The Little Rascals: The Complete Collection
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Movie Reviews of The Little Rascals: The Complete Collection
Movie Review: Not as restored as we are meant to believe.
Summary: 2 Stars
I have started at the beginning of this collection and am imediately turned off by it. The sound has definitely not been restored. There is hissing and crackling on some sound tracks and it is difficult to understand what the kids are saying sometimes. I haven't gone through the entire set yet, so there could be better results on some of the shorts, but if you are buying this with the expectation of getting good quality prints and a good viewing experience, think twice and don't spend the money.Movie Review: HUGE Disappointment with NO Restoration for The Little Rascals!
Summary: 1 Stars
The Complete Collection of The Little Rascals DVD Set is being distributed by Genius Entertainment with the statements REMASTERED, RESTORED and UNCUT printed on the top and front of this set. It is NOT Remastered. It is NOT Restored. It is NOT Uncut. I cannot believe Genius Entertainment is allowed to falsely advertise this set and charge such a premium price for a dvd set that is in worse shape than my old television copies that I bought over the years.
I must make it clear that I would give 5 stars to The Little Rascals shorts for the shows themselves, but this set is such a huge disappointment, that I have to give it one star, since I cannot give it minus 10 stars, which is what it deserves!
Since I have these Little Rascal shorts on other dvd's, which I am certain people taped from their tv's over the years, I have something to compare them to. As I watched some of the episodes from my old copies and this new set, side by side, the most noticeable thing is the size of the film. This dvd set is blown up enough to cut off a border around the edges, leaving heads and feet cut off! I hate when things are "remastered" like this, cutting off parts of their heads or feet! They did this with Route 66, until the complaints were so numerous about it, that the company remastered Route 66 in it's proper size, where everyone had all their body parts.
The next thing that was very noticeable, were very wide white lines and specs throughout many of the shorts, that make it far too irritating to watch. The only obvious thing that they did was make the contrast stronger, the whites are whiter and the blacks are blacker. As I viewed this strong contrast closer, I noticed that they have eliminated details on the film, gray buttons on black pants are now invisible, as everything is TOO BLACK! The films are totally ruined!
It is obvious that Genius Entertainment simply blew the film up cutting off a border around the film, which also cut off heads on the top and feet on the bottom and sharpened the contrast, making every detail disappear into pure black or pure white! They actually have the audacity to call this remastered, restored and uncut! In reality it is BLOWN UP, OVERLY CONTRASTED, and UNVIEWABLE!
There is a bonus disc that I did enjoy parts of that features: 3 silent shorts in horrendous condition, The Story of Hal Roach and Our Gang, Racism and The Our Gang Comedies, and Catching up with The Little Rascals. The last features 2008 interviews with Dick Moore, Jean Darling, Jerry Tucker, Annie Ross and Rick Sapphire (Spanky's manager).
This dvd set is a thousand times worse than my old copies taken off the televison stations many years ago! How Genius Entertainment could make worse copies than old tv copies, I'll never know! I hope a reputable company will really make a restored, remastered and uncut copy of these treasured Little Rascal shorts, but until then, I'll have to be content with my old television copies, which are a thousand times more viewable than these horrendous, unviewable discs!
Movie Review: Hal Roach Collection
Summary: 5 Stars
This collection is only the Hal Roach 'Talkie' collection not the complete set. When he sold the rights to MGM in 1938
The whole set is around 220 shorts and would be about 25 discs. MGM's production of Our Gang pale in comparrison to Hal Roach's.
Concerning the 16 or so that won't have the original title marque, does anyone know the reason why they couldn't use them and had to use the 16mm? Find out before you start complaining.
Movie Review: This is a historic, well done collection!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a well organized set (in chronological order) in quality packaging. The transfers are from clean negatives and the episodes look (and sound) better and sharper than they did when I watched them on syndicated TV as a kid in the 70s. However, there are still scratches and variations in the exposure from frame to frame so they have not been truly remastered - but for being 79 years old, they look (and sound) pretty good overall. All the episodes I remember are included and there is an 8th disk with three silent shorts and some nice special features. Included in an interior pouch is a well done booklet listing all the contents of the disks. I am very pleased with this quality set - it's one of the best I've purchased.Movie Review: Blackhawk prints used for a number of the films??!!
Summary: 3 Stars
Some folks that have had a peek at the set report (dvdtalk forum) that 13 of the shorts have Blackhawk Films title cards, which not only means no original title cards, but that 16mm prints have been used for them! Unbelievable! Are those of us with the 4 Laserdisc sets from well over a decade ago STILL going to have to use that as the benchmark? It sounds like at least for those compromised versions the answer is yes. Let's hope that Genius Ent. corrects this huge gaffe, and replaces these. I don't know what to do with my pre-order now.....everything I had read until now pointed to this being a release from the best possible sources.