Legend on DVD

macjackfan
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Re: Legend on DVD

Post by macjackfan »

Hi Everyone, Nancy Smith here,
I was on the Amazon website, and was reading some comments by some people who bought the episodes. I was really disheartened by what they said about the DVDs. Here is one comment I saw about the DVDS. I wasn't very happy about this one.

To be clear--Legend the series is a 5 star show. I absolutely loved it and mourned its loss.

The loss of star is because they replaced the theme music?! What the hay? Why? The original theme song was snappy, energetic, and awesome. The replacement music is lackadaisical and blah. I have not watched all of the episodes yet, however the case bears the warning that content may have been altered. WHY?!

My mind is boggled as to why they would make any changes to this great series. It should be seen the way it aired.
Here's another comment by another customer who bought the episodes.
The show itself gets five stars. One of my favorite series of all times. Funny, quirky, imaginative and entertaining. As a writer, I love author Ernest Pratt and his dealings with his demanding publisher. The actors seem to be having a barrel of fun. Sharp dialogue, quotable lines ("when all else fails, bring out the Legend wings") and jibes at modern day foibles and prejudices, but the satire never gets campy. But the packaging gets only one star. The casing is flimsy and breaks easily. The picture quality is like a second-generation VHS copy. The color is way off (and it isn't my TV set). In the pilot, every frame is washed in a brown tint. Later episodes are too heavy on the reds; the skin tones look like sunburn. The background sounds have been amped so much they drown out the dialogue. Worse of all, the original theme music has been substituted with a weak imitation! What the--? Couldn't the studio pay a few dollars for ASCAP rights to the original? And no extras! C'mon, couldn't they at least get an interview with the producers or Richard Dean Anderson? Such a great series deserves better treatment. I guess the studio was cleaning out the vaults and decided to get rid of some spare film.
In my opinion, I think Richard should know about all these drastic changes they made to his series, and protest by making Mill Creek redo these episodes, and make them the Superb Quality that they deserve. It sounds like to me that Mill Creek just slapped these episodes together, in some shoddy packaging, and didn't take time to adjust the visual as well as the audio portion of the episodes. They just put them together in order to make some money off these episodes. I think that stinks! :( I'm reconsidering buying these episodes. If they are of poor quality like that second person says, then there is no need to waste my money on buying them. A few years ago, someone on this forum was nice enough to make me some episodes on DVD. They may not be the best quality but at least they are in the original format as they appeared on TV. There are not special features, just the episodes, and a lot of commercials. lol But at least they are the same episodes that aired on TV, with the original music, and color as well as sound. No changes. As I said, I think someone needs to protest to Mill Creek about this. I think Richard could "Pursuade" Mill Creek to make these episodes Quality episodes that his fans deserve. Also since he was involved in the making of these episodes, and Ernest Pratt was his favorite character, I think he would be insulted to know that Mill Creek totally screwed up his episodes, and made them look crappy. That's just my opinion for what it's worth. So far those were the only negative reviews I found on Amazon. But that was enough to make me think twice before buying them from Mill Creek. Let's hope Kate can send these reviews to Richard and he can do something about making Mill Creek revamp these episodes, and make them Really Good Quality episodes. I wouldn't mind paying extra if it meant having these episodes in the original format. And if Richard can't do anything, then we should all write to Mill Creek and protest ourselves. It's the least we can do get what we deserve! ;-)
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ebineez01
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Re: Legend on DVD

Post by ebineez01 »

Hi guys

I haven't got mine yet - hopefully today or tomorrow, but I'd be interested to know what you guys who already have your DVDs and have watched them think of the reviews Nancy has reposted?
I'm assuming you guys have also seen the eopisode prior to the DVDs so I'm wondering if you agree about the changes/ quality? Or is it that we love RDA and his characters so much that we don't mind?
I haven't seen the series before so I'd be interested to know whether any of the content has been changed?
Ebi
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bftlovesRDA
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Re: Legend on DVD

Post by bftlovesRDA »

Hi, Ebi and macjackfan - Nancy -

My Legend DVD's are top quality and I did not notice any discoloring or music change - and the packaging was not flimsy at all - but just standard DVD packaging. .... but I must admit I didn't know the original theme song. The only place I had watched Legend was on YouTube. And I don't remember the music from that venue.

I'm sorry these negative reviews are on Amazon for Legend. They will discourage people from buying the product. However, the reviewers gave the DVD's a 4.5 star rating (out of five) and most of the reviews were very positive: http://www.amazon.com/Legend-Complete-R ... merReviews

Again, my DVD's arrived in very good packaging and the quality is excellent.
B
PamK1950
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Re: Legend on DVD

Post by PamK1950 »

May I suggest you check out the version of Legend that Kate has downloaded on this website. Correct me if I'm wrong Kate, but I believe these were made from the original show. If so, you can compare them with what you have and decide for yourself if there were changes. I try to keep an opened mind when it comes to comments or reviews about things on Amazon or any other site like that. Some people just like to complain about anything. By the way, my set appears to be just fine.
If you can't say anything nice.....

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ebineez01
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Re: Legend on DVD

Post by ebineez01 »

Thanks for the replies B and PamK.
I agree PamK, some people just like to complain, and even if I hadn't already ordered mine, I wouldn't have let those reviews dissuade me, I was just curious to see whether you guys agreed with any of it as no one on here has complained about the quality or changes to the original.
I think what people have to remember too is that this is the DVD of a series that is twenty years old and they cannot expect it to be up to the standard of the HD tv/ movies we are used to seeing that a produced today, and maybe that's what they're comparing them with. I can see the difference in resolution when I watch MacGyver and even DVDs of SG-1, but that certainly doesn't quell my enjoyment of them.
Hopefully this will help with your decision on whether to buy the DVDs Nancy :)
Ebi
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KateR
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Re: Legend on DVD

Post by KateR »

PamK1950 wrote:May I suggest you check out the version of Legend that Kate has downloaded on this website. Correct me if I'm wrong Kate, but I believe these were made from the original show. If so, you can compare them with what you have and decide for yourself if there were changes. I try to keep an opened mind when it comes to comments or reviews about things on Amazon or any other site like that. Some people just like to complain about anything. By the way, my set appears to be just fine.
I agree, it seems that many people will only comment if they have something negative to say.

