Fair enough.
Despite owning the DVD for the first entry, I've yet to watch the film in its entirety.
You and I appear to be in a minority because even with invites to watch them in the cinema and the regular airings on TV, I've not watched any of them and have no inclination to do so. I'm also not enamoured with Rowling either (and certainly not for reactionary reasons) but I won't elaborate here to avoid this becoming a political discussion.
I'm not completely opposed to the concept - there are remakes which surpass the originals, likewise with sequels but more often than not they're merely commissioned because Hollywood executives are unable to consider green-lighting new material in preference to the myopic rationale that recycling past glories is a cash generator because it was a hit before and thus will be a hit again.
LaserDiscs!
I have a modest collection: it's shocking just how many titles have never received a digital release in their director's cut version and remain exclusively on LaserDisc - and the same applies with countless extras, especially on the Criterion Collection LDs. The Pioneer release of Basic Instinct contains an audio commentary track with Paul Verhoeven that has never been reissued for DVD/Blu-ray.
As I've mentioned in previous exchanges, I own two LD players: a European model which was the best machine available in the PAL market and plays both NTSC and PAL discs and switches disc sides without the need for a manual swap. I also have an industrial NTSC machine which I imported from the U.S. (I use it with a step down transformer for 110v to 220/240v) and although it lacks frills such as TOSLink, the picture quality is vastly superior to that of my Euro consumer player but I find that they compliment each other quite nicely for different purposes.
Of course, I have the Star Wars films among my collection. I've got the NTSC CBS/Fox widescreen set with digital audio and was lucky enough to meet the cinematographer of The Empire Strikes Back some years back and got him to sign and dedicate the gatefold cover for me. I also own the 1997 PAL widescreen THX box set with Vader on the front and the Japanese only release of the theatrical version of The Phantom Menace which includes the OBI strip. I bought it from a LaserDisc trader in the States and we ended up having a lengthy email conversation about our mutual appreciation of cinema.
I only bothered with TESB for the 1997 re-release and when I later discovered what Lucas done to ANH with the Han shoots last travesty, I was glad to have spared myself that nonsense. The pace of the escape from Cloud City is ruined by the insertion of ROTJ outtake footage (just because it seems some fans couldn't use their imagination with Vader returning to the Star Destroyer) during what was originally a perfectly directed sequence by Irvin Kershner.
Yes, I acquired this too and attempted to watch it on my 2011 MBP during the Thunderbolt eGPU testing but even with support from a GTX 770, the 2.3 Ghz i5 CPU just couldn't cope with the strain. Poor thing, I expected too much. 😳
