Things that don't belong on blu-ray

I didn't really plan on posting before I saw Iron Man 2, but I had a solid idea and some time and I'm the mood, so what the hell. Before I get started though, today, another movie about a guy in an armored suit came out-the much anticipated fan-film MEGA MAN THE MOVIE. Now, I and many other geeks had been anticipating this film for months, fearing any number of things (most likely a cease-and-desist) would stop it from coming to fruition. Well, now that it's out, and my reaction is... meh. I mean, I know its a fan film. I've seen more than my share of solid low-budget fan films, and this is not a good one frankly. I mean yes, I can appreciate the work that went into it and the obvious love for the franchise, but the acting and dialogue are a massive fail, and the plot in itself is poorly constructed, with everything taking too long to really get going. I really wanted to like the film, but christ, I fell asleep trying to watch the thing. Yes, Hollywood could and has done worse, but this is a reminder that the fans don't always know what the hell they are doing either.

Ok moving on. Blu-ray. It's awesome. It makes everything look and sound better, so everything should be on blu-ray, right? RIGHT?!? Well, not really. I mean there are some things that just aren't worth the upgrade and you'd be better saving your money on.

WEB SERIES

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Joss Whedon. I own all his shows. I own Serenity twice over. And I love Dr. Horrible, I own that as well. But it was a 45-minute low-budget (relatively speaking) web series. There is no reason for this to be on blu-ray, the production values just aren't that high. I mean sure, giant Neil Patrick Harris stomping on downtown might look quite impressive, but that's only about a minute of the film. And series such as The Guild would be even worse off, being made on almost nothing compared to Whedon's opus. Not to mention their low-budget indie appeal is sometimes a big factor in why people like them. Putting them on blu-ray just seems like a way to shill a few more dollars out of fans.

SITCOMS

Ok, it seems like I might be picking on NPH projects here, but really it's coincidence as this is a sitcom actually available on blu-ray. I would put comedies in general, but frankly animated comedies can get a huge boost from HD in picture quality, and there are comedy shows like Chuck and Psych that benefit from blu-ray cause they mix in action and big effects as well on occasion. Straight out sitcoms biggest attraction period is their cast, which an HD upgrade at best will not really give any benefit, and at worst will make the viewer notice previously unseen flaws that might really distract them. I mean much like the web series mentioned previously, they do nothing to add to the humor and possibly only detract from the show.

OLD TV SHOWS/MOVIES

Not too long ago, two of my favorite movies of all time came out on blu-ray, I was very excited. Robin Hood: The Prince of Thieves (that'd be the Kevin Costner one) and The Last Starfighter. I was so excited to own these in glorious HD. When I got them home, I was dissapointed. Sure, they looked a little better than a dvd copy, but not much. And that seems to be the best compliment nearly any old movie can be paid-that it looks good on blu0ray considering it's age. Pretty much the only exception to this seems to be classic animated films, but they are probably a little easier to restore and improve properly. But pretty much any movie made before HD cameras actually started being used suffers this same fate.

MOVIES WE'D RATHER FORGET EXISTED

Seriously, nobody went to see it in theatres, nobody bought on dvd in the first place, and now you are releasing it on blu-ray, why exactly? A terrible movie in blu-ray is still a terrible movie. I mean I guess I sort of get the reasoning behind this-studios trying to desperately recoup at least some of the huge loss they incurred from these horrible stinkers, but it had to cost at least some money to put the damn thing on blu-ray in the first place, and given the utter failure movies of this caliber usually are, I doubt they'd even make that back. It's probably actually why they already have bargain bin blu-rays.

Ok, on a closing note, there is at least one valid reason to get almost anything on blu-ray-it's much more damage resistant than your standard dvd. And granted, once blu-ray actually becomes the standard (assuming everything doesn't go completely digital before that happens), it'll be a little more acceptable, but I'm guessing that's still quite a few years off. I mean it took a long time for people to completely drop VHS tapes, and frankly blu-ray is still relatively speaking far from mainstream. What we probably really need is some kind of minimum quality standard to make sure the purchase of a blu-ray isn't such a crapshoot in terms of what your getting for upgrading...