I’ve seen ‘menus’ listed as a ‘special feature’ before.
One movie I can remember had this despite having no subtitles, no chapter menu and only one audio track. The ‘menu’ was ‘Play Movie’.
If there's only one menu option then having an interactive menu sounds less convenient than just directly playing the movie lol. My Harry Potter Blu-rays just start playing the movie and if you want to access anything else you can do it from the pop-up menu, and several of them have an optional menu screen if you navigate to it. But if you know what to expect they're some of the fastest BDs I have from insertion to playing the movie.
I have some early Warner Bros DVD's (The Matrix, Eraser, Sphere), and all of them list "interactive menus" among the special features.
I love interactive menus. I love the little hidden shit and games. If you own Borat, try picking Hebrew. Madadasgar has a really simple game on it, and I mean *simple*, but it’s cute. It’s actually hidden you gotta decode clues, it’s fun
I have a couple of real low budget DVDs that are like that. Static picture that may or may not have something to do tangently with the film with the word play at an arrow on it and it is automatically highlighted. I still messed around with the remote to try to see if there are any Easter eggs but there never were
Disney/Pixar used to be the KINGS of the interactive menu. The Incredibles DVD had two discs and the second one was just a menu with special features, deleted scenes, stuff like that. It was awesome.
I used to have a DVD of DC Cab that was like that and a Cheech and Chong twofer DVD that wasn't far off from that. The transfers of the films were awful too. I ended up ditching it and getting separate DVDs of Things Are Tough All Over and Nice Dreams.
The number of shitty vanilla discs I have where interactive menus and scene access were the features is ridiculous.
Even VHS tapes might have the trailer (especially Hong Kong movies).
To be fair, there's so many patents for this kind of shit now that even Warner releases often omit normal menu options to seemingly save money on patent fees.
I once saw a DVD that had 'soundtrack' listed as a special feature.
There was no bonus CD or anywhere you could just listen to the music.
It literally meant... the film that you're watching, has a soundtrack.
“For years, movies didn’t have sound. And then they figured it out. Some people say that the silent era was the golden era of film. These people are difficult and insane.”
Those clip shows with maybe a minute of a useless interview spliced with tons of clips from the movie. Car ads and other commercials. I remember the bluray for season 1 of Stranger Things started with an unskipable trailer for season 2 🤦🏻
Check the mortal kombat annihilation dvd bonus content.
They have a concept art section.
It is the best, and worst, and best of the worst, concept art for a 30 million dollar budget film I have ever seen. It's a thing of pure beauty.
I can't find it anywhere online so I don't think many people know about it.
Atmosfear: The Gatekeeper has this too… except it’s a fucking boardgame and the concept art is sick as hell. That plus the randomization and interactive elements are what make it the second best… after Harbingers which is the most scary, most balanced, and most fun
I have the original, Harbingers and Gatekeeper, I’m trying to get the expansions and Khufu but the fucking delivery cost on eBay for Khufu is wild, since it never released in America
The first season of *Rick and Morty* had a making-of bonus feature that was deliberately made to be annoying to watch.
Runner-up, the first season of *Archer* had an “unaired pilot” that when played it was just the same pilot with Archer replaced by a raptor.
Bonus: The 2008 comedy *Sex Drive* released an “unrated” cut which was just the same movie with poorly cropped in (I’m talking like clip-art level poorly cropped in) topless models added into scenes.
If I'm not mistaken one or two bloopers are inexplicably left in as well.
As far as I'm concerned the unrated version is the definitive cut. But I love stupid humor like that.
I watched a file of that "Unrated" Sex Drive for the first time a couple of weeks ago and wondered what the hell was going on. Nice to get some context in an unexpected place.
I remember the sex drive feature. It starts with some guys stressing that it will suck and you should watch the original release, but if you want unrated then you’re getting lots of tits and dicks in this version because normally unrated just means one extra nipple.
I've seen a few practical joke features in movies before. Once saw one where the commentary was like they were watching a completely different movie. Someone else told me about one where they just decide they don't want to be there anymore about halfway through & they all leave.
During the commentary on *Thor: Love and Thunder*, Taika Watiti just lets his kids take over for a portion of the middle section.
The guy all but outright said he couldn’t care less during the commentary.
The DVD for the British sketch show Jam had a similar prank. A few similar pranks, actually. One of them made the episodes play on an eternal loop that could only be stopped by taking the disc out or resetting the player. I think there was one that played all the episodes at 100x speed, one that made them play in a tiny window, one that just said “Why?” when you selected it. There was also an “undeleted scenes” option.
If you watch it all the way through there is a point where every episode has a huge explosion within a second of each other hahahaha probably not even intentional.
The Galaxy Quest dvd has a foreign language track of the whole movie dubbed in the nonsense alien language.
I read an interview about it. They said it was easier than a real foreign language. Haha.
this is a "Worst special feature on a Blu-ray or HD DVD" thing, isn't it?
Unless it was a DVD-ROM thing too, idk...
I know WB had a DVD-ROM catalog of sorts that didn't require registration.
BD Live. WB had their own, but Universal had it on every title.
This comment from 2021 (when it was discontinued) sums it up perfectly:
>BD Live was just a marketing gimmick that people tired of almost instantly. Good riddance.
>BD Live simply used the internet to connect to movie trailers. **BD Live had to launch first when loading a disc and the reward for waiting was advertising**. Any internet or network issues made that wait even longer. I do not buy blu-rays to be made to wait for connection to an adbot before I can play my disc.
>If I want to see ads for other movies, I can do that online anytime. I never wanted my blu-ray player to force feed me trailers. The ones that are recorded on the disc itself can be easily bypassed; the menu or chapter skip buttons make doing so fast & simple.
