The DVD Collection

Confession time. At the risk of increasing my geek factor ("what, higher?" I hear the crowds roar), I want to discuss DVD's. Not just which ones I like, although I will throw that in. I want to understand why people own the DVD's that they do. And that is where the confession will come in - but all in good time.

DVD's bring several benefits over the good old video cassette. The picture quality is better, and with many you get all sorts of fancy dancy surround sound. I haven't gone and reconstructed my house to include a mini ciniplex (try saying that with a mouthful of Saos), but I do have a modest surround system and a rather bog standard 51cm CRT tv. However these are not my focus today.

DVD's also bring the 'Extra'. This is where the geek in me gets excited, and where we get to some confessing. The decision on whether I will buy a DVD (and I think this is my point) ultimately depends on my core criteria - in descending order - being:

1. Did I love his movie enough to want to watch it over, even several times?
2. Do I want to share this movie with friends, at the risk of earning their gratitude or owing them possibly several hours of their lives back?
3. What are the extras?

Now the existence of extras is often a difference maker for me.

I own the Lord of the Rings Extended Editions. Now I am hardly Robinson Crusoe on that island, but this movie is such a visual experience, not to mention my favourite story of all time - see, geek factor already rising - plus it has soooo many extras, that I just had to own it. I own Firefly and Serenity, and love the extras on those disks. I have The Name of the Rose - the Dutch version no less, because it is the only version that has the full 2 hour 'making of' documentary included. That geeky enough for you?

Here is my first problem - I haven't even watched half the extras on these damn things. To be honest, my interest in how much latex it took to make the orcs into orcs is of peripheral interest to me - perhaps enough to justify about 3 minutes of my life. And all the crap about how they did the CG is just blah blah blah. So why the extra obsession?

There are of course exceptions, where the movie is the key. I own Princess Bride, but it doesn't have any extras (probably because it is 18 years old and thus before they thought of these things). I own the Big Blue - in fact 2 versions, with nary an extra in sight, again probably for the same reason.

However I have a sneaking suspicion that deep down there is something in me that likes the fact that I can sit there and tell people that I have the Dutch Name of the Rose, and why. That to not own the LoTR EE's would be a denial of my id. I suspect that some people have a number of DVD's in their collections just because they are the ones that give you cred. Of course, I'm not like that - I only have about 25 DVD's, so that is my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Anyone have any thoughts? Pretend that I haven't scared you all off, please...