Metropolis

Rating:
Summary: Great Film, Horrid DVD
Review: This film is great, its a masterpiece, a classic, words cannot begin to describe both the importance of this film.

This DVD, however, is horrid,, featuring a grainy picture, that at times looks like the film was stored, unprotected, in someones garage for 70 years, and music that seems to have nothing to do with the film.

If you can't find any other version and really have to own a copy, then this may just be inexpensive enough for you to overlook the failings. Personally, I recommend the Kino version, which is now unfortunately out-of-print, and would never recommend the tinted 80's version as the soundtrack is just too distracting.

One final thing: No matter what anyone else says, this version is NOT tinted. Only one tinted version exists, and this is not it.

Rating:
Summary: I had to own this one
Review: I am a huge film fanatic, not to mention a big sci-fi fan...Horrible DVD transfer. The music soundtrack that was just slaped on is ridiculous, but Metropolis is Film History. Probably the first real science fiction film ever made, if you ever see it as it was ment to (check out local film art houses, and if they have an original Wurlitzer Organ playing along like they do at "The Tampa Theater" so much the better), you would see that it is one of the greatest films ever made.

Rating:
Summary: DON'T BUY THIS VERSION!!
Review: This is the worst print of Metropolis I have ever seen. A complete waste of your money. It is 6.99$ for a reason folks.
Do not buy it.

Rating:
Summary: A must have for cinema history!
Review: A must have for history of cinema. Very affordable price for my collection. One of the best si-fi of it's time with socialist point of view. An unnti-emperialist capitalist film.

Rating:
Summary: I can't be honest about this film--I've never seen it!
Review: But I do own the DVD, and I will confirm what others have said--the print is scratchy and low contrast, there are projection artifacts (flickering, mostly), and the soundtrack is best left muted.

The combination of all these things has left me unable to watch the movie--I watch silents with the sound off, and every time I start this, it's late enough at night that I fall asleep: the bad print requires too much focus for a late-night viewing, so I inevitably give up and snooze away.

Even though this is one of the most talked-about features in movie history, there are no special features on the disc beyond a trivia game.

In the end, the only good thing about having this disc is that I can say I have a copy of METROPOLIS on the shelf, and I would follow that up immediately by saying I wish I had a *real* copy of METROPOLIS on the shelf.

Rating:
Summary: terrible!!
Review: This is one of the worst reproductions of this fine movie that I have ever seen.

Rating:
Summary: sci-fi
Review: the special effects in this ancient movie are genius! any movie buff, especially of the silent era, needs to at least see this movie (if not own it).

Rating:
Summary: Sadly, there are no negative star ratings.
Review: Madacy video does it again, showing it's competition how it can cut prices by simply eliminating quality.

The dvd is unwatchable, and if you have never seen Metropolis before, chances are that after squinting your way through this hard to watch, grainy, and very cut-off dvd, you will never want to see it again. And that would be a shame, because the film is very good, if you see it in a decent version. (Kino has an excellent video, and there is at least one restoration coming out on dvd in the future, although when is not clear.)

Do not buy this dvd. Do not. Not even because it is cheap. Not even because you are curious. Not even because it can't be that bad, because it is. Stay away. Buy something else during your visit to the fine folks here at Amazon. Almost anything else.

Rating:
Summary: Great Movie, Terrible DVD
Review: Metropolis is essentially a story about rich families living off of the labors of the workers while knowing nothing about the lives of those workers. They don't even care about the workers. A son of a rich family falls for a woman who lives among the workers. The son decides to look into the lives of the working class.

Although this is regarded as a classic movie, it has been reported that Fritz Lang didn't like it.

Queen (the rock group) based the music video for "Radio Ga Ga" on Metropolis.

This is probably the worst DVD of a silent movie. It appears to have been made from a videotape of a 16mm print. The image is very grainy because of that. The master tape even has a dropout. (A dropout is caused by a tape particle falling from the tape after a recording has been made. This can result in white lines appearing in the image.) The titles do not fit onscreen - which used to be a problem with many of the cheap silent film tapes made over 10 years ago. I've had to deal with that before, but no one should be making editions like that now.

The music is simply thrown on the DVD. It doesn't seem to fit the movie at all. I had the same problem with my videotape from Murray Hill - very old edition from the late 1980s. It seems like no one is making a decent edition of this movie for American release. I wouldn't even mind seeing the rock version that was released in theaters sometime during the '80s. ('80s rock music was used instead of classical or organ music.) I hated the music on the tape so much I created my own audio tape to play while watching the movie. The music on this DVD is a little better than that tape was.

The extras are a joke except for the trivia questions. I'm actually surprised I got them all correct even though I hadn't seen the movie for 6 years. (The videotape is in storage.)

The case's insert has instructions on how to remove the DVD from the case, and they are the wrong directions for the case they are currently using. It's still a Keep Case, but it's the case where you have to put one finger under the disc at the top. The instructions are for the style where you push on the tabs that hold onto the center hole of the disc.

I wouldn't blame the price for the lack of quality. I have some decent DVDs that cost less than this one with better image quality - Boris Karloff and Vincent Price double feature DVDs.

Rating:
Summary: Do not buy this DVD
Review: Whatever you do, don't buy this DVD edition. With a running time of 115 min this version is - as are all versions out there on the market, incl. the Moroder version - ridiculously short. The film museum Munich has restored the film as close to the original as you can get with the surviving material and has ended up with a version that runs somewhere around 140min (!). Great care has been taken in improving the image quality (contrast, etc.), only the best material was used. This version was shown at the Berlin film festival 2001 with a new score by Bernd Schultheiss.
If you want Metropolis on DVD you should wait a few more months. The film is due for release this year and will probably contain the new Schultheiss score, as well as the original Huppertz score. You'll also have the opportunity to view Metropolis in an accurate projection speed with the best possible film-to-DVD transfer.
This DVD version will definitely be released in Germany (for those of you with a code-free player) in 2002. Don't go for less. Any other version on the market is as truthful to this classic as The Fifth Element.