In the Mouth of Madness's Wide World of Special Features (DVD/ Blu-ray Comparison)

So I just got my hands on Scream Factory's brand new special edition of John Carpenter's (last great?) movie, In the Mouth of Madness.  I don't have the older blu-ray to compare it to, because I was always annoyed by the lack of special features for such a wild, beloved cult film that obviously cried out for all kinds of fun bonus content.  And, as we now see, my holding out eventualllllllllly paid off.  But here's the thing.  Did you ever look up a movie on DVDCompare and wonder about all those foreign editions of a movie you like that have all these random, exclusive little extras?  Usually short running times, probably EPK (Electronic Press Kit) stuff; but better than the nothing we were getting in the US.  Well, for this film, I decided to break the bank and import a few additional DVD editions to see just what all that stuff was, and maybe scrap together a halfway decent special edition for a film that so deserved one.  Let's see how worthwhile that endeavor was.

Oh, and you're probably wondering how much of that material is on Scream's new Collector's Edition.  We're going to sort all that out, too.

Suggesting this might be Carpenter's last great movie is probably pretty contentious of me.  I imagine most fans would point to Vampires.  That's certainly a good one, but there's just something so much more evocative about the way Carpenter handles his far out apocalyptic horror - especially this one, where he gracefully ties it into our Stephen King-style small town Americana - that elevates it to a much higher level for me.  I'd trade ten Vampires for one In the Mouth of Madness.  Now I'll admit, we're probably sinking pretty deep into personal taste and preference more than any pretense of objective artistic merit at this point.  But I don't know... if nothing else there's a thrilling level of ambition in telling this particular kind of "absolutely anything can happen, and does" story that sets it apart from most other horror films.

And this film has so much else going for it besides.  Carpenter seems to be playing with one of his highest ever budgets, steeping the film in production values that enable him to bounce from one incredible set piece or massive KNB special effect to another.  And he's got a pretty strong all-star cast with Sam Neill, Das Boot's Jürgen Prochnow, David Warner, John Glover, Carpenter staple Peter Jason and Charlton fuckin' Heston.  And even the small roles are filled with great character actors like Bernie Casey, Willhelm von Homburg (Ghostbusters 2's Vigo) and Frances Bay.  You know who played that little paperboy kid at the end of the film?  A pre-Star Wars Hayden Christensen.  I'm not pulling your leg; look it up.  And speaking of looking up the cast, I couldn't place where I new Julie Carmen from until I visited her imdb - she's the head vamp in Fright Night 2!  Top it all off with a rockin' Carpenter score, and you've got one of those great, "anytime I see it's on television; I have to sit down and watch it" movies.

So happy DVDs did I have to scrap together to assemble every single special feature?  Actually, not all that many (the picture at the top was probably a spoiler, huh?), which should be encouraging if anybody else feels compelled to follow in my footsteps.  But I'd suggest waiting until we see how they stack up to the Scream features before committing to any decisions on that front.  So, we start out with the original US New Line DVD from 2000.  That one's not entirely barebones; it actually features an audio commentary by John Carpenter and his DoP Gary B. Kibbe.  But it's infamous as one of the worst audio commentaries of all time... anyway, we'll come back to that.  It's also a flipper with both a widescreen and fullscreen transfer, so it should be interesting to see how they handled that, especially since Carpenter is so famous for shooting in 'scope.

Then we've got the 2002 Italian DVD from Cecchi Gori.  If you're checking my work against the DVDCompare page, you might be thinking I made a mistake.  The German DVD from BMG Video has the same features as the Italian one, plus one more.  But - and I only know this by virtue of having the Italian DVD right here on my desk in front of me - that listing is missing an entry, and the "B-roll featurette" is actually on the Italian DVD as well.  So, at least in terms of special features, they're entirely interchangeable.

Anyway, then I've got the 2006 French DVD from Metropolitan, who you might remember also brought us the exclusive special features for American Psycho.  I'm beginning to realize those guys are an under-appreciated label, because they scared up some really good, all new special features for their edition, not just EPK stuff that New Line, for whatever reason, neglected.  And, of course, now I've got Scream Factory's 2018 Collector's Edition due to be released on July 24th.

