Twin Peaks - Pilot Episode [IMPORT]

Rating:
Summary: Sound Quality is Awful, But It's Better Than Nothing
Review: This is the best the Twin Peaks Pilot has ever looked. (Well, aside from the big screen at last years Twin Peaks Fest) The disc has a surprisingly crisp and clean picture. I played this with a switchbox against the Warner Bros. Pilot Laserdisc, and the DVD did to the Laser Disc what Agent Desmond did to Deputy Cliff in FWWM. However, beware there are noticeable artifacts, and minor distortion is apparent in some scenes. Why this is, I'm not sure. they are not so horrible, that they detract from the presentation, but they are noticeable. The dark scenes were done very well IMHO. Minor dust specs on the print every once in a while, but much cleaner than the laserdisc.

Audio:

The audio has received a FULL aggressive 5.1 remix. Lots of the sound effects are appropriately panned to the rear surround speakers. One thing you definitely want to do is turn your back speakers down a bit, as they can often be distracting. The bass seems to be a bit much at times, but again, a slight adjustment on your Home Theater system can easily correct this. One specific moment that was a good use of the rear surround is when the translator mentions how "Health und Industry They Go Hand De Hand". The response laughter of the Norwegians are panned to the back speakers and give a "Room Full of Laughing Norwegians" effect. It is clear that whomever remixed the sound did so from a sound reel master.

Now the DOWNSIDE. There are a few things that bother me about the sound. First off, when comparing it to the Laserdisc, I noticed right away it seems that whoever mastered the movie (I assume) transferred it from a PAL Master. It's the only explanation I can think of for why the pitch of the sound is about a half step too high. Also, the sound although pretty good for the most part, sounds definately out of phase in the Center Speaker during parts with music in the background. Although it is annoying at times, it is not completely a loss. So be warned !

Supplements:

Well, there's not a lot here. You get a nice Scene Access menu, along with Character Biographies for Joan Chen and Kyle MacLachlan. You also get treated to some awful Republic Pictures trailers for "One Against the Wind", "Class Cruise", "Live Nude Girls", and "Witchboard 2: the Devil's Doorway". My advice... skip them.

Parting Thoughts:

All I can say is that I was very surprised by this release. Although 4% faster than it should be, is a nice addition to a Twin Peaks Fan's collection. The DVD comes only with a 5.1 soundtrack, as the original 2-Speaker Surround soundtrack is absent. The picture is great minus the artifacting, and the sound is bad, but not a total loss. Expect lots of phase problems in the center speaker. Finally having the Pilot as it aired on Television as opposed to the extended European version is a Twin Peaks Fan's dream come true. I would recommend this to any Twin Peaks fan that wants to get a clean copy of the Pilot on DVD. For now, this is as good as it gets. At this point, who knows when Paramount will be getting their act together.

Rating:
Summary: great memories sunk by poor quality DVD
Review: I remember the Twin Peaks telvision series with great fondness, and have remained a dyed in the wool fan of Lynch's other films ever since. I was recently pleased to receive the entire set of Twin Peaks on DVD, and wanted to cap the experience by watching the pilot (which isn't included in the set).

Turns out that may have been a bad idea.

The biggest problem is the quality of the reproduction. I read the negative comments some other reviewers on this site made and thought, oh they're just being picky tech heads, I'm sure I won't even notice the difference. I was wrong. The sound quality -- and keep in mind, sound is even more vital in a Lynch film than in those of many other directors -- is so terrible that it renders the film almost unwatchable. Everything is wrapped in a tinny electronic haze, like a bad pop band running through a cheap effects box. Even plain silence comes off as a statick-y rumble. The visual quality is closer to that of high 8 video than film.

Of course, every tv viewer's dream is to dispense with commercial interruptions. But watching it this way demonstrates that, when a program has been made with those interruptions in mind -- edited so that each five-minute segment between commercials is jolted at the end by a little cliffhanger -- that the pacing and feel require interruptions in order to feel "right." With so many "climaxes" -- each accompanied by the storm of an electronic crescendo of Angelo Badalamenti's score -- the story seemed overwrought and difficult to take seriously.

My advice: hold on to your money for now. Perhaps a well-mixed DVD will be released someday soon.

Rating:
Summary: Quick Fix for Those Who Need the Pilot
Review: Due to legal wranglings over the pilot episode, it was not included in the recent First Season DVD boxset (another 5 star product). What you get here is a Hong Kong import from Republic Pictures which is legitimate but not the highest quality product. I still gave the disc 5 stars because it is the pilot none the less and who knows how long it will be until it is released in America on DVD.

What you ARE getting: The original pilot episode of Twin Peaks that aired on television in the United States. This is good because it maintains continuity and most importantly the suprise of the series. In other words if you have never seen the show you should watch this version of the pilot, the 29 episodes of the series and then Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me in order to experience it in the way you would have had you been watching the material as it was released. This is the best way for a newcomer to get the Twin Peaks experience.

