Region 4 Winners and Losers

    Time Bandits has been released in many versions worldwide, including three times each in the United States and the United Kingdom.

    The original Anchor Bay Region 1 United States release was not 16x9 enhanced for widescreen televisions and included the theatrical trailer and cast and crew biographies for extras. The Criterion Collection Region 1 release was also not 16x9 enhanced for widescreen televisions. It includes the original ambient Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded audio soundtrack but the video transfer is hazy and red. Extras include an audio commentary with director Terry Gilliam, actor and co-writer Michael Palin and actors John Cleese, David Warner and Craig Warnock, a Time Bandits scrapbook and the theatrical trailer. The 2004 Anchor Bay Region 1 re-release has a video transfer 16x9 enhanced for widescreen televisions (finally!) and a boosted Dolby Digital 5.1 EX soundtrack. Extras include an interview with Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam, a documentary on the films of Terry Gilliam, a Terry Gilliam biography, a Collector's Booklet including Liner Notes, a map of the universe foldout, the screenplay in text format and theatrical trailers.

    The original Anchor Bay Region 2 release has an audio commentary with director Terry Gilliam, actor and co-writer Michael Palin and actors John Cleese, David Warner and Craig Warnock, a deleted scene script and storyboards (17 pages), an interview with director Terry Gilliam and actor and co-writer Michael Palin (27 mins), Storyboard extracts (19 pages), a Production photo gallery (22 pics), Dream facts (10 pages), "Time Bandits" scrapbook (2 mins 53 secs), Theatrical trailer (3 mins 12 secs), Production notes (5 pages), a Photo Gallery (31 pics), and Cast and crew biographies of Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin, Sean Connery and David Rappaport. The image is 16x9 enhanced for widescreen televisions and the audio transfer includes the original Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded soundtrack and an upgraded Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. The 2007 25th Anniversary Region 2 Anchor Bay re-release has an additional DTS 5.1 soundtrack and the 17 minute Clapperboard interview with Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin. The 2009 Optimum Home Entertainment release uses the same audio soundtracks as the 2002 Anchor Bay release and the same video transfer as the 2007 25th Anniversary release. The audio commentary is dropped for this version and only an interview with Gilliam, the Scrapbook extra and theatrical trailer are included as extras.

    The Region 2 Studio Canal French release is virtually identical to the Region 2 Anchor Bay 2002 release, while the Region 2 German and Scandinavian versions of the film are basic single-disc versions, although still better than the appalling and abysmal previous Pan&Scan Region 4 release by Rainbow which also had no extras!

    In my opinion, the 2007 Anchor Bay Region 2 25th Anniversary release and the Region 4 2009 Umbrella Entertainment releases are the best versions of the film currently available on DVD.