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| Title | Best |
| Time Bandits | R2UK |
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Although the local release of Time Bandits is arguably the worst transfer of this film to DVD in any region, it must be said, that acting in its favour is/was the budget pricing of sub $10. In addition, when I first reviewed this title, the only real competition was the Criterion release from the US, which carried a significant import price tag of greater than $50 and was a non 16x9 enhanced transfer in NTSC. Well, all that has changed! Late last year, Anchor Bay sourced the release rights for the United Kingdom and Europe (R2) and released not only a PAL, OAR Widescreen, 16x9 enhanced version with Dolby Digital 5.1 surround; but they also included all of the extras that were present on the Criterion release and then some. In short, they produced what appeared to be, nothing short of the definitive version of the film, worldwide. So good in fact, that it seemed to be almost too good to be true--hence the need to find out. So, with the gracious loan of the US Criterion release from one of the sites readers, Luke Hooft, I set out to compare all three versions to determine which one was the best and the results are somewhat surprising. First the bad news: The new R2 Anchor Bay release is not perfect; it suffers from a minor, but ever-present, green cast throughout the film. The good news however, is that the new R2 Anchor Bay release is quite simply, the best version available today, bar none. Not only have they done a better job than Criterion of cleaning up the source materials, both visually and aurally, they have also managed to keep all of the Criterion extras and even added a few more for good measure. Add to this the increased resolution of the PAL formatting which really stands out, the 16x9 enhancement, the extra packaging and reasonable price, and I do believe we have a clear winner. So … if, like me, you have been waiting, then it's time to get out your credit card, signup to your favourite UK-Online DVD retailer and place your orders, you will not be disappointed. Below is a summary of all of the differences between each of various releases worldwide. For detailed and specific comparisons between the Criterion release, the Anchor Bay release and the Rainbow release please visit the Video and Audio Review sections where I delve into significant differences between the various versions. R2 Release -- Anchor BayThe R2 Anchor Bay release misses out on:
R4 Release -- RainbowThe R4 Rainbow release misses out on:
R0/1 Release -- CriterionThe R0/R1 Criterion release misses out on:
Other Releases -- WorldwideThe R1 Anchor bay release misses out on:
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