New Futrama DVD Release

[Reply #200 on:]

your right... its vol2, just without the background...

[Reply #201 on:]

Maybe it's just my eyes playing me up but I swear that under the "Futurama" logo I can just make out the words "The Monster Robot...." and the other letters are too small to make out.

[Reply #202 on:]

 

Originally posted by Chug a Bug:

 http://www.play.com/play247.asp?page=title&r=R2&title=611133&p=57&g=72&pa=sr

Quoted for the page's sake.

That looks awfully plain. I really hope that that's not the cover.

[Reply #203 on:]

Guh, I'll be seriously disappointed if that's it. The one futufan descriped seemed a whole lotta cooler. I mean, most of the other DVD covers have multiple characters on it and are packed with background details, not a single Bender and a clear blue sky. Wtf? It doesn't seem their style at all.
Yes, yes, I know I'm stating the obvious, but bear with me here...

[Reply #204 on:]

I agree, that cover doesn't seem nearly as exciting as the ones we've had in the past.  I'm gonna go with the idea that this isn't the real one, since even futufan thought it was going to be something else.

The picture itself doesn't even have much to do with anything.  I mean, it's not really a scene, since you only see Bender.  And while he's in character by what he's holding, it just doesn't... go with anything.  :P

[Reply #205 on:]

It might fool the average fan. (One who doesn't own the DVDs, and therefore, hasn't seen the artwork.)

[Reply #206 on:]

It might fool them but it won't grab their attention on the shop shelf. If FOX HE go with this design I'll be very surprised, their box artwork had been getting better every season for Futurama.

[Reply #207 on:]

I'm for sure gonna pick this up.

[Reply #208 on:]

Very true, Kazzahdrane. I seriously doubt FOX will be stupid enough to go with such a plain cover design.

[Reply #209 on:]

     

Originally posted by winna:
I'm for sure gonna pick this up.

You and me both!


I think that cover might be it though, here's a larger picture:


Edit: That's the picture they use on Fox, so it's gotta be real.

P.S. Have you seen Futurama's microsite? Lookin' good considering I thought they no longer had one...

2nd edit: Now that I think about it, the cover art they show on that site for The Simpsons Christmas 2, and gone wild look nothing like what mine look like...   
------------------
Bite My Squishy Human Ass!

[Reply #210 on:]

Huh, I've never seen that microsite before. It's way out of date anyway, it's advertising the Season 3 DVD 

I really hope that isn't the final artwork, this DVD needs to grab as many casual fans as possible!

[Reply #211 on:]

I've seen that site before.  What Kazzahdrane said plus it's foxtvdvd.  The people that work at the actual Fox channel are somewhat different to the ones that mess with other entertainment businesses, such as Fox Interactive and the tv dvds and Movies and such.

[Reply #212 on:]

On that site's Futurama page, what's that thing on the right side?

[Reply #213 on:]

Meh, that DVD cover is deeply disapointing...

[Reply #214 on:]

That's really strange....why would they go out of their way to create really cool artwork, and then pull out this generic, recycled thing?  Hopefully its just a "placeholder" cover or something, until they get the real one up.

Futufan....if possible, and if the cover artwork you saw ends up being scrapped, anyway you might be able to post it here for us to see?

[Reply #215 on:]

Dont know anything about futufan, or whoever, but I do remember reading a post of his that I always found somewhat unbelievable.

He said something along the lines of: "I didnt make a play all button until the third season because the budget was too small."

This makes no sense. Adding that button costs nothing. It is simply the cost associated with someone writing the source, which amounts to about five minutes work (source that is like ten lines long, and a black frame that states there are several minutes of black between eps). And the DVD's certainly dont cost more money to produce with a play all button.

And given the production value of the futurama dvds (i.e. they've gone to the trouble of, and spent the money to, record audio and create animation) i find it hard to believe they didnt have the scratch for that little difference.

Now maybe my understanding of how dvd's work is all wrong, but I am living in LA making my livelihood in filmmaking, and I think I understand alot of the concepts of editing, computers, production, and even DVD production, and this seems to not make any sense to me.

Now, as I said, I havent read any of his other posts, and maybe I read his post wrong, or have misremembered it, but it always struck me as fishy.

[Reply #216 on:]

I think that was just an example of how badly treated the Futurama DVDs were until season 3 when they'd sold a lot by that point.

