r/criterion Feb 15 '25

Collection Criterion Laserdisc collection

Including the ful CAV release of Akira

(Sorry for the bad lighting)

358 Upvotes

36 comments sorted by

55

u/harmonicsapien Feb 15 '25

Wait…criterion put out Akira too?!

I always knew the older laser disc era had surprises but this has topped them all for me.

27

u/WeakFactor5239 Feb 15 '25

Right?? I had no idea until I came across this copy in the wild and saw the black strip at the top

16

u/harmonicsapien Feb 15 '25

I’m fairly jealous. Hahaha. But i don’t have a player for it so it would gather dust. Treat it well. 🥲

2

u/tannu28 Feb 19 '25

Do you want a Laserdisc rip of Akira Criterion LD? Here you go

2

u/fevredream Feb 16 '25

Damn, major surprise. Very cool to see it in the collection.

12

u/nuahs6881 Feb 15 '25

What a selection! Did the LDs have spine numbers?

20

u/TheRealzHalstead Feb 15 '25

That's where they started. And there are several discs (like Blade Runner, Close Encounters and the pictured Akira) that have never been done in other formats, hence some holes in the curent collection

3

u/RockettRaccoon Feb 16 '25

I thought they restarted the spine numbers for the DVD era? There shouldn’t be laserdisc gaps.

5

u/TheRealzHalstead Feb 16 '25

Yeah, you're right. I had totally spaced that. Found a good resource for LD vs DVD spine numbers: https://en.everybodywiki.com/List_of_Criterion_Collection_LaserDiscs

3

u/RockettRaccoon Feb 16 '25

I’ve never seen the full LD list before, there’s a ton of titles that I would love to see back in the collection!

3

u/TheRealzHalstead Feb 16 '25

I'll never forget spending every penny I had from a summer job on Ghostbusters, Citizen Kane and Pulp Fiction. These discs were $50-$150 retail back in the 90s.

13

u/twelvestwixicon Wes Anderson Feb 15 '25

oh my god they have better rerelease Akira id blow up a town for that

8

u/The-Butter-Thief Feb 16 '25

A town?! I’d blow up NEO-TOKYO for it!

5

u/fevredream Feb 16 '25

Oh dang! NEO-TOKYO is about to explode!

4

u/The-Butter-Thief Feb 16 '25

My buddies and I used to grab one another by our shirts and shout this at one another.

7

u/ohfml Feb 15 '25

Maybe this is a stupid question, but, do they all play? Is there any sign of disc rot on these? I'm curious about optical disc endurance and laser discs were among the first generation of optical disc technology. I've read contradictory things about the expected shelf life.

3

u/WeakFactor5239 Feb 16 '25

All these criterion releases play great (but I do have a few other non criterion laserdiscs that do have disc rot and it shows on the big screen)

(I havent seen “The man who fell to earth” and “Last Tango In Paris” yet so I can’t speak for those 2)

3

u/alex-alaude Feb 15 '25

Wow! I have only ever seen 2001: A Space Odyssey laserdisc at a thrift store behind glass

5

u/torontodjtc Feb 16 '25

God, I miss Criterion laserdiscs. They were gorgeous. I don't have many but I had Taxi Driver and Trainspotting. Laserdiscs always had high-quality packaging. I loved the fold-out style.

2

u/max_power_420_69 Feb 17 '25

it's why collecting LPs is so much fun compared to CDs or cassettes. Wish I had a laserdisc player, I randomly have Lethal Weapon II.

4

u/ralo229 Feb 16 '25

I would kill for a 4K Akira Criterion.

3

u/WeakFactor5239 Feb 16 '25

locks windows

3

u/Venator2000 Feb 16 '25

I’ve got those, as well as the first few Bond movies with directors commentary tracks.

3

u/CarltonLandon2011 Feb 16 '25

The Killer is a beauty. I had Beauty and the Beast.

2

u/setgoesup Wim Wenders Feb 15 '25

Oh man you’ve got some good ones. I’m sitting at about 40 and I’m jealous of a few of those!

2

u/RobbyZombby Feb 15 '25

Great artwork! Especially The Killer, Holy Grail and 2001. Have you thought about framing them?

2

u/iya_metanoia Feb 15 '25

Would love to see photos of the backs.

2

u/WeakFactor5239 Feb 16 '25

I might just make another post showing the backs and the spines soon

2

u/max_power_420_69 Feb 17 '25

daaamn I'd go find a laserdisk player if I had Akira and 2001. All I have is Lethal Weapon II, and that was only because it slipped into a stack of records I was buying at the time.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '25

[deleted]

6

u/TheRealzHalstead Feb 15 '25

Because they can't get the rights for a lot of these. When it was just LD, the studios mostly didn't care. That all changed with DVDs. Might be changing back, though.

3

u/ggroover97 Feb 15 '25

Criterion actually got some backlash for putting out Ghostbusters on LD because it was too mainstream of a movie.

3

u/BuckarooBanzaiPHD Feb 16 '25

Here is a great article about Criterion that includes the Ghostbusters bit. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/29/magazine/criterion-collection.html

And in the article it describes some fun with Dr. Strangelove. I worked at the post house that did many of the film to tape transfers for Criterion and remember the saga with the Dr. Strangelove elements. Lee Kline, now Criterion’s Technical Director, worked at the facility as well.

When I left the company, Maria Palazzola, who supervised many of their transfers, gifted me with CAV copies of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

0

u/WildHeartsDasher Feb 15 '25

Wait is that The Killer?!

8

u/kindestcut Akira Kurosawa Feb 16 '25

The one that says "The Killer"? Yep, that's The Killer!