1) New Line wide 2) New Line full 3) Cecchi Gori 4) Metropolitan 5) Scream

So, okay, first of all, that's a nasty fullscreen transfer.  I think they actually managed to chop off more than they left in.  I guess Carpenter didn't leave them any vertical matte area to play around with, going from 2.31:1 to 1.33:1.  Woof.  Apart from that, I'm not too mad at the 2000 DVD despite its age.  It's certainly better than the murky 2003 Italian DVD, which I'm guessing taken from the laserdisc.  It's somewhat windowboxed, zooming in a bit to crop all four sides to 2.21:1; and the edges look they were enhanced with a black magic marker.  Even before the days of HD, if you had gotten that disc for the extra extras, you still would've needed at least one other edition to watch the movie.  The French disc looks almost identical to the US disc, except a smidgen greener and slightly more accurately framed at 2.36:1.  The blu is at an even more perfect 2.35:1, but you'll notice manages to uncover more information on the sides than ever seen before.  It also loses that French greenness, and being in HD is naturally sharper and more clearly defined.  This is a new 4k scan of the "original film elements," which I guess is safe to assume isn't the OCN or they would've said so.  Grain is evident but not super distinct; it's obviously an entire class above any of the previous DVDs.

So the original DVD gave us a stereo and 5.1 mix, plus optional subtitles. No one should be using the Italian DVD to watch the movie in 2018, but just for the record, the Italian DVD just gives us the English stereo mix (plus two Italian 5.1 mixes), with English and Italian subtitles.  France gave us English and French 5.1 mixes plus French subtitles which are hard to remove (and no English ones).  Scram just gives us the English 5.1 mix, boosted to DTS-HD, plus optional English subtitles.  The previous US blu-ray didn't keep the stereo mix either, so really the only difference is the Warners blu had a bunch of additional foreign dubs and subs.

So let's talk extras!  And we can begin with that notorious commentary.  Carpenter enjoys a well-earned reputation for doing really good commentaries.  They're lively, easy to listen to, yet still enjoyable.  So I think part of the blow-back for this one was just that expectations were really high.  I've heard plenty worse commentaries, and this one has its share of good information.  But the fact that the DP doesn't seem to want to engage, and Carpenter insists on throwing it back to him routinely even though he seems pretty checked out is a bit of a downer.  Plus, it's just a more technical commentary where they're talking about lights instead of talking about stunts and goofing around on-set like he'd often do with Kurt Russell on other commentaries.  So yeah, it's kind of a dud, but not the unlistenable disaster it seems to be known as.  Anyway, that was all we had on the original 2000 DVD... and the original 2013 blu-ray.  You can see why I wasn't super eager to double-dip.

Cecchi Gori exclusive

So we'll go to the Cecchi Gori disc next, because it's actually not much.  Just three short things, all EPK material.  First is a five-minute promotional featurette, which is heavy on clips from the film and almost more like an extended trailer.  Next is a about four and a half minutes of on-set interview clips, with Sam Neill, Prochnow, Heston and Carpenter.  The best part of that is just getting to hear Heston talk a little about being on a John Carpenter horror movie, which is kinda neat.  Then, finally, there's about five minutes of behind-the-scenes footage, which gives some cool glimpses at how some of the more elaborate special effects sequences were made, and little exchanges captured on set.  Fun little odds and ends, but nothing to make a big deal of.  It also includes the trailer and a full-color insert.

Metropolitan exclusive

France's Metropolitan DVD, on the other hand, actually went out and got the big names to provide brand new content exclusively for their release.  They got new, on camera interviews with both John Carpenter and Julie Carmen, which weren't super long but both quite good and well edited.  Then there's a fairly long, eighteen minute featurette with Greg Nicotero going over the many creature effects of the film.  Honestly, getting this DVD in 2006 was pretty satisfying; the kind of thing that should've always been packaged with the film.  Metropolitan also included the old commentary, plus a couple of bonus trailers.  It was certainly a smarter option compared to the US DVD.