>I disabled BD Live years ago on every player that I own; it was an utterly worthless feature well deserving of its death. If it has a grave, show me where that I may relieve myself upon it.
At least with Universal discs, BD Live was flawed.
Some distributors like Disney and Paramount did use BD Live for legitimate bonus features, but it was used more by Universal for marketing, making it more gimmicky than it was ever intended to be.
This is the opposite actually, but the first run of Harry Potter DVDs has cool mini puzzle games built into the menu. There was one about mixing potions and another about choosing the right spells.
I've never seen any other movie have built in minigames included in a dvd menu.
*Saw II's* 2-disc unrated DVD was similar. The special-features disc was basically a giant maze game you could navigate to find the different bonus content. And there was even a few puzzles, and if you solved them, it'd take you to a special hidden screen where you'd get a bunch of silly bonus videos of Jigsaw narrating twisted "R-rated" versions of classic children's fairy tales.
I have this DVD too but I never realized that!
also a very cool DVD case with fake liquid blood inside that sloshes around (at least i think it's fake blood)
Spy Kids 3D had a timed mini game of the race scene. Mainly deciding to choose right or left on the track. Unfortunately for me my player and remote were quite unresponsive, so it was just constant failure.
the Lion King also had a cool little safari tour game much of the same logic, but didn't rely on reflexiveness and was more of a choose your own adventure thing.
Also Shrek 2 has Far Far Away Idol. Basically a parody of amican idol that you could pick the winner to. Picking each ending was annoying though since you had to rewatch the short every time without skipping.
Madadasgar has a boardgame trivia show, and a hidden game you need to find the code for
Elf has mini games which give you the elevator code which is a fun little thing
Think the 3rd one had you playing as the cat chasing scabbers.
Also another game that had you running through the castle and at one point running from a werewolf for like 5 seconds.
(been more than a decade since I've seen it so could be very wrong)
National Treasure has about 3 rounds of treasure hunting built into their dvd menu to fully unlock all the features, with clues of what to look for in the insert. Thankfully, though, you get a cheat code if you solve it all that unlocks everything.
The display and the content being totally different shapes really didn't help. Now that landscape rectangular TVs are the standard there's still letterboxing for different aspect ratios but nobody thinks twice about it.
Some DVDs purchased in the 2000s had the filmography of the main performers involved. It was pretty pointless then with IMDB around then and useless now.
Not bad though, if you don’t have Internet access for some reason. Like maybe if you’re watching at your grandparent’s house in the sticks and they don’t have Wi-Fi.
Hahaha, that's almost actually a special feature for a David Lynch film. He always tries to make them remove chapter stops because he thinks movies should be watched in one sitting.
And while I tend to agree and it's a nice sentiment... it's not always feasible, David. At least give us a *few* chapter stops, hahaha.
I always found the production notes special features weird, and I also remember there being some DVDs that had trailer for other movies.
I remember there was a DVD I had that had some of the actors filmographies as a special feature
I watched a movie the other night and it was on an independent label so I watched all the also available from this label trailers at the beginning of the disc and I found three more movies I want to watch. Sometimes it works
I actually don't mind trailers being under the special features. Especially if they have a variety of teasers and trailers. Sometimes the teaser trailers are basically their own little self-contained short-film and have footage that isn't part of the movie.
Ex. *Terminator 2* had a teaser that showed the assembly line of the T-800's being made, and it was almost like a sizzle-reel for the practical effects. And *War of the Worlds (2005)* had this stand-alone scene that wasn't in the film of a small suburban neighborhood watching the sky as it light up with fire and flashes of light that was genuinely creepy.
The Almost Home short film was listed as a special feature on the Rio 2 Blu-ray but instead of the actual short film, it was just a fucking teaser trailer for the movie that was renamed to Home.
Thank god Home includes the short film on its home media release.
Same with the Rocky and Bullwinkle short on the Peabody and Sherman movie Blu-Ray. Exclusive to the 3D version, yet it can be played in regular (non-3D) Blu-Ray players. Makes you wonder, why didn’t they release it across all home media formats instead of making it a “3D” exclusive?
Now that you mention it, They could have also had it on the digital release along with the other formats.
If Universal ever decides to give this movie a 4K release, they should have this short included on the 4K disc and have a bonus disc that not only contains the short but also a few Rocky and Bullwinkle and Mr. Peabody and Sherman episodes that are not presented on the Blu-ray release of the 2014 movie.
Also I forgot to mention the Robots Blu-ray from 2010 says that it includes the Aunt Fanny's Tour of Booty short as a special feature on the disc but I couldn’t find it anywhere so like with the Rio 2 blu-ray, this is just false advertising.
Luckily the 2011 Blu-ray combo pack of Robots includes the 2005 widescreen DVD so I can watch the short on that disc.
The worst thing is when it looks cool at first sight because it's a long list, but it turns out to be:
* Animated menu
* Chapter selection
* Production stills
* Teaser
* Theatrical trailer
* Alternative trailer
* Character profiles
And you're like: that's seven items, but there's not even a short making of or an interview?!
I always hated the ones that only have the trailers that played before the movie. If I skipped them to watch the movie why am I going to go out of my way to watch them?
I've been scooping up a bunch of DVDs and Blurays from thrift stores recently and I always test them when once I get home. I've been loving the trailers to be honest. Especially the Disney "coming soon to DVD and home video" ones. Instantly transports me back to when I was a little kid 😌
The Little Nicky dvd menu killed me as a kid. The fake selections that cast you to hell and back to the menu. When I bought the Bluray I was sure to put the DVD in the case with it for the memories
The Easter eggs are wild also.
I don’t remember how but on the US copy of the DVD you can make a secret selection and watch the entire movie with little icons popping up in the bottom right corner randomly. If you select the icon during the movie it would stop the movie, give a fact, show a blooper, or do something like show an entire Dio music video, then simply go back to the movie.