What you are NOT getting: This is NOT the European version of the pilot. In David Lynch's contract he was required to make the pilot into a close ended feature which could stand alone to sell in European markets and possibly the US if the series were not picked up. That version is basically a Cliff's Notes for the series, showing you the end and culprit without any of the fun of arriving there from the series. I would recommend renting this version after you have seen all of the other material out there however, it has some good moments.

QUALITY: Like I said before this is an import from Republic and not the best quality. The video quality is about equal to if the pilot played on TV yesterday and I taped it on a regular VCR. That being said, the video and sound are adequate, but one should not expect the amazingly crystal clear transfer from the Season One set. (In fact I read that the Season One set having been remastered, has better quality than the master tapes that ABC has in its vaults!)

FINALLY: So again, I stand by my five star rating because though the quality is not superb, the pilot is a necessary part of any Twin Peaker's collection. I recommend purchasing this because as anyone can see from New Line Cinema's decision to not only NOT include the sought after deleted footage from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, but also delay its release for a year when they really had no intention of paying for the rights to the footage in the first place that Twin Peaks is not high on the list of priorities for the studios involved. Don't expect an American release anytime soon.

Rating:
Summary: Great pilot, horrible DVD!!!
Review: Wow, what a terrific pilot...so intriguing, so suspenseful, so unique and witty, and smart. This is what great TV is all about, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that the show was cancelled so soon. But while the pilot is definitely worth having, a cleaned up version should have been included on the Season 1 DVD, rather than this horrible import. The picture quality is terrible and the sound is horrible. Don't even get me started on the subtitles...UGH! They completely changed words and sentences around and use poor English, which, as a screenwriter, really bugged me!!! But of course, every Twin Peaks fan must own this and it's worth it until a better version comes along, despite the lackluster attempt of the distributors. Twin Peaks is classic television at its best!!!

Rating:
Summary: Missing for a decade, you can now get the REAL pilot ep
Review: This DVD version of the Twin Peaks pilot episode has been floating around on eBay for a while. At first I thought it was a bootleg, but I did some checking and found out that it is a legal issue from Republic Pictures, who used the copywrite laws to skirt around Warner Bros. and release it in Asia.

This is the REAL pilot shown in 1990. This is NOT the European Pilot, which has the studio-imposed "ending."

I bought this DVD because I wanted to have the pilot to complement the new DVD release of the 1st season of Twin Peaks. I wasn't dissapointed.

Quality: Decent, but nothing compared to the new 1st season release. The images are often pixilated and the color washed out. The sound seems to have been remixed, but sometimes is too loud. There is a scene near the end where Mike and Bobby get into a bar fight. I remember watching the original and hearing Bobby say to Big Ed "Lights out Mr. Monkeywrench!," but in this version the dialogue is overpowered by a volume increase in the ambient noise.

Features: Since this is an import, you need to manually turn off the subtitles. There are some previews for some lackluster films as well. If you want a good belly laugh, watch those and you'll see a preview for 'Witchboard 2,' something I never want to view. There are also biographies of Kyle MacLachlan and Joan Chen. That's about it. I don't really like DVD extras anyway, so I wasn't dissapointed in the very few that are on this one.

The Movie: Twin Peaks is a genuine masterpiece in a sea of dreck on tv. That it was cancelled after two seasons only goes to show that network execs and the general viewing audience have the attention span of gerbils. The pilot is one great scene after another with memorable lines throughout. I watched this DVD recently with a friend who had never seen Twin Peaks and he was instantly hooked and begged to watched the rest of the 1st season. David Lynch and Mark Frost had dynamite in thier hands with this show. It's the story of murder in a small town and how the murder exposes the seamy underbelly of the town. To place it in a genre is impossible: it has elements of crime drama, comedy, surrealism, science fiction, fantasy, soap opera, you name it!

Bottom Line: If you are going to own the Artisan release of the first season, you need this DVD as well. The quality is mediocre, but it probably is the best you'll ever get.

Rating:
Summary: Poor quality DVD of an absolutely essential episode
Review: I should dock this disc a star for its sub par production, but I won't simply because the episode itself is so superb.

There are two things wrong with this DVD: first, releasing the pilot as a stand alone instead of incorporating it with the first season, and second, the inferior sound and video. Some of the reviewers are questioning the latter, but I can attest that when one compares one of the DVDs from the first season box set with the pilot DVD, there sound and video quality are not anywhere near the same. It does not render the show unwatchable, but it does detract from one's enjoyment.

The first of the two reasons I cite is equally unforgivable. Not only do I find it unforgivable to not include the pilot in the box set, I am not clear why they didn't just collect both seasons and the pilot in one set. It isn't as if there are that many minutes or episodes package. If shows like BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and THE SOPRANOS, which contain more minutes in one season than TWIN PEAKS did in total, can be easily packaged in one boxed set, why not it? What makes not including the pilot incomprehensible is the fact that the series makes absolutely no sense without the pilot, and the pilot doesn't mean anything without the ensuing episodes. From first to finish, these decisions baffle me, especially when one considers that the pilot is not currently available except for this import.