Scream Factory exclusive

But that was then and this is now.  Along comes Scream Factory, with a whole bunch of new, awesome stuff, and some older stuff.  Yes, they have the old commentary; but they also have a brand new commentary with Carpenter and his wife/ producer Sandy King Carpenter.  And this is a more loose kind of commentary, basically what fans were expecting and hoping for the first time around.  If you've heard the old commentary, he does repeat quite a few observations, but Sandy really is a good partner for John on here, keeping things engaging.  Even more fun is another episode of Horror's Hallowed Grounds, which really, I can't get enough of.  Then, there's about a sixteen minute on-camera interview with Greg Nicotero, which is essentially a rehash of the Metropolitan one.  It's not the same, it's brand new; but he covers pretty much all the same things and even shows some of the same video clips.  Similarly, there's a brand new Julie Carmen interview, which stays fairly close to the one she gave Metropolitan.  Besides that, there's about twelve minutes of behind-the-scenes video footage shot by Nicotero, the five minute promo featurette, the trailer, and an impressive ten minutes worth of TV spots.  It also comes with a slip cover, reversible artwork, and if you ordered it from Shout's site directly, a limited edition poster.

So, let's review.  How much of the older extras did Scream carry over?  Unfortunately, not all that much.  The original commentary and the featurette.  Not the EPK interviews or B-roll footage from the Italian DVD, and none of the new(er) interviews from the French disc.  And yes, I checked, and the behind-the-scenes footage from the Italian disc is not included in Scream's behind-the-scenes footage, although they both spend a lot of time covering the same scene of Neill running down the tunnel being chased by monsters.  But it's different footage shot by different people.

With that said, though, Scream did make most of what they didn't carry over fairly redundant.  They came up with their own Carmen and Nicotero interviews, got Carpenter to do the new commentary, and found their own batch of B-roll footage.  So on the one hand, if you're a die-hard collector, yeah, all that other stuff is still out there on the foreign discs.  But for most of us, basically all that content is closely represented here, plus more, making this the only release you really need.  I'm keeping my imports, so when I rewatch this film's extras I can include Heston's soundbites and stuff; but if I didn't already own them, I wouldn't hunt them down now.  At the time, importing was worth it.  But Scream Factory has finally given this film the treatment it always should've had.  Today's an awesome day.

The Piano Teacher, R and Unrated Cuts

So, we've looked at Michael Haneke's first French film, and even his third... it was only a matter of time until we hit on his second, The Piano Teacher. It was released on DVD in the UK and the USA, respectively, in 2002, with two rather different releases. Or three, strictly speaking, as Kino released it in the states as both an "R Rated Version" and an "Unrated Director's Cut."  I was curious exactly what the differences between those two cuts were, and was surprisingly unable to find the answers online. So I've worked it out for myself, and I'm putting them onto the 'net now. 😎 

Update 3/16/16 - 7/8/18: This post has been begging for an update since last year, when we finally got this film on blu-ray, and from the Criterion Collection no less.  Well, it goes without saying that this should be a serious PQ update (though of course we'll delve into that more seriously below); but their special features selection is a little curious and maybe a little disappointing?  Let's have a look.

Update 11/10/20: I've added the French TF1 blu-ray to the mix, too.  It's from their 2013 'Le Cinéma de Michael Haneke' boxed set.

Isabelle Huppert stars as a music instructor (I won't spoil which instrument!) who couldn't be more dissatisfied with her life and secretly lashes out at everyone around her, especially herself. She lives with her very controlling mother and psychologically tortures her star pupil, a young girl who's made the unfortunate mistake of reminding her teacher of herself. She soon seeks refuge in a sexual relationship with another of her students, who she encourages to be violent and abusive. Yeah, this is dark stuff; but it's intense and very authentic.

The Piano Teacher was the first of several collaborations between the Haneke and Huppert (they're currently preparing #4, Happy End, as of this writing). And you only have to watch this film to see why they keep working together. This is one seriously powerful character study. It's based on the autobiographical, and somewhat shocking, novel by Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek, and as it's from Haneke, you know he's not going to shy away from the dangerous bits. And because of this, it's a little bit more conventional in its structure than most of Haneke's films. But from the locked frames and completely unsentimental deliveries, there's no mistaking whose work this is. This is a Haneke film all the way, and more than that, one of his best.

A scene only included in the unrated cut.

Now there's a moment in The Piano Teacher, where Huppert goes to a porno shop and watches some hardcore pornography in a private booth. What we get a glimpse of is explicitly hardcore, so I was pretty sure this was the difference between the R and unrated cuts. But I'm glad I checked, because it's actually the first of many cuts.