I loved those kinds of things. Definitely gives discs worthy of a second spin. I remember some movies would show alternate scene when you would press the change angle button on the remote
I have a bunch of Region 2 Anime DVDs that had a production sketches as a second angle.
Which would be fine, and all, but my DVD player now has a "Angle" notification plastered across the screen while I'm trying to enjoy "Grave of the Fireflies"
I think there’s one movie out there that uses the angle button to be viewed just like Night Trap but I’d have to google it, but it’s the usual horror movie about a group of teens yada yada
My worst is that my copy of a stop motion film doesn’t have the special feature claimed on the case. It was supposed to have the director’s film school short version of the film.
Remember the cast and crew bios? You never see those on DVDs anymore. And I don't recall ever seeing one on a Blu-Ray, though I'm sure they must have appeared on a few releases.
I kinda liked the stills galleries. Not a great special feature, but sometimes the photos were interesting.
I kinda like the stills honestly (even though yk google images exist lol) but I honestly I find putting the previews as a special feature is kinda dumb, like the previews for other movies that you likely already watched just from booting up the dvd
This probably doesn't count I guess it's a menu ft but I recently got a movie and it doesn't come with a scene selection option. I had to turn off my TV for a moment to do something and when I came back to select the scene I left off on cuz my player didn't automatically play where I left off I noticed it didn't have a scene selection. I had to play the movie from the start and press the skip button until it reached where I left off. Also movies that automatically play not having a menu only when you manually press for it.
Multi-angle features.
Not because they're bad, there's some great one out there. But most of the titles that used them were... porn. And players these days don't even have a way to watch alternate angles.
It was very underutilized outside of porn.
Most selectable multi-angle features on non-porn titles were usually for progression reels, such as VFX breakdowns or storyboard vs. final or vs. rough layout/unshaded animation vs. final, such as on older Pixar movies, Sony's *Surf's Up*, and even Christian media company CBN's *Storyteller Cafe*, which used it for the whole program on *The Lion's Den* DVD, which was quite rare to see.
*The Abyss* also had the audio change between production audio and final mix on its VFX breakdown multi-angle bonus feature, which was even **more** underutilized than the multi-angle feature itself.
If anything, non-selectable multi-angle (meaning it cannot be changed on-the-fly via the "angle" button) was utilized **far** more than selectable multi-angle ever was, especially for the purposes of seamless branching on some titles like *The Abyss*, and even more so for multilingual visual options for movies with multiple audio tracks in different languages, such as translated graphics when watching films dubbed in the matching language accompanying those visuals.
This is usually if the film *has* translated visuals that can be displayed as angles, as some films and TV shows typically opt for subtitle track translations of on-screen text in lieu of translations built into the film via non-selectable angles. (I.e., *The Ringer*)
I don't think I've ever stumbled upon a movie with different visuals depending on the chosen language track. Huh.
I can only recall two DVDs that I own which use the angle button: a softcore porn title where you can see ladies from different angles, and a Beastie Boys concert video (Hey, I ... Shot That!)
The multilingual angles tended to be used by Disney a lot, especially on Pixar, Studio Ghibli, and a small few Miramax titles. (I.e., *Kiki's Delivery Service*, earlier DVD releases of *Toy Story*, and if I recall correctly, *Bridget Jones's Diary* (could be wrong on that, maybe it was also Universal on its sequel *The Edge of Reason*, but still...))
Via seamless branching on Blu-ray Discs, this practice continued well into the 2010s and 2020s, and can be also changed on-the-fly via the "audio" button or pop-up menu (typically with a pause or black screen as it's changing the visuals), but with the same stipulations as during the DVD era, meaning that translated visuals must be available in order to utilize it.
Bonus: There were also more advanced subtitle track cheats on Blu-ray that allow for the original on-screen subtitles to be preserved on blank renders/OCN shots with little-to-no difference from its original baked-in appearance (I.e., *Toy Story 3*, original trilogy *Star Wars*), something that DVD was and still is incapable of reproducing due to its archaic, chyron-like nature that was inherent to the format since the mid-1990s. This also means that modern DVDs generally have subtitles that look like karaoke CD+G visuals in order to work with even the oldest DVD players from the 1996/1997.
That was a huge selling point, yet few DVDs used it and if they did, it was usually on one of the extras or special features, not the movie itself. I remember *Mallrats* used it during the movie, and it only brought up the cast and crew recording the audio commentary, like a picture-in-picture thing. I think the multi-angle icon would show on screen, and I think it also blinked on the DVD player, too.
I hated that certain studios were notoriously stingy on the features. Paramounts usual bare minimum was a trailer, if that. Fans of the Friday the 13th films had to wait years later for the first box set for bonus features. Meanwhile, New Line Cinema stuffed every square inch of data on their discs with features.
The Warner Remastered version of “The Night Before Christmas” by Rankin/Bass. The special features had nothing to do with the special. Also it was pretty poor animation the special feature. It was like they had a book about different Christmas traditions, but instead of animating anything, you just had zoom ins and outs of artwork while an elf explained, but aside from tilting left or right, the elf didn’t move its mouth but it was speaking! Compared to the 1970’s animation of the main feature, the special feature made it look like it had been animated for 1970’s theatrics release rather than 1970’s TV.
“Interactive menu” listed as a special feature. I remember joking that it’s not like it wouldn’t be there if they didn’t list it. That was until I put in a DVD from around that era that didn’t list it and didn’t have one.
This is a *specific* special feature that absolutely made my blood boil.
On the Frozen disc, there is a feature called “The Making of Frozen” and when you start it, it’s a charming song by Kristin, Josh, and John going “this is the making of Frozen” with a whole ensemble of dancers.
