Twin Peaks - Pilot Episode [IMPORT]

Rating:
Summary: A must for fans - but the sound is bummer.
Review: If you have read about or researched Twin Peaks, then you know all about this DVD and the mystery of the Twin Peaks property, which is just as mysterious as the show.

Like anything in Hollywood, everybody has their grimy little fingers in it, thus the rights for the series, the pilot, the movie, and the deleted scenes are all owned by separate entities, and I wouldn't doubt if the sound was as well.

What do end up with - An awesome box set that has superior sound and picture - not to mention the extras and menus.
However, the box set doesn't include the pilot - which brings you here.

While there are a ton of these on ebay, they are all identicle to this one. As many have pointed out, the pilot episode is available on VHS, but only as the european version with the tacked-on footage, spoiling 2 seasons worth of awesome television all in like 8 minutes. AVOID THIS!

Which brings us to this little savior. I am so greatfull that this is available - I purchased mine right after the box set came out. Straight from Hong Kong, in english, ntsc and region 0 encoded(plays on any dvd player) comes the original pilot for all of us to watch.

While the pilot is possibly some of Lynch's best work ever, this DVD lets it down.

The cover art is what you see - basic. There is no insert, and the dvd art is basic as well. It comes in the standard black amoray case, and plays perfectly without skips from compression.

If you have seen the box set, then you will quickly realize the picture quality for the pilot is washed out, and inferior overall. But again, I am totally greatful to own this! If you have the box set or are a TP fan - this is a must! The story makes up for any shortcoming of the authoring of this dvd. In any case, it is better than VHS any day of the week.

As for sound - Houston we have a problem!

The sound is horrible! Worse than most people describe it to be. Since it is a PAL convert, and the sound is about 2 steps too fast, we get this flanging effect which sounds like your in a wind tunnel. During person to person dialogue scenes it is not a problem. But if there is a car, water fall, saw mill, wind, water or any other ambient noise - look out - you won't hear a damn thing anyone says. My advise is to turn off your surround and stereo - switch to mono, and keep the volume as low as you can tolerate - the flanging is hell on the ears.

So go ahead and enjoy the pilot episode of one of the best television shows to ever!

Rating:
Summary: A must have though badly mastered
Review: For every Twin Peaks fan this is a must have. You know what's on, you get it!
But from a quality side this is a desaster. The DVD is mastered to NTSC from a PAL source, thus frames are blended into one another to get 29.97 from 25, the picture itself is good but not for a DVD. The remastering also got the audio pitch a bit higher, sensitive ears might notice.
Sound itself is terrible. The 5.1 mix is worse than you can imagine - the audio source in fact was mono! And it also got a lot of background noise. To get some sort of stereo effects left and right channels were phase shifted against one another. If you listen to this in stereo you get flanger-like effets, voices are too low and hard to understand sometimes. In a surround setup you'll hear that most effects are put on the rear speakers, without sense or connection to the movie. It's best to disconnect all speakers but the center speaker, then you'll get the best sound.
Also the DVD has some 'bonus material' not worth mentioning (2 bios) and English and Chinese subtitles. I don't know about the Chinese, but the English subs have about 1 spelling mistake in each line. No kidding!
Apart from all the technical flaws the pilot rocks. So 5 stars for the film but only 1 star for the DVD. Makes 3 stars for me.
Let's hope the legal issues are sorted out one day and the pilot will be released in a worthy way.

Rating:
Summary: O.K.
Review: This version is O.K. The sound is good for the most part but there's one scene (Donna and James hiding the necklace) where there's a very audible humming - and I suspect this occurs throughout the entire movie. In contrast, the picture and sound in the new first season DVD is just perfect.

Rating:
Summary: WARNING: DVD DISASTER!!!
Review: If you like Twin Peaks, even a little bit, DON'T BUY THIS DISC!!!!!!!!!!

I love Twin Peaks. Any one else who loves Twin Peaks knows that those four words aren't enough to describe the attatchment they feel to this show. Although I have all the episodes, including the pilot, on the discontinued laser disc format, I was so enthused by the Season One Box Set that I felt I needed a DVD of the pilot to satisfy my completionist desires.
I was a jerk.
I'm sure someday the pilot will come out properly.

THIS DVD IS UNBEARABLY, HORRIBLY, EMBARASINGLY DISRESPECTFUL TO US, TO THE CAST AND CREW OF THIS GREAT SHOW, TO DAVID LYNCH AND MARK FROST, TO THE FANS AND CONSUMERS, TO THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF THE DVD FORMAT!

This DVD, first of all, besides the obviously unsupervised DVD transfer, is sped up, pitching the voices up slightly. If you REALLY know the voices, if you REALLY know the pilot, if you CARE about the music, this is not the disc for you. This disc, in fact, is so sped up, the running time of the pilot has become 90 minutes. The original ABC broadcast pilot runs 96 minutes.

DOES ANYONE WANT MY COPY FOR FREE. I CAN USE THE SHELF SPACE.

Rating:
Summary: A Must Own DVD for ANY Twin Peaks Fan!
Review: I won a copy of the DVD on Ebay this past summer (2001).... It is a must own for ANY Twin Peaks Fan (who wants to collect the COMPLETE series on DVD). The season 1 DVD set does NOT include this 2 hour pilot episode. Order it you wont be sorry! I wish... was selling it when I got mine!