25:55) The hardcore pornography Huppert watches in the booth. First she's shown a split-screen image of four graphic images to choose from. She then selects one: an upside-down blowjob and we see a few seconds of that. In the R-rated version, we only see her reaction shots and hear the sounds of what she's watching.

33:43) The entire three-minute scene in the bathroom [shown above] is cut. The US version jumps right from the shot of the acceptance sheet to Huppert arguing with her mother. So not only do we not see the admittedly shocking thing she does to herself with a handheld mirror and a razor; but we don't hear her mother calling her and then the trouble she goes through to hide the evidence. It seems odd the MPAA would object to her cleaning her bath. More importantly, not seeing this scene totally destroys the next talk with her mother, which you interpret in a totally different way without knowing what Huppert's just done. The decision to cut this whole scene, rather than just trim it like the previous edit, is really destructive.

50:05) The scene of Huppert peeing outside of the lovers' car at the drive-in is heavily shortened.

1:05:20) The handjob scene in the bathroom is shortened. In fact, it's only a handjob scene in the unrated version, because the R-rated version goes right from them starting to get physical to the guy saying "I love you." In the complete version she begins to masturbate him and only says "I love you" after stopping her.

1:06:13) The r-rated cut also snips out the moment where she goes down on him, cutting right from the handjob rejection to Huppert's threats to leave. The guy goes from loving to hostile on a dime in the r-rated cut; but we see the motivations in this longer version with lines like, "I've no desire to touch that now." Even worse, we lose her whole speech about "I'll write down what you can do to me," which is a critical story point.

1:18:51) When Huppert tells the boy "stop being such a leech," the R-rated cuts to them practicing at the piano again, but the unrated version continues with him replying, "you cough because you're uptight." And they have a lengthy argument, where she tells him she has no feelings and forbids him from reading her note or doing anything that doesn't relate to music in that room. It's entirely sex-free, so I'm baffled as to why this has been cut.

1:26:14) Most of the note being read aloud is cut out. Apparently even talking about BDSM sex is too much for an R-rating.

1:43:48) It makes more sense that the sex scene at the hockey rink was cut short. The r-rated version has an awkward fade to black and then fade back to the same scene, while it plays naturally all the way through in the uncut version.  They only wind up losing a few seconds of non-nudity, though.

The trimmed scene from 50:05.

Meanwhile, the entire ending scene, which is perhaps the most extreme of the film, is left uncut. It really is puzzling how they could leave that in, but cut out dialogue in the piano room? These cuts must not have been only MPAA-based. It's a little mystery. Honestly though, it's not terribly important, since Kino did also release an unrated version. And yes, the discs from Artificial Eye and Criterion are also uncut. So there's no reason to bother with the R except as a curiosity piece, which I suppose it does live up to.

But even if you were clever enough to make sure you got the unrated Kino DVD rather than the R-rated one, you'd still have wanted to think about replacing it with Artificial Eye's, as you'll soon see.  Though of course now all the DVDs have been rendered obsolete by the blu-rays, released first by TF1 in France in 2013 and more recently in the US by Criterion in 2017.

1) Kino's 2002 R Rated US DVD; 2) Kino's 2002 Unrated US DVD;
3) Artificial Eye's 2002 UK DVD; 4) TF1's 2013 FR BD;
5) Criterion's 2017 US BD.

Wow, now there's a strong progression from edition to edition if I ever saw one. right off the bat, the Kino discs are non-anamorphic and interlaced. Otherwise, the transfers between the DVDs look fairly similar - presumably they're using the same root master - but those are two pretty major sticking points. The framing is also slightly different, with the AE disc minimally letterboxed to 1.80-1.81:1, and the Kino is window-boxed to about 1.70:1. Basically, this gives the AE disc a sliver of extra picture on the sides, and the Kino a sliver on the top and bottom.

Admittedly, though, the question of which DVD is preferable becomes fairly academic in the wake of the blu-rays.  I refer to them jointly, because they are virtually identical, obviously using the same master.  They've made a new scan of the original camera negative, and it's a massive improvement in detail just overall picture quality.  The film is slightly matted to 1.85:1, shaving not just a little off the top and bottom, but even narrow slivers along the sides.  The color scheme is more muted, too, with a lower contrast, flatter look - for example, compare the whites of the orchestra's sheet music.  Haneke is credited in Criterion's booklet as supervising the color correction, though, so this is the presumably correct look.  It's certainly more natural compared to the DVDs.  And anyway, the real story is in the fine detail and photo realistic clarity; it feels absurd to even spell it all out underneath the screenshots, since it's a night and day improvement.