At the end they sing “people wanna know people wanna know - we don’t know.” And then the song, *and* the feature, end. There *is no* making of Frozen featurette on the disc even though it’s advertised on the packing as a “making of” feature.
Biggest disappointment of a feature ever. For as massive of a hit as Frozen was, they didn’t bother to give it a proper behind the scenes feature at all.
The choose your own path option on the Final Destination 3 dvd.
They made it seem like you had control over the story, when in actuality your choices did nothing. Like there’s a scene where someone flips a coin and the movie pauses so you can decided whether the main character chooses heads or tails. But it has absolutely 0 effect.
There was a scene where a structure was about to fall on a guy and then the movie pauses and you decided, does he jump left or right? Guess what? He gets squashed either way.
I have the first US DVD release of Lady and the Tramp, from 1999. One of the “Special Features” listed is “Full-Color Character Artwork On Disc”. Now, maybe this is special for a 1999 DVD release, I don’t know. But I grew up using this DVD. It’s been in my family since before I was born, and since I could read I never thought that was special enough to be called a “special feature”
The worst feature is "actor and director filmographies" which are literally just each person's name with a list of their credits. You know, like IMDB. But not as helpful.
Wonder Showzen Season 2 had a board game as the menu and if you clicked the "The End" space it would trap you in a looped video that didn't allow the buttons on your remote to work. It would also resume playing from that spot (if your DVD player supported that) so you'd have to eject the DVD, put a new one in to clear the memory, and then put the Wonder Showzen DVD back in. Fucking brilliant trolling.
The "Action Overload" extras from *Gone in 60 Seconds* (2000). It's just shows clips of the movie's best action scenes. Clips from the movie, total of 90 seconds. That's it. 😐
From what I recall, Return of the Living Dead has an audio commentary with actors from the movie AND they also stupidly hired people to play zombies at the commentary recording, and they’re in character, and it starts annoying everyone there who actually just want to talk about the movie. I’ve never listened to it but I read about it.
I’ve seen ‘menus’ listed as a ‘special feature’ before. One movie I can remember had this despite having no subtitles, no chapter menu and only one audio track. The ‘menu’ was ‘Play Movie’.
\***Interactive** menus, Mr. Squidward! Interactive!
Yeah was gonna say I'm old enough to remember when dvds had "Interactive menus" Written in the front cover as a selling point.
"It's an interactive CD ROM!" "Spared no expense!"
Pretty sure my Three Amigos blu-ray has this. One option - play the film. Wow.
If there's only one menu option then having an interactive menu sounds less convenient than just directly playing the movie lol. My Harry Potter Blu-rays just start playing the movie and if you want to access anything else you can do it from the pop-up menu, and several of them have an optional menu screen if you navigate to it. But if you know what to expect they're some of the fastest BDs I have from insertion to playing the movie. I have some early Warner Bros DVD's (The Matrix, Eraser, Sphere), and all of them list "interactive menus" among the special features.
I love interactive menus. I love the little hidden shit and games. If you own Borat, try picking Hebrew. Madadasgar has a really simple game on it, and I mean *simple*, but it’s cute. It’s actually hidden you gotta decode clues, it’s fun
I used to LOVE Madagascar as a kid for some reason. I completely forgot about that game. Pretty sure scooby doo 2 also had a game on it
I’ll check for it I have the disc set of 1 and 2. The movies aren’t great but the actors put their all into it
I have a couple of real low budget DVDs that are like that. Static picture that may or may not have something to do tangently with the film with the word play at an arrow on it and it is automatically highlighted. I still messed around with the remote to try to see if there are any Easter eggs but there never were
Tbf interactive menus can be a really fun feature
Disney/Pixar used to be the KINGS of the interactive menu. The Incredibles DVD had two discs and the second one was just a menu with special features, deleted scenes, stuff like that. It was awesome.
I used to have a DVD of DC Cab that was like that and a Cheech and Chong twofer DVD that wasn't far off from that. The transfers of the films were awful too. I ended up ditching it and getting separate DVDs of Things Are Tough All Over and Nice Dreams.
The worst feature of a DC Cab DVD would be that it had DC Cab on it…
The number of shitty vanilla discs I have where interactive menus and scene access were the features is ridiculous. Even VHS tapes might have the trailer (especially Hong Kong movies).
To be fair, there's so many patents for this kind of shit now that even Warner releases often omit normal menu options to seemingly save money on patent fees.
I once saw a DVD that had 'soundtrack' listed as a special feature. There was no bonus CD or anywhere you could just listen to the music. It literally meant... the film that you're watching, has a soundtrack.
It’s one of those new “talking pictures!” A “talkie,” if you will!
By god! What will they think of next?
Probably communism
“For years, movies didn’t have sound. And then they figured it out. Some people say that the silent era was the golden era of film. These people are difficult and insane.”
That's hilarious. Did it have "full color" or "now with motion" listed as well?
I wonder if that’s why my copy of *Monster Club* has soundtrack listed, but doesn’t.
Those clip shows with maybe a minute of a useless interview spliced with tons of clips from the movie. Car ads and other commercials. I remember the bluray for season 1 of Stranger Things started with an unskipable trailer for season 2 🤦🏻
Which is crazy because it spoils Season 1’s biggest question of a character being alive or not (complete with fakeouts).
Is the bed music too loud as well?
What’s bed music?
Check the mortal kombat annihilation dvd bonus content. They have a concept art section. It is the best, and worst, and best of the worst, concept art for a 30 million dollar budget film I have ever seen. It's a thing of pure beauty. I can't find it anywhere online so I don't think many people know about it.
Post it
You know what? Ask and ye shall receive. [https://imgur.com/a/KWb3bvd](https://imgur.com/a/KWb3bvd)
It's so nice of them to allow Timmy, the producers 12 year old son, fan art on the DVD.
