A new trailer for the "Quentin Tarantino XX" Blu-ray box set has debuted, and while it might look great on the outside, promising 5 hours of bonus features and more, what becomes clear is that this package is a bit of a missed opportunity with some odd choices of what to include.
First and foremost, the golden goose egg that fans have been clamoring after for years – the stitched-together version of "Kill Bill," supervised by Tarantino and dubbed "The Whole Bloody Affair" — is nowhere to be found. The box set just doesn't have it. And there's no reason why it should have been excluded, especially considering it screened in 2011 at the New Beverley in California from the same print that Tarantino first used to present it at Cannes in 2003. What's the hold up?
Instead, the box set mostly serves to get a bunch of Blu-rays that have already been released into one place, with some new cover art by Austin-based designers Mondo, which is where geeks go when they think they're buying "fine art." What's even more baffling is the inclusion of "True Romance," a movie that Quentin Tarantino wrote (and does commentary for) but that the late, great Tony Scott directed. What makes "True Romance" any more essential than "Natural Born Killers" or "From Dusk Till Dawn" (a movie that has a terrible Blu-ray transfer that could have used some major restorative attention) or the omnibus film "Four Rooms" (which has yet to make its way onto Blu-ray)? Hell, throw in "The Rock" and "Crimson Tide" while you're at it; Tarantino did uncredited script rewrites on both of them (you can tell when Denzel Washington starts talking about Silver Surfer comics on a nuclear submarine). Another glaring omission is "Grindhouse;" while his longer, more European cut of "Death Proof" is included, "Grindhouse," the double-feature film he did with Robert Rodriguez, which features a drastically different version of "Death Proof," is not. No to mention that the original "Grindhouse" Blu-ray was released with a sub-par, non-HD audio track, and this box set would have been a perfect opportunity to fix that.
If you want a repackaged version of the Blu-ray discs you already own, along with extras that thus far promise critics and co-workers talking about QT, and you love the "edgy" new artwork, then this is the box set for you. But if you're a discerning spender at all, save your money for the eventual re-releases of "Kill Bill" and "Grindhouse" down the road. But if you must, this streets on November 20th for $119.99.