Another mark against the Kino DVDs, by the way: every disc's subtitles are removable, except Kino's, which are burnt in. And AE's disc has a 5.1 mix in addition to its 2.0 stereo track, while Kino just has the 2.0. TF1 and Criterion both have the 5.1 mix remastered in lossless DTS-HD, though curiously they've chucked the stereo mix all together.  More curiously, TF1 has kept the lossy 5.1 mix as a secondary option.  But the bad news about TF1, and the most important thing to know about that their whole disc, is that it doesn't have any subtitles or English language options at all.  Other discs in the TF1 do have English subs, but not all, and this is one that doesn't.

The extras is where things really further complicated. Now, Kino isn't barebones. It has the theatrical trailer, and a quite good, 20 minute on-camera interview with Isabelle Huppert. And it includes a basic insert with chapter titles. Oh, and all this is the same across both the R and unrated discs, by the way.  But that's it. Artificial Eye has a whole lot more.

AE actually doesn't have the Huppert interview, so score 1 point for Kino. But they do have an audio commentary by her. It's scene specific, and only on seven scenes (totaling up to maybe fifty-ish minutes) rather than the whole movie. But I'd much rather have that than have her stretching to fill the rest of the running time if she didn't have more to say. The commentary, even partial as it is, winds up being more informative than the interview. Then, AE also has a really good interview with Haneke, helped by the fact that whoever's asking the questions seems to have a solid insight into the film. And there's an interesting behind-the-scenes look at an ADR session from the post-production of this movie. AE also has the trailer, plus reversible cover art., and finally, there's an interview with the author, which sounds great; but unfortunately, she just talks about her childhood, parents, and a bit about her novel Lust at the end. She doesn't mention The Piano Teacher - the book or the film - at all, which is a let down. Still, it's better than no interview at all.

TF1 has some stuff, but like their presentation of the film, it isn't English-friendly at all.  For the record - if, say, you're fluent in French - they have a 25-minute interview with Haneke and a short featurette with a French critic.  But it's no use to us English speakers.

And now we come to Criterion.  And to start with, no they don't have the Huppert interview from the Kino disc either.  They did carry over a bunch of the AE extras, though, including the commentary and dubbing session.  But they don't have the Haneke or Jelinek interviews.  Now, the absent Haneke and Huppert interviews are made up for, because Criterion has recorded new on-camera interviews with them both.  But there's no equivalent of the Jelinek interview, and it's just a shame to be losing as many special features as we're gaining with this new edition.  Nothing new is really being brought to the table, so much as a couple of lost features are being replaced.  Like Criterion's set of features, taken on their own, are good and rewarding; but if you already had the DVDs, it's a bit of a strange compromise rather than a boon of new content.  Oh, and Criterion's disc also includes the trailer, and a nice fold-out booklet with an essay by Moira Weigel, by the way.

So, yes, the Criterion is definitely and obviously the way to go at this stage.  Both blus offer a huge boost in picture quality, but only Criterion couples that with a nice set of features.  Owners of the past DVDs may feel compelled to hang onto those as well, though, since they both retain exclusive extras.  It would've been nice to clear those off the shelves with this new edition, but oh well.  I wouldn't go so far as to recommend going back and buying the DVDs in addition to the blu, however, since most of those Haneke and Huppert interviews are fairly redundant, and the Jelinek interview never got around to The Piano Teacher anyway.  Haneke does say some different things across the two interviews, but unless you're a die-hard collector, any one is probably enough.  Something different, like an interview with any other cast or crew member - to feel like we're getting some new content with our purchase - would've been nice.  But this is still a killer upgrade, especially essential if you've only got that non-anamorphic, interlaced mess from Kino.