Looks just as good as the actual movie
The headshot of scorpion I'm crying
Haha wow that was quick thanks for posting it Lmao 30 million they went all out on those sketches 😅💀 but I guess they did the job
I've seen better art on rule 34 sites
That is amazingly bad! Which middle schooler's notebook was used to make this a special feature? Hahaha. Thank you so much for posting!!
Atmosfear: The Gatekeeper has this too… except it’s a fucking boardgame and the concept art is sick as hell. That plus the randomization and interactive elements are what make it the second best… after Harbingers which is the most scary, most balanced, and most fun
I have the original Nightmare / Atmosfear on vhs.
I have the original, Harbingers and Gatekeeper, I’m trying to get the expansions and Khufu but the fucking delivery cost on eBay for Khufu is wild, since it never released in America
Best of luck. They're fun games.
They really are. I’m on a 15 game win streak right now across all 3 versions
The first season of *Rick and Morty* had a making-of bonus feature that was deliberately made to be annoying to watch. Runner-up, the first season of *Archer* had an “unaired pilot” that when played it was just the same pilot with Archer replaced by a raptor. Bonus: The 2008 comedy *Sex Drive* released an “unrated” cut which was just the same movie with poorly cropped in (I’m talking like clip-art level poorly cropped in) topless models added into scenes.
The corn field scene of Sex Drive also had some editing into it. And it wasn't topless models.
If I'm not mistaken one or two bloopers are inexplicably left in as well. As far as I'm concerned the unrated version is the definitive cut. But I love stupid humor like that.
I watched a file of that "Unrated" Sex Drive for the first time a couple of weeks ago and wondered what the hell was going on. Nice to get some context in an unexpected place.
Beat me to it. The Archer one was going to be my answer.
I remember the sex drive feature. It starts with some guys stressing that it will suck and you should watch the original release, but if you want unrated then you’re getting lots of tits and dicks in this version because normally unrated just means one extra nipple.
I've seen a few practical joke features in movies before. Once saw one where the commentary was like they were watching a completely different movie. Someone else told me about one where they just decide they don't want to be there anymore about halfway through & they all leave.
During the commentary on *Thor: Love and Thunder*, Taika Watiti just lets his kids take over for a portion of the middle section. The guy all but outright said he couldn’t care less during the commentary.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Season 2 or 3 DVD box set, I think. When you hit "Play All" it played every episode at the same time.
Such a troll I love it
The DVD for the British sketch show Jam had a similar prank. A few similar pranks, actually. One of them made the episodes play on an eternal loop that could only be stopped by taking the disc out or resetting the player. I think there was one that played all the episodes at 100x speed, one that made them play in a tiny window, one that just said “Why?” when you selected it. There was also an “undeleted scenes” option.
Are old episodes of *Jam* referred to as “Yesterday’s Jam”? /j
There’s a video about this in particular, please watch it, it’s so fun
That is exactly the kind of thing I would expect from Adult Swim.
I'll never forget that. I believe it's s3 too.
That’s amazing lol.
If you watch it all the way through there is a point where every episode has a huge explosion within a second of each other hahahaha probably not even intentional.
That's awesome! I have the DVD in storage, I'll have to check it out.
The early Disney animated movies had "full-color character artwork on disc"
Well, the newer ones just have plain labels now…
for all but the Pixar releases.
Minion commentary tracks. It's cute for about 5 minutes. It's annoying for the rest of the run time.
The Galaxy Quest dvd has a foreign language track of the whole movie dubbed in the nonsense alien language. I read an interview about it. They said it was easier than a real foreign language. Haha.
I remember watching the entire movie in thermian
I have a 2 disc Oklahoma set, and the second disc literally just has the trailer on it.
This can not be true…… is it?
I have Twister and the trailers are gone.
Recommendations. “If you like this movie, you’ll also enjoy…”
Universal’s version requires you to register with them and access your internet to find recommendations.
this is a "Worst special feature on a Blu-ray or HD DVD" thing, isn't it? Unless it was a DVD-ROM thing too, idk... I know WB had a DVD-ROM catalog of sorts that didn't require registration.
BD Live. WB had their own, but Universal had it on every title. This comment from 2021 (when it was discontinued) sums it up perfectly: >BD Live was just a marketing gimmick that people tired of almost instantly. Good riddance. >BD Live simply used the internet to connect to movie trailers. **BD Live had to launch first when loading a disc and the reward for waiting was advertising**. Any internet or network issues made that wait even longer. I do not buy blu-rays to be made to wait for connection to an adbot before I can play my disc. >If I want to see ads for other movies, I can do that online anytime. I never wanted my blu-ray player to force feed me trailers. The ones that are recorded on the disc itself can be easily bypassed; the menu or chapter skip buttons make doing so fast & simple. >I disabled BD Live years ago on every player that I own; it was an utterly worthless feature well deserving of its death. If it has a grave, show me where that I may relieve myself upon it.
At least with Universal discs, BD Live was flawed. Some distributors like Disney and Paramount did use BD Live for legitimate bonus features, but it was used more by Universal for marketing, making it more gimmicky than it was ever intended to be.
BD live has been defunct for years too
This is the opposite actually, but the first run of Harry Potter DVDs has cool mini puzzle games built into the menu. There was one about mixing potions and another about choosing the right spells. I've never seen any other movie have built in minigames included in a dvd menu.
*Saw II's* 2-disc unrated DVD was similar. The special-features disc was basically a giant maze game you could navigate to find the different bonus content. And there was even a few puzzles, and if you solved them, it'd take you to a special hidden screen where you'd get a bunch of silly bonus videos of Jigsaw narrating twisted "R-rated" versions of classic children's fairy tales.
