aren't all that terribly different, mind you, but it's nice having a separate version so you can see how the movie would have worked had it been released in the other edit. This is a Good thing.