Rating:
Summary: An amazing kickoff to the series
Review: I just received a copy of the pilot episode yesterday and was thrilled to see it after almost ten years! Visually beautiful and brilliant in design, the DVD has just one flaw. The sound isn't nearly what it could be. I still give this an emphatic five-star rating because of how fantastic the series is. The sound seems to fade and it can seem a bit scratchy at times. As far as I'm concerned, I can get over this one small hangup and love it just as much as I did when I watched this show with my Mom every Tuesday night at 9PM, 15 years old, intrigued, entranced and scared out of my wits! The "Twin Peaks" experience is not complete without the movie that started it all!

Rating:
Summary: blah bloobity blah
Review: This is a ridiculous price considering you could go on ebay and easily get one for under 20 bucks. In fact, last night when I saw this the price was 15.99! THAT sounded right, but 29.99? No way.

Rating:
Summary: You need this DVD if you bought the boxed set
Review: This is the 2-hour pilot for the series which is NOT included with the DVD boxed set for some convoluted legal reasons. You do need this DVD, the boxed set begins (literally) with: "Previously on 'Twin Peaks'". The pilot is brilliant, it sets up the complex relationships between the characters and introduces agent Cooper. It also sets up situations and objects which only become important in the second season.

Rating:
Summary: This DVD is the "American-Ending" . . . wish there was more
Review: I purchased this DVD via an on-line auction from Hong Kong. The picture and sound are okay - Dolby 5.1 Digital soundtrack. The color is not as vibrant as the recent Artisian First Season TP box set.

This is the American Ending (not the Euro-Version with scenes from the Red Room). This version has never been released on video. The packaging artwork is recycled from the previous SLP complete VHS box set. The DVD menu screen features the VHS covers from the first season release (when put together the side jackets spelled "Twin Peaks").

Of course, I wish there were more extras. No audio commentary and only two bios: Kyle MacLachlan, Agent Dale Cooper & Joan Chen, Jocelyn Packard. I'm assuming Chen's bio was included because she is a Chinese actress. Also includes trailers for "One Against the Wind" wil Judy Davis & Sam Neil; "Class Cruise" - huh?; "Live Nude Girls"; "Witchboard 2." The subtitles are in English, Chinese and Simplified Chinese. There are chapter stops with some rather unique titles - for example, "Political Speech" describes Agent Cooper addressing the citizens of Twin Peaks or "Body Dissection" describes Ageent Coooper in the morgue with the body of Laura Palmer.

The most interesting part is that Republic Pictures Home Video released this DVD. It is a subsidiary Warner Brother and Spelling Entertainment Group (WB used to own the rights to the "Twin Peaks" Pilot in the USA). Paramount now owns the rights to the Pilot in the US. I'm still confused as to why they haven't released it in the US. Must be a lack of interest ;-)

While the DVD may be lacking in some areas, it is better than no DVD at all.

Rating:
Summary: The classic "Twin Peaks" pilot is now on DVD!
Review: Twin Peaks, the intense, bizarre, and darkly humorous masterpiece television series by David Lynch and Mark Frost, may have only been on the air for a little over a year, but it changed the course of TV history. In the short run, it caused a nationwide sensation as the whole country grappled with the maddeningly convoluted question of who killed Laura Palmer. ....

For those who don't know what the pilot is about, in short summary Pete Martell, who runs a local Twin Peaks sawmill, discovers popular high school student Laura Palmer's body by a lake. "She's dead, Harry. Wrapped in plastic." The remainder of the pilot is set during the course of this tragic Friday, as we are introduced to the characters of Twin Peaks and the surreal environment they inhabit. Agent Cooper of the FBI drives into town to join the investigation after a second raped girl, Ronette Pulaski, is discovered wandering across state lines. Blame for the murder originally focuses on slacker Bobby Briggs, then on biker James Hurley. As the pilot unfolds, we learn about the bewildering number of adulterous relationships, backhanded scheming, and criminal undercurrents that define the dark mystique of this wooded paradise.

There is a bonus in store for Twin Peaks fans - the pilot concludes with the ORIGINAL TELEVISION ENDING, something which until now was almost impossible to find anywhere. This allows the pilot to flow right into Episode 1 of the Artisan box set, which should be a pleasant development for Twin Peaks collectors.

As far as the quality of the DVD itself goes, the picture is superior to its VHS and LD predecessors, although nowhere near on par with the Artisan set. The sound, though leaves something to be desired. Although the sound is reasonably crisp, the mixing was less than perfect. Some have also pointed out that the pilot may have been dubbed from PAL (it is from Asia) - this means that a conversion to NTSC resulted in a slight two to three percent speeding up of the sound and picture. There have been complaints that this changed the pitch of the music and made Agent Cooper sound overly nasal, but the results are minimal and easily overlooked. Besides, many networks already do this on purpose to squeeze in more advertisenments, and most people don't seem to notice. Not that I'm defending it, but I can live with the results for now.

Would I love to see Paramount or Warner Bros. release the pilot domestically? Absolutely! But in the meantime, this is an indespensable partner to the Artisan box set. I give it four stars only because the DVD quality COULD be better, but the pilot itself is worth at least six stars!