I'd be careful around here, Futufan constantly delivers the goods and personally I take his word as gospel :P

[Reply #217 on:]

 

Originally posted by DotheBartman:
That's really strange....why would they go out of their way to create really cool artwork, and then pull out this generic, recycled thing?  Hopefully its just a "placeholder" cover or something, until they get the real one up.

Futufan....if possible, and if the cover artwork you saw ends up being scrapped, anyway you might be able to post it here for us to see?

Maybe it'll get used in the 2006 Calendar...

[Reply #218 on:]

 

Originally posted by OhSnap:
Dont know anything about futufan, or whoever, but I do remember reading a post of his that I always found somewhat unbelievable.
 

Understandable, since you probably don't know his history.  But he's actually been posting reliable advance information about the dvds for years, and has never said anything innacurate to my knowledge.  That's why he's so trusted.  He even broke the news of this release before it appeared anywhere else, and then a few days later....tada!  It was announced.

He's certainly trustworthy.  It may very well have only taken him a short time to get the Play All feature up and running properly, but I certainly trust his account on it.

[Reply #219 on:]

What's the big deal anyway? All you have to do is select the next episode. It only takes a few seconds to do it.

[Reply #220 on:]

Yeah, well as I said, I dont know him at all, really, and havent seen any advance news or inside info he's given.

No offense intended to his devoted followers.

I agree eyedol, its not a big deal, and i usually skip around anyway.

[Reply #221 on:]

OhSnap: Well, he did announce this DVD release a few days before it was officially announced. So that made me somewhat of a believer.

[Reply #222 on:]

The current cover art could easily be some kind of quick mock-up made before the real one is released.

This looks nice, but I don't think I'll buy it.

[Reply #223 on:]

 

Originally posted by OhSnap:
Yeah, well as I said, I dont know him at all, really, and havent seen any advance news or inside info he's given.

If you read some of the pre-release Season DVD's threads, you'll find lots of inside news and predictions from him, all which later turned out to be true.

 

No offense intended to his devoted followers.

You make it sound like it's a cult. futufan is respected and trusted by the community, simply because he is friendly and everything he's posted in the last 2½ years have been proven right.

If he says adding a play-all feature was impossible due to financial reasons I see no reason to doubt him on that. And having a play-all is the best thing since sliced bread!

[Reply #224 on:]

It's not that bad a rip-off until the real cover is confirmed. On mvc.co.uk they use the Season 1 boxset art with the season title chopped off.

EDIT: It's now the art featured above. However HMV.co.uk, Amazon UK and WHSmith still don't have an image, so the fancy one may just not have been released to the stores.

[Reply #225 on:]

 

Originally posted by OhSnap:
Dont know anything about futufan, or whoever, but I do remember reading a post of his that I always found somewhat unbelievable.

He said something along the lines of: "I didnt make a play all button until the third season because the budget was too small."

This makes no sense. Adding that button costs nothing. It is simply the cost associated with someone writing the source, which amounts to about five minutes work (source that is like ten lines long, and a black frame that states there are several minutes of black between eps). And the DVD's certainly dont cost more money to produce with a play all button.

And given the production value of the futurama dvds (i.e. they've gone to the trouble of, and spent the money to, record audio and create animation) i find it hard to believe they didnt have the scratch for that little difference.

Now maybe my understanding of how dvd's work is all wrong, but I am living in LA making my livelihood in filmmaking, and I think I understand alot of the concepts of editing, computers, production, and even DVD production, and this seems to not make any sense to me.

Now, as I said, I havent read any of his other posts, and maybe I read his post wrong, or have misremembered it, but it always struck me as fishy.

I had to go back and re-read what I wrote regarding this -- sorry for anything that may have been misleading. It is true, the budget has nothing to do with having a Play All button or not. It is also true that the budget was very small in the beginning and got slightly larger as we went along given the numbers of DVDs that Futurama sold. The comment I made about the Play All wasn't supposed to be directly related to the budget comments that came before it. It may have appeared that way, but it really wasn't. Basically, just to set the record straight, the whole story behind the Play All button was this:

When work was started on Futurama Season 1, I wasn't in a position at my job to suggest anything that wasn't asked of us by Fox (even though I wished for the button, I couldn't really suggest it at that point). By the 2nd season, I was in the position to suggest it, and I did, but it went on deaf ears, so to speak. By the 3rd season, I just went ahead and worked it to the designs of the Main Menus myself and Fox, obviously, didn't seem to mind. By season 4, it was included in Fox's specs. Believe me, not having a Play All button on all 4 seasons is one of the things I regret about the 4 sets out there -- something I wish I could go back and fix. But, alas, there's not much I can do about it now.

