Avatar fans be informed about Earth Day

You have seen the movie, possibly multiple times and you just cannot wait to own it at home. Well, hardcore fans probably will want to wait. This is not in anyway bashing the film or trying to diminish its appeal (as if that were possible). I simply want consumers to be aware of what they could be running out to get on Earth Day, Thursday April 22. If you are a big videophile who has to know all the little secrets about how your movie was made than this is without adoubt not the Avatar blu-ray or DVD for you to buy. There will be one and only one version of this movie coming out on Thursday and the only reason it has two discs is because one is the blu-ray version and the other is the DVD.

On either disc, what you will get is Avatar the motion picture and nothing more. Menus, trailers, promos, Easter eggs and any other extras that you might expect are being excluded with the hope of presenting you with the absolute best picture possible. If you are wondering, this disc will not be presented in 3D either. There will be an ultimate edition with however many discs and all the stuff you want coming out for the holidays. It will probably even have Avatar figures or whatever to make collectors go nuts.

Now I can fully appreciate maximizing the disc to give you the best picture and sound. Even being a detractor of the film, I will probably borrow this disc from someone to see just how beautiful it looks on my TV. My beef is that while this is how every movie should be treated when coming to home video, why in the world were the extras excluded. A blu-ray holds 25GB of data. It is very commonplace to put movies on double density discs that hold 50GB and it is possible to have a single blu-ray with 100GB of storage, possibly more. Use one disc to give us amazing visuals and sound and make it a multi-disc package with all the extras. A large majority of the people who buy this on Thursday are going to be the same people that buy the super duper version later this year. It’s this type of spending that makes companies think they can bend us over like this. Think about it: you paid $15 to see it in 3D in the theatres; you are going to pay minimum $19.99 on Thursday for a non-3D home version with no extras (probably not even the “sex scene” that people have been looking for) and then you will pay anywhere from $25-35 for this full version later this year. We have to draw a line somewhere. It is great to support something you love, but don’t do it when the love is not being returned.

Bottom line: while I know it will not happen, I think people should hold on to their money until the “full” release of Avatar is in stores later this year.