Today marks the biggest day ever in the UK home entertainment calendar, as it sees the launch of Avatar on Blu-ray.
Retailers are crossing all their fingers and toes that Avatar's Blu-ray launch will catapult the format into the stratosphere, kick-starting a buying spree which won't stop until the 'next big' format hits the shops and then… well, the whole format fight starts all over again.
There's no doubt that Avatar will be a success in the home, considering it's already broken all records in the US, proving to be far more popular than the other Cameron who is a big supporter of all things blue.
And there is no denying that Avatar is a supernova of a film, something the box office will not likely see again for another 10 years. But its arrival on Blu-ray can only be seen as a cynical attempt to cash in on the film's unbridled success in the cinema.
Not that the likes of Tescos, Asda and HMV would tell you this. If press releases are to be believed, stores opened at midnight to cope with the Avatar madness, staff learned Na'vi to promote the movie and Asda cringingly told the press that it "expects customers will be literally turning blue to get their hands on a copy".
Ratio ga-ga
Retailers want Avatar to ape the success of The Matrix on DVD some 10 years ago – a moment that pushed DVD in the mainstream, where it remains today.
Cut beneath the hyperbole, though, and you will see that the launch of Avatar on Blu-ray is a vanilla one, in that there are no extras of note on the disc. All you get is the movie and it's the 2D version at that.
Watching Avatar in 2D is doing the film a massive disservice. There has been a lot of rumblings that films not shot specifically for 3D don't actually look that great in the third dimension – we're looking at you Alice In Wonderland and Clash of the Titans – but Avatar is meant to be seen in 3D, as it was built from the ground up to cater for the technology.
The problem is that the home is just not ready for 3D just yet. Yes, there's a smattering of 3D ready TVs and 3D Blu-ray players are also trickling out. But if Twentieth Century Fox waited for 3D in the home to be mainstream until it launched Avatar in this format then, well, we may never see the film come out in the UK at all.
Fox knows this and that is why we are seeing this release now, but the signs are all there that this is one film that just doesn't sit well in the home environment.
And it's not just the lack of 3D. Cameron in an interview last year announced his dislike (in a roundabout way) of the 1.78:1 aspect ratio for 2D movies.
Speaking at a preview snippet of Avatar at the Santa Monica Aero Theatre (and noted by SlashFilm) he said: "I'm actually going back on years of kind of eschewing the kind of 1.85 format, now saying 1.85 - or actually, it's 1.78:1 - actually works really well in 3D. But only in 3D."
A quick look at the release of Avatar in 2D shows that the movie is presented in 1.78:1 for the Blu-ray release.
Cameron cannot be a happy bunny.
Big ideas
James Cameron has said himself that Avatar belongs on the big screen, saying that when you watch the movie in the home but when you do you should: "Go big. Get the biggest set you can, and then sit as close as you can stand. That's my advice. Get the coffee table out of the way and slide the couch over, right in front of the TV."
The annoying thing is Cameron is an advocate for Blu-ray.
He's obviously eager to get the movie into homes in its 3D version but Fox has sniffed that there is money to be made and that's why we have this barebones release now.
There is some reasoning behind why Avatar is being released with absolutely no new content and that is because Panasonic - who authored the disc - has tried to give the film the best picture and sound quality.
Panasonic's official line is that Avatar is "the first Blu-ray release from a major studio to be produced without special features, trailers or promotional content, freeing up the maximum disc storage for the film and corresponding menu to ensure the best possible video and audio representation of James Cameron's spectacular world of Pandora."
This is all very well, but does it take up every gig of the 55GB of space?
If you really want to see Avatar in the home, then our advice is to wait till November when a special edition DVD and Blu-ray 3D release will arrive in the shops - a version that shows off the true potential of Blu-ray, its interactivity and special feature goodness, and isn't merely a money spinner.
Unless you are "literally turning blue" to see the film, then we suggest you go and see a doctor.
Your comments (13) Click to add a new comment
martan
April 30th 2010
13. - just readed bellow that 2disc-2D version, with the Behind the scenes and hopefulle "making-of" is coming up? Great; thks for advis!
Will wait it out :)
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martan
April 30th 2010
12. Who needs the 3D at home anyways; One day we get True 3D without eye-wear.
More intriguing: I loved the "making-ofs" as appeared before. Main reason I am buying the original DVD instead of just renting out.