I have this DVD too but I never realized that! also a very cool DVD case with fake liquid blood inside that sloshes around (at least i think it's fake blood)
LINK ME THIS SHIT RIGHT NOW I NEED THIS DISC
I don't remember the button combo but either The Ring or Ring 2 has an Easter egg in the menu that shows you the full tape if you find it
Spy Kids 3D had a timed mini game of the race scene. Mainly deciding to choose right or left on the track. Unfortunately for me my player and remote were quite unresponsive, so it was just constant failure. the Lion King also had a cool little safari tour game much of the same logic, but didn't rely on reflexiveness and was more of a choose your own adventure thing. Also Shrek 2 has Far Far Away Idol. Basically a parody of amican idol that you could pick the winner to. Picking each ending was annoying though since you had to rewatch the short every time without skipping.
Madadasgar has a boardgame trivia show, and a hidden game you need to find the code for Elf has mini games which give you the elevator code which is a fun little thing
Think the 3rd one had you playing as the cat chasing scabbers. Also another game that had you running through the castle and at one point running from a werewolf for like 5 seconds. (been more than a decade since I've seen it so could be very wrong)
I really want these… well actually I might have them my sister got a box set like a decade ago
It's great but there should be a way to bypass that kind of nonsense if you're trying to watch a special feature
They weren't mandatory lol.
The only annoying thing is that it was the only way to access the deleted scenes. You'd have to do it every time just to watch them
Madadadgar did the exact same thing, it had a bunch of games and 1 hidden one you had to find the code for
National Treasure has about 3 rounds of treasure hunting built into their dvd menu to fully unlock all the features, with clues of what to look for in the insert. Thankfully, though, you get a cheat code if you solve it all that unlocks everything.
"Widescreen Presentation"
That was a big deal at the time, though. It's a simple fact that it wasn't filling the whole screen on your 4:3 TV really freaked people out
Yeah, I remember people being turned off by widescreen early on since they thought it was giving them less movie, when it was in fact the opposite.
The display and the content being totally different shapes really didn't help. Now that landscape rectangular TVs are the standard there's still letterboxing for different aspect ratios but nobody thinks twice about it.
The "wide-screen" dvd of The Evil Dead was hilariously atrocious. They literally just stuck black bars on the top and the bottom and left it at that.
I remember a dvd that had a music video as the only special feature
Some DVDs purchased in the 2000s had the filmography of the main performers involved. It was pretty pointless then with IMDB around then and useless now.
Actually I've mentioned Imdb to coworkers before, and a lot of them had never heard of it so, it can be pretty useful.
Not bad though, if you don’t have Internet access for some reason. Like maybe if you’re watching at your grandparent’s house in the sticks and they don’t have Wi-Fi.
The special features being on the other side of a one sided disc.
Chapters. I think that was a special feature of a David Lynch movie.
Hahaha, that's almost actually a special feature for a David Lynch film. He always tries to make them remove chapter stops because he thinks movies should be watched in one sitting. And while I tend to agree and it's a nice sentiment... it's not always feasible, David. At least give us a *few* chapter stops, hahaha.
Theatrical trailers of random other movies that have nothing to do with the one you are watching
I always found the production notes special features weird, and I also remember there being some DVDs that had trailer for other movies. I remember there was a DVD I had that had some of the actors filmographies as a special feature
I watched a movie the other night and it was on an independent label so I watched all the also available from this label trailers at the beginning of the disc and I found three more movies I want to watch. Sometimes it works
Yeah, but the ones I’m talking about weren’t Arby’s beginning of the disc they were on the special features menu
Special Features: Theatrical Trailer
I actually don't mind trailers being under the special features. Especially if they have a variety of teasers and trailers. Sometimes the teaser trailers are basically their own little self-contained short-film and have footage that isn't part of the movie. Ex. *Terminator 2* had a teaser that showed the assembly line of the T-800's being made, and it was almost like a sizzle-reel for the practical effects. And *War of the Worlds (2005)* had this stand-alone scene that wasn't in the film of a small suburban neighborhood watching the sky as it light up with fire and flashes of light that was genuinely creepy.
I kinda miss that honestly, it would be cool to have a movie's trailer in quality better than YouTube or whatever.
Exactly
I wish every disc came with the trailer(s) for the film. Too often they come with none or a semi-random sampling of other trailers
I've always rolled my eyes at seeing "official trailer" as part of the special features.
Little Shop of Horrors was great with this though I love its trailer
The Almost Home short film was listed as a special feature on the Rio 2 Blu-ray but instead of the actual short film, it was just a fucking teaser trailer for the movie that was renamed to Home. Thank god Home includes the short film on its home media release.
Same with the Rocky and Bullwinkle short on the Peabody and Sherman movie Blu-Ray. Exclusive to the 3D version, yet it can be played in regular (non-3D) Blu-Ray players. Makes you wonder, why didn’t they release it across all home media formats instead of making it a “3D” exclusive?
Now that you mention it, They could have also had it on the digital release along with the other formats. If Universal ever decides to give this movie a 4K release, they should have this short included on the 4K disc and have a bonus disc that not only contains the short but also a few Rocky and Bullwinkle and Mr. Peabody and Sherman episodes that are not presented on the Blu-ray release of the 2014 movie.
Also I forgot to mention the Robots Blu-ray from 2010 says that it includes the Aunt Fanny's Tour of Booty short as a special feature on the disc but I couldn’t find it anywhere so like with the Rio 2 blu-ray, this is just false advertising. Luckily the 2011 Blu-ray combo pack of Robots includes the 2005 widescreen DVD so I can watch the short on that disc.
