Thread: Twilight Time
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Old 26th February 2015, 08:52 AM
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I'm not a fan of Twilight Time's business model at all.

I do understand the need for limited edition models where Blu-ray is concerned (after all, it is a niche format what with DVD still going strong and streaming taking an increasingly larger bite out of the home media market), but the way in which Sony and SAE in particular handle the Twilight Time banner is, to me, a bit of a middle finger to the fans.

Basically, you're paying a premium price ($30 ex. shipping) for an often barebones product of a film owned and supplied by a studio such as Sony (I know Fox and MGM have since jumped on-board with a few titles too) that is then licensed to TT for a set period of years (often meaning total lock-out elsewhere in the world)... then afterwards, they will re-evaluate the licence and perhaps extend/renew (as in the case of Fright Night), or the title reverts back to Sony who will undoubtedly sit on it for an undistinguished amount of time.

Obviously, there is a demand for these titles due to how well some of them sell, but a lot of the time it's tantamount to hysteria propagated by the fear of missing out as people throw money at a title which would otherwise be priced at $10-15, like most other catalogue titles are from other studios - after all, we're not talking niche and/or cult titles that have received a lot of restoration work and newly created extras here, basically TT are just slapping an already prepared HD master on a disc and sticking it in a case. Obviously TT and Sony are making a lot of money from this model, but I for one refuse to support it, especially when there are labels out there doing it so much better and not shafting the fans by giving them a product worthy of the money they're laying down for it (Arrow, Scorpion, Vinegar Syndrome - all of whom have utilised the limited edition model much better than TT... at least from the fans' point of view as opposed to the distributors' own wallets).

This is just my view though, there are a lot of companies out there releasing great products and vying for my money in the home media marketplace (it’s pretty much where most of my free cash each month goes), and therefore it’s up to me to prioritise where and how I spend my money. If money was no object then it might be a different story, but when I can buy arguably better quality product from the likes of 88 Films, Arrow, Artificial Eye, BFI, Blue Underground, Eureka, Olive, Kino, Network, Severin, Studio Canal, Synapse, Third Window, Vinegar Syndrome, Warner etc. (hell, even Criterion titles) often at the fraction of the price of a TT product, then for me it is a no-brainer… there of course is also the option of just waiting and being patient to often see a lot of the more heavy-hitting and more desirable titles appearing in other regions (Christine, Fright Night, The Fury, Leave Her to Heaven, The Other, Rollerball etc.) sometimes in better quality versions, and for again, a fraction of the price.

All that said, I really don't begrudge paying a premium price for something; however, I expect a premium product if I'm doing so (I buy Camera Obscura releases for instance), and TT's product just isn't worth the money for me. It's nice to see some TT titles getting released elsewhere in other territories when the deals do expire, and it's also nice to see other companies trying the LE model without resorting to raping their fans as well - mainly because I can see LE models becoming the norm in future for a lot of the more niche titles as the physical media market shrinks, and the more people adopting the greedy, exploitive TT model, then the worse the world of buying physical media will be in my opinion.
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