So that's the true history of the Play All button as far as the Futurama DVDs go (riveting stuff, huh?). Sorry for any confusion regarding the previous comment.

By the way, I hate to say it, but you can now expect some delays with the release dates due to some post-delivery tinkering. No official word on how much of a delay as of yet.

I don't know anything more about the cover either. I really want to believe the boring image posted above is just FPO though. Time will tell.

[Reply #226 on:]

Specific info, including who's on what commentary:
 http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=3406

[Reply #227 on:]

Yeah, as far as I'm concerned, all of futufan's hard work is much appreciated, and he's a welcome addition to peel for his actual knowledge and facts that he provides unlike most of us (including me) who post irrelevant nothingness.  I just wanted to say that futufan is great 

Also, that's about how I figured the play all button didn't make its way into the first 2 sets, and it's quite understandable... really the only problem it presents is the ability to go to sleep while the episodes play, but I can probably fall asleep within the first few minutes of an episode and get at least a good amount of dream-esque tv connectivity going on before it cuts out.

[Reply #228 on:]

 

Originally posted by DotheBartman:
Specific info, including who's on what commentary:
 http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=3406

That info is horribly formatted (FOX's fault?), it isn't clear if the optional commentary is on the HIOR animatic or on The Sting or if the latter has any sort of intro like the others.  It looks like there is only one commentary on the set (for the animatic, I think) and a bunch of 'intros', whatever they are, exactly (do we know?). Is that correct, or am I reading it wrong?

[Reply #229 on:]

I agree, horrible formatting. AFAIK this is the disc contents, from previous news posts.

Short movie clip intro to introduce the disc itself - Matt will confirm Futurama has been renewed for 6 more seasons (a lie).

4 episodes - each with a short intro video with some of the crew (production crew, that is)

Animatic of Hell is Other Robots - with optional commentary.

That's all I think. Still, not bad and I'll pick it up anyway, being a fanboy.

[Reply #230 on:]

Yup ... the only new commentary is for the animatic for Hell is Other Robots. All of the intros are approx. 1 minute in length and are sort of mini-commentaries that play over clips from the whole season (for the disc intro) or the episode (for the episode intros).

There's also a small easter egg (just an image) that I'm not giving away.   

[Reply #231 on:]

Hooray for easter eggs!

It's not been mentioned so would I be correct in assuming that the 4 episodes don't come with any commentary at all, not even the ones from the same episode on the DVD sets?

[Reply #232 on:]

An image easter egg? Perhaps a picture of a poster that says "Futurama: Un-Canceled"?

[Reply #233 on:]

Hmm... a single image easter egg, eh?  I'm definitely curious to see what that is if it's the only thing there...  I hope it's something really cool.  Same with the intros and stuff, I wonder what will be said in only a minute of given time.

Or like i_c_weiner said, an "Un-Cancelled" announcement would be even better.   

EDIT:  And oh yeah, whats the latest on the release dates?  It's definitely August for the States, if I read correctly.  But what about Region 2?  Is that coming out much sooner?

[Reply #234 on:]

OK, now TVShows says the DVD will be released in August, but futufan said it would be delayed. Whom should I believe? (I'm going towards futufan, but I'm so confused. Oh yeah, with all this new info, is the August date for Region 1? [United States.])
Also, I'm disappointed that there's only one commentary, and Katey Sagal isn't on it. But at least we get one new commentary.

[Reply #235 on:]

Don't mean to cause confusion ... I have no real information regarding release dates. The August date for R1 is far off enough to maybe not be affected by the post-delivery tinkering I mentioned above, but the R2 date (which, as far as I know is still late May?) will very likely get bumped.

[Reply #236 on:]

Maybe the Easter Egg is the picture that Futufan said was going to be on the cover?

[Reply #237 on:]

Thanks for clearing that up futufan. (By the way, when is the Region 1 release date? I think it's August 24, but I'm not sure.)

[Reply #238 on:]

Region 1: Aug23rd.
Region 2: According to Neavers it's already out...

There's a topic on my site.

[Reply #239 on:]

Actually it's out on May 30. That 'Neavers' bloke is some dirty stinking rotten liar that makes me ashamed to be British!

SOURCES: amazon.co.uk, hmv.co.uk