Very disappointing, non, or so little in AVATAR, same for STAR-TREK and others...
Why no more full stories from behind the scenes??? This was a real joy for my industrial designer's hearth...
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geoffc
April 27th 2010
11. To say 'the signs are all there that this is one film that just doesn't sit well in the home environment' ia absolute trash has the person who wrote this actually seen this on bluray?
Sounds like the ramblings of someone who thinks we should all download
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cheysuli
April 27th 2010
10. A cracking film and a breathtaking BLURAY. Not 3D? Good, the silver shimmer and dumb glasses are an irritating tax on cinema-goers and I for one am not re-buying my TV's so we can all sit in our home looking like Vic Reeves and nursing a headache.
I bought the DVD/Bluray combo which will keep my father-in-law happy, who loves films, but can't justify the expense of a BLURAY player.
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zoydwheeler
April 27th 2010
9. Will you people just stop all your kvetching! This is a rushed release, a rip-off and a bit of a con. End of.
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blueskythinker
April 27th 2010
8. I won't be waiting for the 3D version to arrive but I will be waiting for the two-disc special edition 2D version. As an avid collector of DVDs, I've been burnt so many times with re-release after re-release of films - and its plain that this is a rushed release. The extras must be in the can so why not give them to us now? To make money on those who will buy both versions of the film.
Blu ray is still a premium and this shows that studios still want collectors to part with cash - bearing in mind the two disc version will probably be the same price as this no-frills release
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aorchardman30
April 27th 2010
7. Tech Radar needs to sort out it's irrational knee-jerk talking points. First we had Mark Cobbet informing us "Why 3D TV is just a pointless gimmick" - destined to fail because apparently being able to see an image with stereo vision has no benefits whatsoever (in which case I suggested poking out an eye and seeing how much benefit you receive.
Now we are told that 2D (and especially BluRay) is a pointless money making gimmick and we should all just wait for 3D. Can you people just keep to one line of nonsense?
Perhaps the only consistent line of reasoning is that you hate Cameron for some reason? Avatar regardless of format? Maybe it would be best to just come out and amdit what that is.
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fellwalker
April 26th 2010
6. Cameron is welcome to his views on aspect ratio. I can cope with a wide screen TV, but I do not really see any great benefit over the old 4:3 CRT TVs. I think that the post box effect of movies is stupid. What might work in a cinema is not what works at home.
Our eyes focus on the middle of our vision, The bits to the side are peripheral and we cannot in normal experience make out much detail in them. So why waste all of those pixels or film stock at the sides of an unnecessarily wide picture?
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fellwalker
April 26th 2010
5. If a film is no good except in 3D, then it is not a film, its an art form. A good film is one with a good plot, and characters you can believe in, and care about what happens to them. A good film does not rely on cheap (or expensive) special effects.
Now I am not saying that Avatar fulfils the criteria for a good film. It was overly long and to my mind relied too heavily on special effects (bot specifically 3D ones).
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agentcool
April 26th 2010
4. "Watching Avatar in 2D is doing the film a massive disservice" - Complete rubbish. I've just watched the Blu-ray and enjoyed it twice as much as I did at the cinema in headache-inducing 3D. Focus, sharpness, colour and framing are all significantly better in 2D. For me, watching this stunning Blu-ray presentation has done nothing but confirm that 3D really is a complete gimmick.
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wightknight
April 26th 2010
3. I am not a fan of 3D and have no intention of upgrading my already excellent LCD TV. I rarely watch the extras on my Blu-rays and DVDs, so this release is fine for me. What's more, the 2D picture is exceptionally good and I have already noticed more detail in many of the scenes because everything is perfectly in focus.
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lewchenko
April 26th 2010
2. If the DVD version is 1/2 the price of the Bluray version (normal in UK Supermarkets) then there is NO WAY IN HELL I would buy the Bluray version.
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mrstillwater
April 26th 2010
1. Unless of course you don't have a 3D tv, or - gasp! - didn't actually like the 3D version. It's a shame they didn't include any extras, but from most comments/reviews I've seen most people seem more than impressed with the picture. And it's not like the studios have never released bare-bones versions of films on DVD before...
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