The fact that this is one of the most phenomenal TV series in history makes this even more lamentable. TWIN PEAKS is simultaneously one of the best and one of the most influential shows the medium has ever seen. America has never been as friendly towards Surrealism as has Europe, but one might make the case that David Lynch is our most important exponent of it. What makes the series so brilliant is the way that Lynch manages to blend surrealism, film noir, Hitchcockian humor (less recognized but just as influential as Hitchcockian suspense), and soap opera to create what was, up to that time, arguably the finest series TV had ever seen (though shows like THE PRISONER could easily take issue with that judgment). The show is so stylized as to almost succumb to self-parody, but even in the most delightfully absurd scenes, the show manages to hit precisely the right tone and balance.

The influence of TWIN PEAKS can be found in nearly every show that has tried to move away from a traditional self-contained episode format to longer story arcs. There had been shows that had tried to tell stories over a longer period of time. HILL STREET BLUES had had this approach, although one could still watch any one episode without having seen it before. But TWIN PEAKS made no sense whatsoever in episode-sized chunks. Except perhaps for shows the fourth season of ANGEL or a couple of seasons of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER or 24, no other show has places so much emphasis on the story as a whole. Without TWIN PEAKS, the long story arcs of THE X-FILES would have been impossible, as well as BABYLON FIVE, and BUFFY and ANGEL, and the whole host of shows that have followed, including THE SOPRANOS and DEAD LIKE ME. In all these shows, echoes of TWIN PEAKS can be heard.

Unfortunately, until they choose to produce a better quality edition of the pilot, this DVD will remain absolutely essential for anyone interested in the rest of the episodes.

Rating:
Summary: The problems abound....Fire Don't Walk With Me
Review: I managed to get this import (I think it's from China) a few months ago. After I saw it, I thought that they were going to have to do a better quality release for the US. I was astounded at how poor the quality was of this DVD release, the worst I personally have ever seen. First, it's from a PAL release of the video, so everything is sped up quite a bit due to the different format not translating too well. Everything runs at a higher pitch, and it's hard to get this out of your head when you're watching it. Consequently, the sound quality is terrible. From the opening titles, you can immediately tell that something is off. The picture quality is also pretty poor, worse than the VHS release of the pilot, which has been out for quite some time now. The cover design is taken right from the VHS set of the series. I have the VHS set, but that doesn't include the pilot. The box design is done pretty poorly. There are no worthwhile DVD extras. Finally, and for me this was a big disappointment, there is no footage from what is commonly called the "European Version". The European release had a different ending which wrapped up the entire mystery in an additional 20 minutes of footage, which includes the original red room sequence from Cooper's dream in ep. 2. The US aired pilot was altered so that it could be turned into a series, but the European version was the original, uncut pilot, kinda like the difference between Mulholland Drive as a feature film and what it would have been had it been picked up by ABC as a TV series. For anybody who has seen the entire series, I would strongly recommend watching the European release. It's genius, and the pilot feels complete with this ending. Beware: it does spoil the mystery, so see the series first.

For those of you who are truly fans, I would recommend getting the VHS release of the pilot. Stay away from this release and insist that the producers come up with a domestic DVD release of higher quality. And if you're hankering for some Twin Peaks but can't wait to make a purchase, buy the upcoming DVD release of "Fire Walk With Me" on February 26th. This is the one for which I have been waiting, for quite some time now. Apparently Lynch personally supervised its making, remastered the audio, etc., so I doubt that it will disappoint.

Rating:
Summary: Content was great, but sound was poor
Review: To be honest, I didn't notice the finer aspects of the audio. What really drove me crazy was the pitch of the voices and music. Everything was higher than normal. Luckily, I still have all of the episodes on VHS. Hearing Agent Cooper sound like Nadine was more than I could bear.

Rating:
Summary: Bad reviews don't mean squat............
Review: Ok, I saw this DVD in a store in Washington and, of course, its an import. And I was very squeamish about getting imports and having them not work on my DVD player. Well, I got home, popped it in, and I must say, the video and sound were fantastic, and nothing weird happened at all. A word of warning though, on the menu screen, audio only plays out of one of the side speakers (??) then when you go into the show everything is fine. hmm. Everyone has to remember this is a TV show from a while back, the picture and sound are only SO good, how remastered should this thing be? We are lucky just to have it. If you are dieing to get this, get it, you won't be disappointed, it was great!

Rating:
Summary: Sound /Video issues?? great pilot
Review: I have noticed a lot of reviews comlaining abut sound or video issues which made me really heistant to buy this DVD. BUt I did b/c I love the series. I honestly didn't notice any huge problems. It is possible that the bad sound video / audio complaints come from people with Hi definition TVs and super fancy stero set ups. But on a normal TV with regular speaker it looked and sounded completely fine to me.