Sony and Their Many Monty Python and the Holy Grails (DVD/ Blu-ray Comparisons)

Quick!  What's the difference between the Collector's Edition, Special Edition, 40th Anniversary Edition and Extraordinarily Deluxe Edition of Monty Python and the Holy Grail?  It's a comedy classic and, apparently, money in the bank for Sony, who seemingly re-release this film on home video every year in a new edition.  And I bet even the people who worked on them couldn't keep them all straight.  Is the new blu-ray different than the old blu-ray?  Did some newer editions lose special features that were on previous editions?  Does the framing and picture quality change dramatically between them?  Are some editions actually exactly the same discs as others, simply released in new, gimmicky packaging?  The answers to all these questions are: yes, yes, yes and yes! And I've decided to get to the bottom of it all.

Is Holy Grail the best Monty Python film?  The Pythons themselves have said that The Life of Brian seems to be their most celebrated film in their home country, and Grail is the most popular in America.  For me it's hard to settle on a single best.  They're all so fragmented, and there are segments in each of their films that that stand out as favorites.  Grail might suffer a bit more than the others in that their are lines and moments that are so iconic than a younger viewer approaching the films today may well have heard half the jokes out of context before even seeing the movie, so it can feel like corny, old material even though this is where it originated.  But there are certainly elements that keep it fresh and ageless, including terrific production values dedicated to presenting an authentic and dung-ridden medieval period, a fantastically frustrated straight man in via the performance of Graham Chapman as King Arthur, and the stylish score and animation.  So even if the humor doesn't always do it for you, it's still an undeniably impressive little movie.

So let's get into answering our thesis question: what're all these varying editions all about?  Well, I've found you can boil it down to to five different discs, starting with the original, barebones DVD from back in 1999.  There are more than five releases, even just limiting it to DVDs and blu-rays put out in the USA market; but only five editions where the content of the actual discs change.  So, first, let's just briefly talk about where they don't change:

*The 2003 Collector's Edition is the same 2-disc set as the 2001 Special Edition, except in limited packaging with a hard copy of the script and a collectible film cell.

*The 2005 And Now For Something Completely Hilarious collection features the same disc first disc as the 2001 Special Edition (and single discs of the other films), but lacking the second disc of special features.

*The 2008 Monty Python's Holy Trinity set, happily, fixes that by including both discs from the 2001 Special Edition, which also came with a book and T-shirt (as well as 2-disc sets of the other films).

*The 2015 Limited Edition Castle Catapult Gift Set just includes the same 40th Anniversary blu-ray disc, but with a whole, wacky playset.

So, that was all the editions that stayed the same.  Now, let's look at the differing editions.  First, there's the 1999 barebones DVD.  It's widescreen, but non-anamorphic.  Then there's the 2001 Special Edition, a 2-disc set which is now anamorphic.  The 2006 Extraordinarily Deluxe Edition, which not only has new special features unique to this edition, but boasts an updated transfer with a new aspect ratio.  Fourth is the first blu-ray release, which of course gave the film its HD debut in 2012.  And finally, there's the 2015 40th Anniversary Edition, which has new, additional special features.  Here, have a look.

1) 1999 DVD 2) 2001 DVD 3) 2006 DVD 4) 2012 blu 5) 2015 blu.

So, yeah, it's interesting to see how this film's come along over the years.  The original 1999 DVD is a non-anamorphic 1.76:1.  It's also a bit murkier, definitely softer, with detail smoothed away.  The 2001 special edition brightened the image - though they pushed it a bit red - made it anamorphic and definitely brought in more detail.  It's got a little dead space in the overscan issues, which it would've gotten away with in its time, presenting the film in the widest of all its aspect ratios: 1.81:1.  Don't be impressed by that, though, because it was accomplished by trimming the most off of all four sides, making it actually the most cropped edition.  The 2006 edition corrects that, bringing us to a taller 1.67:1 aspect ratio.  It doesn't add much more clarity, but does restore more picture around the edges, particularly vertically.  Coming to the HD blus, the aspect stops shifting around; it's 1.67:1 from 2006 'till today.  But the color palette is more natural (look at the historian's skin tones), and it's definitely clearer.  Even the best, 2006 DVD looks pretty soft.  It's pleasingly sharper now on both blu, which are for all intents and purposes identical, with detail as clear as it's likely to ever be, and grain now highly visible and distinct.  Technically, they must be different encodes, but you can match each granular pixel between the two's screenshots.

