Poll Of The Week: What are your favorite special features, or do they even matter?

[AVRevForum.com]

Tell us where you stand on the usefulness of bonus features and vote for your favorite type of bonus feature.

[kennyt]

I rarely watch special features, but when bloopers are included, I do

[Enoch]

The Austin Powerw DVD made excellent use of the extra features section. King Crimson had one that you could pick the individual band members of various eras of the band to make up the the song 21st Century Schizoid Man. That was a great idea. A clever use of the language track was in the Amadeus DVD where they just wiped all but the music in of of the language tracks.

[ninthdragon]

I love the deleted scenes, but when bloopers are included - I go there first!

[faberryman]

Just the film, mam, with the least amount of video and audio compression needed for the film to fit on the media, be it DVD, HD-DVD or Blu-ray. Don't waste space with bonus material. And while we're at, how about a simple and uniform menu without all the tricked-out frou-frou.

[BYU Cougar]

In GREAT films, like Ben Hur, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Lord of the Rings, or other "historical-type" films, Sound of Music, Hello Dolly or West Side Story--within these films, there is much of interest to many fans of the films.

Students of film are enamored with the creation or stories behind the film. Star Trek fans are pleased almost as much with the background, interviews and history as they are with the films themselves.

However, in shoddy films (including MOST films today) there is NO imagination and NO creative talent exhibited. Wherein no talented director, actor, producer--whatever-- was involved, the extra tracks are at best, less valuable than the poor film they comment upon.

In today's film world, more concern is given to the dollar than creating a product an audience would love to view more than once. (Jerry Bruckheimer is a living example of this!) Few and far between are the truly great films. And it isn't a lack of great stories or subject matter. Millions of true stories abound, which with a "little" effort, could be patterned into great films.

Today, every hack with an HD Camera and computer, a few dollars in hand, hopes to earn it back through DVD sales. This leaves the big screen, in all its glory--naked, homeless and black, devoid of light worthy of the human eye, brain or experience.

Back to the original question...In great or historical film, please do some real detective work and TELL THE STORY behind the film. In the crap film which is forced down our throats at BlockBuster and Hollywood Video, just play the movie and move on to your next piece of uninspired garbage!

Cayce Weber