Yes, the episodes in the Video Gallery were made from the original VHS tapes, so the quality is not as sharp as a DVD. (If I ever get around to it, I might try redoing them, although it's a VERY long process.)

I did notice a difference in the theme music in episode two when I completed it recently for the Lexicon, and I was thinking that maybe the music was rearranged for the later episodes. I didn't sit down and do a side-by-side comparison of the music because even if it is a slightly different arrangement, it's not enough of a difference to prevent purchasing the series.

As for the red/orange "wash" in the color, that WAS in the original. It was a production choice to make the show look more like an old western by giving it an orange tone. The pilot was positively sepia. I was never fond of the look, and it makes trying to get decent video captures MUCH more difficult, but that's not a flaw of the DVDs.

Besides, Legend (and MacGyver as well) were filmed in a time before high definition, so even the originals are only slightly better than what you get on a first generation VHS recording. I can see a huge difference in quality between my MacGyver DVDs and my Stargate DVDs (and even with Stargate, the quality changes dramatically from season 1 to 10) because the technology had advanced so much in those 20 years. My Legend DVDs are not of a quality equivalent to Stargate in HD, but they are much better than my original VHS tapes, so I have no complaints.

Kate
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Caty
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Re: Legend on DVD

Post by Caty »

macjackfan wrote:
The show itself gets five stars. One of my favorite series of all times. Funny, quirky, imaginative and entertaining. As a writer, I love author Ernest Pratt and his dealings with his demanding publisher. The actors seem to be having a barrel of fun. Sharp dialogue, quotable lines ("when all else fails, bring out the Legend wings") and jibes at modern day foibles and prejudices, but the satire never gets campy. But the packaging gets only one star. The casing is flimsy and breaks easily. The picture quality is like a second-generation VHS copy. The color is way off (and it isn't my TV set). In the pilot, every frame is washed in a brown tint. Later episodes are too heavy on the reds; the skin tones look like sunburn. The background sounds have been amped so much they drown out the dialogue. Worse of all, the original theme music has been substituted with a weak imitation! What the--? Couldn't the studio pay a few dollars for ASCAP rights to the original? And no extras! C'mon, couldn't they at least get an interview with the producers or Richard Dean Anderson? Such a great series deserves better treatment. I guess the studio was cleaning out the vaults and decided to get rid of some spare film.
When I first read about the changing colors an old saying came to my mind: NTSC = Never The Same Color :lol: :lol: :lol:
But to me it looks as if the story that plays in Ernest's mind, is tinted in sepia or red and the story in "real life" is normal.
And yes, I also found a little change in the music, but does that matter?
Really, who cares about that?
The people who don't buy this DVD only because of those foolish comments, don't know what they'll miss. ;)

I finished the episodes just a few minutes back and I could watch it all over again.
The storys are funny and everytime you watch it, you find something new, you didn't noticed before.
Thanks to Kate, due to your blog I'll surely find some hints, that I would have missed.
"No matter how hard the past,
you can always begin again.
"

(Buddha)
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KateR
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Re: Legend on DVD

Post by KateR »

I haven't gotten to episode 5 on the DVDs yet, but a member of the Forum has been asking if the Crash Test Dummies song is on the DVD, so I just did a quick check.

Surprisingly, it is NOT on the DVD - a different song has been substituted. I suppose it has to do with copyright, but that IS disappointing. The original (you can see it in the Video Gallery) was much better.

I wouldn't consider it a reason not to buy the DVDs, but still... :roll: :(

Kate
macjackfan
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Re: Legend on DVD

Post by macjackfan »

Hi again everyone.
Just reading all the replies to my post about those comments on Amazon. After reading about the difference in quality of the DVDS, that's true. They didn't have High Definition back then, and so the quality of the episodes may not be quite as good as the original. My Macgyver and Stargate DVDS are really good. When I first got all my Mac DVDS I thought the company who reproduced them did a really good job of putting them on DVD. Same with Stargate. So I was worried when I saw those comments on Amazon about Legend. But it looks like everyone here is really satisfied with their copies. That makes me feel better about buying them. I guess that's true that some people like to complain about everything, but considering how much they will cost, I can understand someone wanting Quality dvds. About that song that they didn't include on the DVDS, I've never heard it before, so I probably wouldn't even notice that it was missing. But if I get around to buying them, I'll check it out. I just found this song on YouTube. Is this the song you're talking about? It's called The Superman Song. Here's a link to that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlPnrgpRGnU

That's odd that they would put in a different song on the DVD. You could be right Kate. It might have something to do with copyright. Yet they used it in the original version. Guess that was before they had the copyright infringement law. Anyway, I agree. That wouldn't deter me from buying them. Anyway, Thanks everyone for your Positive feedback. That is a shame that they didn't have any special features or interviews. They didn't have those on the MacGyver dvds either. I thought that was too bad too. But I bought them anyway. :-) You all should post your comments on Amazon, and hopefully with your comments more people will buy the Legend DVDS. :)

Thanks Again,

Nancy :)
macphoen
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Re: Legend on DVD

Post by macphoen »

Nancy,

It is "At My Funeral".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CooB1qVn1Us
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