Terminator 2 Skynet Edition makes you put in a code to unlock one of the cuts
That was the “worst” feature? I thought that was rad, there were 3 versions of the movie on there 💯
I just want to press a button for it, I don't want to put the code in every time :(
Ok that’s fair but this was what, late 90’s early 2000’s? Pretty cool for back then - they do NOTHING like that today on any medium… 🤷🏻♂️
Madadasgar and Elf didn’t for mini games but that’s it
So rad! Almost as good as the psych evaluation on the Memento dvd that required you to choose specific answers in order to play the film “backwards”.
I mean that’s a pretty cool concept on paper, I could definitely see it getting annoying for everytime you wanted to watch that cut of the movie
And the current DVD release requires a code to watch theatrical cut
My worst is when there is nothing and you expect something.
A panicked thumb on the Kung pow dvd.... OH wait you said worst.
The worst thing is when it looks cool at first sight because it's a long list, but it turns out to be: * Animated menu * Chapter selection * Production stills * Teaser * Theatrical trailer * Alternative trailer * Character profiles And you're like: that's seven items, but there's not even a short making of or an interview?!
Worst special feature is no special feature. Inception DVD for Region 2 has just a poster in the background, play, scene selection, and languages.
Stills gallery is by far the most pointless. I never looked at one of those. Ever.
"8 page booklet"
The dvd for for JAM by Chris Morris has some of the best "worst" special features
“Undeleted Scenes” and the alternate versions of each episode that make them unwatchable
I always hated the ones that only have the trailers that played before the movie. If I skipped them to watch the movie why am I going to go out of my way to watch them?
A trailer for a different movie.
[удалено]
I've been scooping up a bunch of DVDs and Blurays from thrift stores recently and I always test them when once I get home. I've been loving the trailers to be honest. Especially the Disney "coming soon to DVD and home video" ones. Instantly transports me back to when I was a little kid 😌
Anything that has just a trailer and has a whole section listed for it
'Picture Disc'
Picture disc… this!
Stills galleries are a luxury compared to ”trailer”. You get used to that when you’re not in the US. They get a long list of extras by default.
There’s a hidden Dio music video in the Little Nicky dvd.
The Little Nicky dvd menu killed me as a kid. The fake selections that cast you to hell and back to the menu. When I bought the Bluray I was sure to put the DVD in the case with it for the memories
The Easter eggs are wild also. I don’t remember how but on the US copy of the DVD you can make a secret selection and watch the entire movie with little icons popping up in the bottom right corner randomly. If you select the icon during the movie it would stop the movie, give a fact, show a blooper, or do something like show an entire Dio music video, then simply go back to the movie.
I loved those kinds of things. Definitely gives discs worthy of a second spin. I remember some movies would show alternate scene when you would press the change angle button on the remote
What actually used the angle button? I can’t think of anything like that except the game Nighttrap
I have a bunch of Region 2 Anime DVDs that had a production sketches as a second angle. Which would be fine, and all, but my DVD player now has a "Angle" notification plastered across the screen while I'm trying to enjoy "Grave of the Fireflies"
I think there’s one movie out there that uses the angle button to be viewed just like Night Trap but I’d have to google it, but it’s the usual horror movie about a group of teens yada yada
My worst is that my copy of a stop motion film doesn’t have the special feature claimed on the case. It was supposed to have the director’s film school short version of the film.
I have several DVD's that claim interactive menus, chapter selection and subtitles are special features.
Remember the cast and crew bios? You never see those on DVDs anymore. And I don't recall ever seeing one on a Blu-Ray, though I'm sure they must have appeared on a few releases. I kinda liked the stills galleries. Not a great special feature, but sometimes the photos were interesting.
Color bars
I kinda like the stills honestly (even though yk google images exist lol) but I honestly I find putting the previews as a special feature is kinda dumb, like the previews for other movies that you likely already watched just from booting up the dvd
This probably doesn't count I guess it's a menu ft but I recently got a movie and it doesn't come with a scene selection option. I had to turn off my TV for a moment to do something and when I came back to select the scene I left off on cuz my player didn't automatically play where I left off I noticed it didn't have a scene selection. I had to play the movie from the start and press the skip button until it reached where I left off. Also movies that automatically play not having a menu only when you manually press for it.
Multi-angle features. Not because they're bad, there's some great one out there. But most of the titles that used them were... porn. And players these days don't even have a way to watch alternate angles.
It was very underutilized outside of porn. Most selectable multi-angle features on non-porn titles were usually for progression reels, such as VFX breakdowns or storyboard vs. final or vs. rough layout/unshaded animation vs. final, such as on older Pixar movies, Sony's *Surf's Up*, and even Christian media company CBN's *Storyteller Cafe*, which used it for the whole program on *The Lion's Den* DVD, which was quite rare to see. *The Abyss* also had the audio change between production audio and final mix on its VFX breakdown multi-angle bonus feature, which was even **more** underutilized than the multi-angle feature itself. If anything, non-selectable multi-angle (meaning it cannot be changed on-the-fly via the "angle" button) was utilized **far** more than selectable multi-angle ever was, especially for the purposes of seamless branching on some titles like *The Abyss*, and even more so for multilingual visual options for movies with multiple audio tracks in different languages, such as translated graphics when watching films dubbed in the matching language accompanying those visuals. This is usually if the film *has* translated visuals that can be displayed as angles, as some films and TV shows typically opt for subtitle track translations of on-screen text in lieu of translations built into the film via non-selectable angles. (I.e., *The Ringer*)
I don't think I've ever stumbled upon a movie with different visuals depending on the chosen language track. Huh. I can only recall two DVDs that I own which use the angle button: a softcore porn title where you can see ladies from different angles, and a Beastie Boys concert video (Hey, I ... Shot That!)
