Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Xander is coming to Sacramento

Nick Brendon, “Xander” from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is among the guests at the 2011 Sacramento Sci-Fi Horror Show on Saturday, September 24th at the Scottish Rite Center at 6151 H Street in Sacramento. He’ll be talking to fans and signing autographs as well. Other guests will include Marina Sirtis from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Tickets are 10 dollars, and more information is available at http://www.sachorror.com/

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Should Buffy Go Blu, If It's Not The TV Show?

I checked out the latest DVD column from Aint It Cool News, and it mentioned that next week, along with the Star Wars Blu-Ray release that everyone hates, we'll get the blu-ray version of the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Fans of the TV show have been at a fever pitch about when the blu-ray version of the TV show will be available. Some of Joss Whedon's other shows have gone blu, including Firefly, Dollhouse and Dr. Horrible. Even Serenity has a blu-ray release. I have that DVD. So why not Buffy, and Angel for that matter? Is it cost, music royalties, deciding on the artwork for the package? Demand for those shows in blu-ray is quite strong. The decision should be obvious.

Now, making a blu-ray of the original Buffy movie would be a good idea, if you added something the regular DVD doesn't have. I checked the specs for the blu-ray release from the Foxconnect.com site. It's exactly the same as the regular DVD. The cover picture may be different, but that's not enough. This movie is more than just regular filler on a couple of cable channels these days, It's the movie that eventually saved the WB, and led to girl power on TV (and, we guess, Twilight)
Next year is the 20th anniversary of the movie. Why not have a cast reunion? Seeing Kristy Swnason, Luke Perry, Paul Reubens, Hillary Swank and David Arquette discuss the movie would be a hoot. Add cameos from Ben Affleck and Seth Green, and you have something even better. Notice I didn't mention Donald Sutherland, who played Merrick. I'm not sure he'd be part of the cast reunion. If you add Joss, though, that would REALLY be something.

Also, AMC had a TV show called "Backstory", where it talked about how certain movies were made. One of those movies was Buffy. It was how I found out Alicia Silverstone and Katies Holmes almost got the title role. Why not add that episode to the blu-ray?
So, Fox is hoping to get a few more bucks by making a blu-ray DVD of the Buffy movie with no additional extras. That, I think, is a waste of time. If you want a blu-ray, it should be updated compared to the original DVD. It should have more features. Otherwise, getting the regular DVD would be just fine.

So, Fox Home Entertainment, make up for the dull blu-ray version of the Buffy movie and approve the blu-ray version of the Buffy TV show...and Angel, too. After all, Buffy's 15th TV anniversary is coming up. A release date of next March should do it.