Blu-Ray, Go Fuck Yourself

Okay, after about a year of experimenting... My posision on Blu-Ray has changed. Like, almost fully. But I still do believe some movies don't look right on Blu-Ray. But it really is the set-up (brand of TV, brand of player, etc.) that you have that plays a big part in whether or not Blu-Ray looks good or not. So I now officially label this blog...

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It's kinda' scary when you go into Borders or Best Buy, and you see the DVD section slowly depleting. It's been almost 15 years since DVD came onto the scene. I knew there would be format changes, but I didnt think it would be this soon. Hell, the format hasn't even changed that drastically. We go from DVD to Blu-Ray. Both are discs, so why do I hate Blu-Ray so much? Well, it's simple. It looks like shit.

DVD's, to me, look like movies. They look like they were shot on film, and processed onto a disc. And to me, that looks great. They looks like movies (because that's kinda' what they are). But then HD-DVD and Blu-Ray came onto the market, and they had that infamous format war. People say the war in Iraq is pointless? Well, I can win-up that war. And that is... The format war. Back in 2007 HD-DVD and Blu-Ray competed to see as to who would be the default successor. Blu-Ray, as you may notice, has won that war. But that's really fucking retarded because... They're the same god damn thing. And Im not just throwing that statement out there with ignorance. I studied the two, and they are really the same god damn thing. Yes, there are some minor differences, but other than that, it's the same fucking disc, with two different fucking colors. The way I think companies decided as to who they were going with, was with a simple question, "What color looks better on a box?". Maroon or blue?

Now to the shit that really pisses me off... The quality. Every person I know goes nuts over the hi-definition of the picture. to quote Dr. Ian Malcom, "You're so pre-occupied as to whether or not you could, you never stopped to think whether or not you should.". And that quote plays in so well in this. Yes, it's in hi-def, and yes it's crystal clear. BUT IT DOESN'T LOOK GOOD. The quality of the picture takes away any movie-quality that film has. I saw a Blu-Ray presentation of Pirates of the Caribbean in Best Buy, and I thought, "They made a Pirates TV show?". It is not movie-quality. It looks like a fucking TV show shot on DV. When I watch a movie, I want it to look like a movie. Now yes, there are exceptions. Documentaries. I love to watch Discovery documentaries (Planet Earth and such) in HD. And there's two reasons for that. The first reason being, most of the documentaries or nature/wildlife shows I've watched were not shot on film. They were shot on HD cameras. The clarity and realism of the picture makes me feel like Im there, and it's a great experience. I dont want that with movies, I want my movies to look theatrical.

My second gripe with HD is the glitching. I know that DVD's glitch sometimes, but that's usually due to the DVD player or a scratched disc. With Blu-Ray, it's just what happens. When I was watching Pirates at Best Buy I saw it glitch almost 3 times in the 10 minutes I watched it. Not knowing whether or not it was a faulty Blu-Ray player, or a scratched disc, I looked at the TV next to it. It was playing The Pursuit of Happyness. And what happened? It glitched just as much. Total bullshit.

Though, I will give credit to Blu-Ray for it's featurettes. There's a few features where it lets you watch "making of"'s, storyboards, and a bunch of other shit while the movie is playing. I find that to be interesting. But in all honesty, I don't need that. The most interactivity I need while watching a movie is audio commentary and MAYBE alternate angles (as my Alice Cooper: Brutally Live DVD has). But other than that, I dont need anything else while Im watching the movie.

And the only time I'll watch a movie in HD is on TV. And that is solely because, the standard TV quality is pretty shitty. It's so pixelated (at least it is with Comcast). The HD quality of a movie on TV is that of a DVD. Except for the HD Discovery shows. That's true HD because most of those shows were shot with actual HD cameras.

Oh yeah, Texas Chainsaw Massacre... On Blu-Ray? What the fuck? That's a contradiction if I ever did see one.