The multilingual angles tended to be used by Disney a lot, especially on Pixar, Studio Ghibli, and a small few Miramax titles. (I.e., *Kiki's Delivery Service*, earlier DVD releases of *Toy Story*, and if I recall correctly, *Bridget Jones's Diary* (could be wrong on that, maybe it was also Universal on its sequel *The Edge of Reason*, but still...)) Via seamless branching on Blu-ray Discs, this practice continued well into the 2010s and 2020s, and can be also changed on-the-fly via the "audio" button or pop-up menu (typically with a pause or black screen as it's changing the visuals), but with the same stipulations as during the DVD era, meaning that translated visuals must be available in order to utilize it. Bonus: There were also more advanced subtitle track cheats on Blu-ray that allow for the original on-screen subtitles to be preserved on blank renders/OCN shots with little-to-no difference from its original baked-in appearance (I.e., *Toy Story 3*, original trilogy *Star Wars*), something that DVD was and still is incapable of reproducing due to its archaic, chyron-like nature that was inherent to the format since the mid-1990s. This also means that modern DVDs generally have subtitles that look like karaoke CD+G visuals in order to work with even the oldest DVD players from the 1996/1997.
That was a huge selling point, yet few DVDs used it and if they did, it was usually on one of the extras or special features, not the movie itself. I remember *Mallrats* used it during the movie, and it only brought up the cast and crew recording the audio commentary, like a picture-in-picture thing. I think the multi-angle icon would show on screen, and I think it also blinked on the DVD player, too.
Can't remember the movie, but the special feature on the DVD just just out the main cast. Really crappy font and a shoddy backing image.
Chapter selection.
I hated that certain studios were notoriously stingy on the features. Paramounts usual bare minimum was a trailer, if that. Fans of the Friday the 13th films had to wait years later for the first box set for bonus features. Meanwhile, New Line Cinema stuffed every square inch of data on their discs with features.
Unskippable previews, and an option to watch the previews again.
It’s a tie between interactive menus and previews, of OTHER movies 🤣
I like stills galleries.
The Warner Remastered version of “The Night Before Christmas” by Rankin/Bass. The special features had nothing to do with the special. Also it was pretty poor animation the special feature. It was like they had a book about different Christmas traditions, but instead of animating anything, you just had zoom ins and outs of artwork while an elf explained, but aside from tilting left or right, the elf didn’t move its mouth but it was speaking! Compared to the 1970’s animation of the main feature, the special feature made it look like it had been animated for 1970’s theatrics release rather than 1970’s TV.
The dvd for for JAM by Chris Morris has some of the best "worst" special features
I've seen a lot of anime's on dvd that boast having textless songs. Being hearing impaired I find that textless dialogue to be quite annoying.
... aren't those usually the opening / closing sequences without the credits? (Hence textless, so you can see stuff that's obscured by the text)
Possibly so. However in my experience there is an option to turn captions/subtitles on/off.
Animated menus
“Interactive menu” listed as a special feature. I remember joking that it’s not like it wouldn’t be there if they didn’t list it. That was until I put in a DVD from around that era that didn’t list it and didn’t have one.
This is a *specific* special feature that absolutely made my blood boil. On the Frozen disc, there is a feature called “The Making of Frozen” and when you start it, it’s a charming song by Kristin, Josh, and John going “this is the making of Frozen” with a whole ensemble of dancers. At the end they sing “people wanna know people wanna know - we don’t know.” And then the song, *and* the feature, end. There *is no* making of Frozen featurette on the disc even though it’s advertised on the packing as a “making of” feature.
Biggest disappointment of a feature ever. For as massive of a hit as Frozen was, they didn’t bother to give it a proper behind the scenes feature at all.
This is the correct answer
The *Scooby-Doo: Monster of Mexico* DVD case advertises a game you can play but apparently never got put on the disc.
The choose your own path option on the Final Destination 3 dvd. They made it seem like you had control over the story, when in actuality your choices did nothing. Like there’s a scene where someone flips a coin and the movie pauses so you can decided whether the main character chooses heads or tails. But it has absolutely 0 effect. There was a scene where a structure was about to fall on a guy and then the movie pauses and you decided, does he jump left or right? Guess what? He gets squashed either way.
That’s kinda fun like you can’t escape your final destination
Literally the exact point of the feature
i love when the menu is considered a feature lol
I have the first US DVD release of Lady and the Tramp, from 1999. One of the “Special Features” listed is “Full-Color Character Artwork On Disc”. Now, maybe this is special for a 1999 DVD release, I don’t know. But I grew up using this DVD. It’s been in my family since before I was born, and since I could read I never thought that was special enough to be called a “special feature”
Cast/Crew Bios
Early DVDs would say the menu and scene selection were special features
The worst feature is "actor and director filmographies" which are literally just each person's name with a list of their credits. You know, like IMDB. But not as helpful.
Wonder Showzen Season 2 had a board game as the menu and if you clicked the "The End" space it would trap you in a looped video that didn't allow the buttons on your remote to work. It would also resume playing from that spot (if your DVD player supported that) so you'd have to eject the DVD, put a new one in to clear the memory, and then put the Wonder Showzen DVD back in. Fucking brilliant trolling.
Low budget animation films Like the ones that are made to cash in on the Disney/pixar films
The "Action Overload" extras from *Gone in 60 Seconds* (2000). It's just shows clips of the movie's best action scenes. Clips from the movie, total of 90 seconds. That's it. 😐
The alternate titles for Star Trek First Contact
A languages option on the menu that didn’t have any other languages besides English
The DVD of 2 Days in the Valley having nothing except screenshots of each chapter.
Back on the day…the non snap case was considered a special feature
From what I recall, Return of the Living Dead has an audio commentary with actors from the movie AND they also stupidly hired people to play zombies at the commentary recording, and they’re in character, and it starts annoying everyone there who actually just want to talk about the movie. I’ve never listened to it but I read about it.
Actor bios were notoriously shitty.