VHS tapes

[Ladd Spencer]

Now, I know some people will call me crazy, but I love VHS tapes. They come with trailers for other tapes, making finding out about stuff you've never even heard of or have long forgotten about a snap, they're usually like 50 cents to a dollar, and once you get a good collection going it's one of the best things to collect.

Recently I found (and I know Quickman will appreciate this), George Lucas in Love on tape. Yup, it's my first time even seeing a 9 minute long tape. During that same purchase I found part 2 of the BBC Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. [tornado fang] if I ever find part one, but man, what a neat find, at least IMO. That sucker's 99 minutes long. Picks up with Arthur seeing Deep Thought begin computing everybody's favorite number. Zaphod's excellently acted, and Trillian's totally cute.

Anybody else here love combing thrift stores for choice titles on VHS?

[Rin]

What's a "VHS tape"?

Is that what the ancient mayans worshipped, or what?

[Ladd Spencer]

I think they worshiped Beta Max

[The Great Gonzo]

What's a "VHS tape"?

*looks at the many VHS tapes in the room*

*oh God I'm old*


We had tons more in the basement, but a while ago I had to help Dad toss most of them out because they were either stuff we had on DVD, so old that the damp tape(?) was a hazard to our VCRs, or both.

[Ladd Spencer]

I hate discs. It's such a fragile format. Don't get me wrong, I own DVDs, and I've been able to keep many cool CDs from getting scratched (X4 for Saturn especially), but it's such a battle, especially when a move comes along. I'm about to the point where I'm gonna just throw out all my jewel and DVD/Xbawks-sized cases and put them all in binder pages.

I do love old PC CDs that are a challenge to get to run on modern Windows. I've reminded myself of how funny the name Windows 7 is. It says version 6.1 right in it.

Some of my favorite tapes are Yu Gi Oh! episodes. God damn that [parasitic bomb]'s a laugh riot. I was watching this episode the other day where Yugi cheated, in classic Yugi Moto style, but he didn't even have to. All he had to do was declare his attacks in a different order, but no, he goes and says Magnet Knight + Summoned Skull = 300 more attack points, covering his 100 points difference otherwise. As if his field would've been cleared before his next turn anyway.

[Rin]

Hey, guys, guys.
But I have a lot of VHS tapes, well I had. Some of them are already thrown out.
I remember recording Transformers Armada, and various other shows on them.
I even watched an english letterboxed version of Empire Strikes Back (my first real exposure to Star Wars).
[tornado fang].

[Ladd Spencer]

I got a good copy of Star Wars. Greedo says "Bla bla bla take Millenium Falcon," Han says "Over my dead body," Greedo says "That was the point," and Han says "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" And murders the [parasitic bomb] out of him.

I got a good copy of Empire with no dubbed scream when Luke directs himself into the chute at the end.

Still gotta find a copy of Jedi with no cuteness added.

[Protoman Blues]

Oh I still have those on tape. They will never be sold.

[Archer]

I prefer to watch stuff in, you know, good quality.

[Protoman Blues]

Didn't say I didn't.

[Ladd Spencer]

The funny thing about that is that movies are only as high quality as they were when they were shot. With artificial HD I can see all the fake.

And what's also funny is that every movie after Citizen Kane was purposefully shot with focus play to draw your eyes, when there's little reason everything shouldn't've been in focus at all times.

[Flame]

I still have many movies in VHS.

Actually, my Lord of the Rings collection marks around the time when we bought a DVD player.

Fellowship is on VHS, while the other two are on DVD.

And im sure I have a Harry Potter 1 VHS somewhere.

Some of my favorite movies are on VHS, like Iron Giant. I remember getting the Pokemon VHS' when I was a kid. I still have some of those. Or recording Pokemon on a VHS when I couldnt watch it. And then having mom accidentally record over it.

I know for FACT I first watched the original Star Wars Trillogy on VHS, back in the day when we had a video rental a few blocks away from us. (I'll always remember they had an MvC and Metal Slug arcade machine, and the MvC one was loud as [tornado fang], and naturally, was on demo half the time, so I have the Capcom Q Sound jingle engraved into my brain) I watched Back to the Future on VHS too, a Charlie Chaplin collection VHS... quite a few movies.

I hate discs. It's such a fragile format.

VHS can be fragile too. They wear out after repeated watching, can come with those nasty lines and [parasitic bomb], (which can also occur from repeated watching wear and tear) and if your VHS player goes maverick, it could rip the film right out. (Or the film could snag on something and get ripped out when you pull the tape out)

Either way, I grew up with VHS. Along with Cassette Tapes. Though I didn't have NEARLY as many of those.

EDIT:

And what's also funny is that every movie after Citizen Kane was purposefully shot with focus play to draw your eyes, when there's little reason everything shouldn't've been in focus at all times.

Wait, is that why Soap Operas look so differently filmed than most Movis and TV shows? Or am I confusing something here?

[Ladd Spencer]

I only have disc one of my Fellowship special edition, but I don't mind. It's the better half of the movie. With Gandalf in the Shire and what-not.

My copy of Stargate snapped, but I didn't care because that movie kinda sucks anyway. Definitely one of Kurt Russel's less impressive movies.

[Police Girl]

I have a lot of old VHS still, mainly consisting of Disney movies that I had when I was a kid (And for some strange reason, Robin Hood, even though I never owned that one) and LOTS of Pokemon Tapes (Which were a gift, actually, one of them had a nasty encounter with a concrete floor though.

