Worth $5 but prepare for lower resolution
The good news: The Time Travelers and Beyond the Time Barrier finally get a legitimate DVD release! Will all those crummy bootleg DVDs online disappear? I hope so! (These titles are NOT in public domain, BTW, no matter what the bootleggers claim!) More good news: Time Travelers is presented in its correct @1.66:1 widescreen aspect ratio (cropped from the original 4x3 full-frame negative, as it would have been projected in theaters in 1964.)
The not-so-good news: fitting 310 minutes onto one single-sided DVD means that the encode data rate is very low. The first three films are "okay" looking, considering this, but the last film, the very fun Angry Red Planet, suffers from some very heavy blocking and compression artifacts in places (take a look after @the 27 minute mark for some sections that are below VHS quality and break up considerably.)
I can't figure out the business decision to add two films that have been widely released before with the two that have not,...
Good quality, amazing price
As a longtime fan and collector of sci-fi films, I was very surprised to see a major studio offering this collection at a dirt-cheap price. One might expect to pay the current price ($5.00) for ONE barely-known film from public-domain outfits like Alpha Video. But FOUR fairly well-known b-movies, from MGM, for less than the price of one? I took a chance and pre-ordered my collection, and I'm glad I did.
"Movies 4 U: Sci-Fi Classics" represents the major-studio DVD debut of both Beyond the Time Barrier and The Time Travelers. Most of us collectors would gladly have paid more just to finally get good copies of these films. The other two (Man from Planet X and Angry Red Planet) were previously released as part of MGM'S Midnite Movies series. All four films look great. I haven't done a side-by-side comparison of the latter two films with my Midnite Movies copies, but they seem to look just as good as the previous releases (why would the studio not use the same prints if...
Quadruple Feature Shlock At A Bargain Price!
Four shlock sci-fi flicks on one disc at a super bargain price! They are all on one dual layer disc (allowing only about 2 GB disc space per title) but they all look pretty good. Only negative is that only one of the films "The Time Travelers" is anamorphic wide screen although three out of four were made in the wide screen era and should be presented in wide screen format, either letterbox or (preferably) anamorphic. "Man From Planet X" was made in 1951 before the 1953 widespread aspect ratio change so it's 1.37:1 ratio is correct. With the other two non widescreen open matte titles you can set your widescreen HDTV to "Zoom" (not "Stretch") and see them more or less as they were intended to be seen. "Angry Red Planet" definitely looks more grainy and soft that way though...so take your choice! Only extra is a still gallery, wish there were trailers but there aren't! I doubt we'll see these looking any better anytime soon so I'd say grab them while you have the chance...especially at...
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