Friday, April 28, 2006

No more DVDs?

A friend of mine from DA named Shychick allowed me to post some big news into my blog, so here it is.

"Bad news. I noticed that nobody had replied to that topic on Capital Entertainment for awhile- I think the last post was sometime in March, or something. Now, I've been fucked over with so-called upcoming DVD releases before: a box-set of Sonic-SatAM was supposed to have been released by DiC a few years back, but SEGA basically canceled that altogether (LONG and extremely complex story story; refer to FUS for more details if you are interested) and Kenneth Branagh's "Hamlet" keeps getting postponed and put on hiatus by Warner Brothers, so the actual release date for that is still up in the air (thank God I own the VHS, though!). Anyway, I wanted to be absolutely sure of what was going on with the rest of the Count Duckula series, because I'm tired of getting my hopes up for my most beloved shows and movies to come to DVD, and then getting my hopes dashed; I'm sick of feeling deceived and lied to by these companies. I emailed the guy who originally began that topic concerning the rest of the CD series- Spacekicker, he was called, who was apparently a staff member at Capital Entertainment- and asked him if there was still plans to release the rest of the series. And he simply replied (I still have the message in my inbox, so I'll copy and paste it here):

"I'm not sure. I left the company awhile ago. I don' t believe there are any plans to release the rest of the seasons."


This made no sense to me whatsoever. I mean, he was the one who made that topic in the first place, asking us for ideas on what we would like to see for special features. Now, all of a sudden, he's saying there are no plans to release the rest of the series after all, and with NO explanation at that (ok, maybe he did leave the company, so he wouldn't know what's going on with that anymore, but then what made him say that he doesn't think there are any plans if he's so clueless? If he knows or even suspects that much, then why wouldn't he know whatever reason mught be behind it? I mean, I hate it when people just ASSUME shit, and that's what it sounded like he was doing. Either knows, or he doesn't know; I'm sure he must've found out sometime before he left. I guess what I'm saying is, basically, what exactly does he base that statement on? You know what I mean?)

So, I emailed another CE employee who had actually posted in that topic, named Scot, who is apparently an Online Coordinator and an Admin, who had said in that topic, "Great ideas, guys; the developers will see all of them, you can bet on that!" Or something among those lines. Anyway, I told him the situation, expressed my confusion and frustration in a polite, but firm way, told him how deceived and in the dark I felt, and posed my original query about the so-called upcoming seasons of the show, asking him if he knew anything about it and said I'd be grateful for any details he could share. Again, I will c/p his exact words:

"I honestly don't know. At the time the intentions were to of course
continue coming out with the seasons, but there is something you have
to understand. It's not just that Spacekicker no longer works for the
company, but 90% of those who did no longer do as well. We were bought out and merged into First Look Media. So it was a pretty big change. I will however find out as much as I can about the fate of Count Duckula and let you know as soon as I do."

Well, he's not really sure either, but at least he was far more specific, unlike that other guy. So, I guess it's up in the air as of now, so all we can do is hope. I just hope the guy will actually get back to me, like he said he was going to. At this point, we don't know if it's been canceled altogether, simply postponed for the time being, or plain forgotten about. So, keep your fingers crossed, guys. I'll keep you posted."

I certainly hope so too. For one, there have been episodes that were never released even on VHS [about seven of them], let alone on DVD. Seriously, if people were to just make EVERYTHING available on DVD, regardless of rights and shit, then companies would stop whining about people 'stealing their shows' through downloading. Simple as.

It greatly sucks that Capital changed like this all so suddenly. It was like when Disney bought out DiC and refuse to release Sonic SatAM on DVD, thus resulting in many bootlegs and illegal shit.

As for Count Duckula, the only way in which I can back up my personal hopes for more releases is this piece of news from Duckula Online:

"The international version will be online within the next weeks. I'm currently scanning and photographing Duckula items as bonus material for the upcoming DVD season sets produced by Capital Entertainment."

Mind you, this dated back to October. All we can do is just wait. Who knows, there could be some big 20-year celebration in 2008!

1 comment:

Jano said...

Hey - just found this blog via the stats of my website. Well, unfortunately, I have to tell you that I haven't heard from CE since then, back in October. I'm now at the final stage of preparing the scans and photographs of my collection and will send them to CE pretty soon. Of course, I also hope to see the remaining seasons coming to DVD. I'll let you know as soon as I get any updates on that matter.