The only real oddity in my collection is an old Mighty Morphin Power Rangers tape, mainly because I can't honestly remember watching the series when I was a child. (I was like 2 or 3 when Mighty Morphin ended.)

[Ladd Spencer]

I was like 2 or 3 when Mighty Morphin ended.

Wow I feel old

[Hiryu]

Pretty much have to echo what James says in this episode, more particularly around 3:36:

EDIT: Darn you James for disabling embedding! Bad James! BAD!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsdzaEVeFEE

[Ladd Spencer]

That's absolutely hilarious. Embedding is disabled by request though, so you might as well make it a link.

I never understood people that defend DVDs. I've yet to even try and seek out BR, but I can only assume it's the same [parasitic bomb].

Skipping menus is OK, but it really cheeses me off when all 4 methods fail (fast forward, scene skip, menu, and title menu)

[Protoman Blues]

Well let's not kid ourselves here. DVD is a vastly superior format, especially Blu-Ray. Hell, I'm sooooooooo tempted to purchase Star Trek: The Next Generation on Blu-Ray because Paramount went out of the way and touched up everything.

[Quickman]

I have my first purchase with my first paycheck from my first job on VHS.  Yes, it's the Special Edition.  No, I'm not throwing it out.  It survived a house fire, dammit!

Survived a house fire!

Let's see a DVD do that.

[Ladd Spencer]

Well let's not kid ourselves here. DVD is a vastly superior format, especially Blu-Ray.

Only when pristine, though. I'd rather just have a digital copy any day.

Hell, I'm sooooooooo tempted to purchase Star Trek: The Next Generation on Blu-Ray because Paramount went out of the way and touched up everything.

Touch ups bother the hell out of me, but I think I've said that. The only old things I like watching in HD are black and white stuff, because it makes me feel like I'm in Timeless River.

I have my first purchase with my first paycheck from my first job on VHS.  Yes, it's the Special Edition.  No, I'm not throwing it out.  It survived a house fire, dammit!

Survived a house fire!

Let's see a DVD do that.

Special Edition of... Star Wars? Better than nothing I guess, but I abhor later copies of that.

[Quickman]

I have the theatrical releases on DVD, and my brother has pre-SpEd versions that his wife taped off the TV some years back.  So, we do have non-SpEd versions.  The SpEd box set I have, though, is pretty sentimental.  We found it just after the house fire, while picking through stuff.  Every other VHS beside them was melted into a pile of goo.  Black, plastic abstract sculptures.  And right there, amid the carnage, with nary a smudge... was my Star Wars Special Edition.

You had better believe we had a movie marathon that very night.

[Ladd Spencer]

My copy of Star Wars doesn't say A New Hope. My copy of Empire says sequel, but makes no mention of trilogy. That's how I knew on those ones.

Unfortunately, finding a good copy of Jedi seems like it's going to wind up being me buying an excessive amount of copies of the movie.

What should I be looking for for Jedi? No Jabba's tail, does that exist on VHS? That cackling puppet was added? I know less of Jedi's alterations.

[Quickman]

Last I checked, Jabba's tail was there since the beginning, along with Salicious Crumb.

[Ladd Spencer]

What? Haven't you heard about how somebody steps on his tail? I swear I heard a thing like that.

Edit:
The original script to A New Hope describes Jabba as a "fat, slug-like creature with eyes on extended feelers and a huge ugly mouth",[15] but Lucas stated in an interview that the initial character he had in mind was much furrier and resembled a Wookiee. When filming the scene between Han Solo and Jabba in 1976, Lucas employed Northern Irish actor Declan Mulholland to play the stand-in and read Jabba the Hutt's lines wearing a shaggy brown suit. Lucas planned to replace Mulholland in post-production with a stop-motion creature. The scene was meant to connect A New Hope to Return of the Jedi and explain why Han Solo was imprisoned at the end of The Empire Strikes Back.[31] Nevertheless, Lucas decided to leave the scene out of the final film on account of budget and time constraints and because he felt that it did not enhance the film's plot.[32] The scene remained in the novelization, comic book, and radio adaptations of the film.

Lucas revisited the scene in the 1997 Special Edition release of A New Hope, restoring the sequence and replacing Mulholland with a CGI version of Jabba the Hutt and the English dialogue with Huttese, a fictional language created by sound designer Ben Burtt. Joseph Letteri, the visual effects supervisor for the Special Edition, explained that the ultimate goal of the revised scene was to make it look as if Jabba the Hutt was actually on the set talking to and acting with Harrison Ford and that the crew had merely photographed it. Letteri stated that the new scene consisted of five shots that took over a year to complete.[33][34] The scene was polished further for the 2004 release on DVD, improving Jabba's appearance with advancements in CGI techniques, although neither release looks exactly like the original Jabba the Hutt puppet.[35]

At one point of the original scene, Ford walks behind Mulholland. This became a problem when adding the CGI Jabba, since he had a tail that happened to be in the way. Eventually, this problem was solved by having Han stepping on Jabba's tail, causing the Hutt to react with a yelp of pain.

I suppose it never was. I remember hearing about it, though. More Star Wars infamy is all it wound up being I guess.

[Quickman]

That's in ANH.  I was referring to RotJ.