Audio-wise, the original DVD just had the mono track in Dolby 2.0 with optional English, Spanish and French subtitles.  The 2001 special edition introduced a new 5.1 mix as well as a French mono dub to those options, plus joke subs "For People Who Don't Like The Film," which just plays text from Shakespeare's Henry IV pt 2.  The 2006 Extraordinarily Deluxe Edition keeps all of that, and adds additional language options, specifically a Portuguese 5.1 mix and Chinese, Portuguese and Thai subtitles.  Then both of the blu-rays bumps the audio to lossless DTS-HS and adds even more audio options: a Japanese 5.1 mix as well as Japanese, Korean and Mandarin subtitles.

Now let's really dive deep and take a look at the special features.  We start off easy: the 1999 DVD only has a handful of bonus trailers, not even the Holy Grail trailer.   Then the 2001 Special Edition comes with almost all of the extras that have been on any and every subsequent edition: two audio commentaries, one by directors Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, and one by the remaining Pythons: John Cleese, Michael Palin and Eric Idle.  Both of these maybe get a little cheesy at times, but are mostly both informative and entertaining, and I doubt any Python fan would want to skip them.  There's a really fun documentary called Quest for the Holy Grail Locations, where Palin and Jones tour the old filming locations, and there's a nice, 13-minute behind-the-scenes featurette made for British television.  There's a couple trailers, stills galleries, a trivia track and weblink kinda stuff... and then, if you thought those Henry IV subtitles were a bit silly, buckle in.  Sony has packed all these DVD and blu-ray editions with a plethora of silly, gag extras, that do little to add to the film experience, but are just jokes in and of themselves.

The film starts with a bluff, fake educational short called Dentists On the Job, as if you got the wrong disc or something, which plays for about two minutes before the real movie begins.  Michael Palin also does a spoof educational short on how to use coconuts as horse hoof sounds like they do in the movie.  There's a fake location scouting film where Gilliam and Palin narrate some old travelogue footage as if it was their real experiences.  There's a few short clips of the Japanese dub presented as extracts, clips from the musical numbers presented as sing-a-longs, and a pretty amusing Lego rendition of the Camelot scene.  It's more fun than the big budget Lego movies they release theatrically now, if you ask me, because except for the animated faces and fire effects, it's all real stop-motion photography of actual Lego pieces, not CGI cartoons in the Lego style.

A featurette only available on the 2006 Extraordinarily Deluxe Edition DVD.

So then we come to the Extraordinarily Deluxe Edition.  Now, in 2006, the main reason to upgrade to this version would've been the updated transfer with the corrected aspect ratio.  But that can be tough to sell to the general public, so they had to spice things up with some new features.  But they also didn't have a whole lot to add, so there are a few new things here, but they're pretty thin.  First of all, everything from the previous special edition is carried over.  And it came packaged with a third disc - a CD of the soundtrack album.  But in terms of new, on-disc content there's: a new trailer, that starts out very serious and dramatically before revealing that it's for this silly movie, a little trivia question game and most substantially, a seven minute featurette called A Taste of Spamalot.  Obviously promoting the Broadway show, it features clips of songs from the films (not the full songs) set to Gilliam inspired cut-out animation.  Interestingly, these exclusives remained exclusive to this release, and were not included on subsequent releases, i.e. the blu-rays.

The 2012 blu-ray did include all the other special edition stuff, however, and added two decidedly better extras to the mix.  There's almost twenty minutes of extended scenes and outtakes with an intro by Terry Jones, and then about thirteen minutes of animation outtakes and unused clips, with an introduction and narration by Terry Gilliam.  Also, disappointingly, they lost the original trailer, which sucks because it had some unique jokes that are only in the trailer.  ANd the film no longer has the Dentists On the Job fake-out clip.  Oh, and it touts another big exclusive called "The Holy Book of Days Second Screen."  It's a direct connection to a website full of behind-the-scenes videos or something, but it doesn't seem to actually function.  If you go to the website, it directs you to a link in the App Store; but the app isn't actually in the App Store, despite their claim.  Their help page says the option to sync it up to the blu-ray is no longer available (I'm not convinced it ever really was), but the whole thing seems to no longer exist in any capacity, except for a false promising landing page.  So it boils down to being just a dead, useless weblink.

And now we come to the latest release, the 40th Anniversary Edition.  They've done away with "The Holy Book of Days Second Screen," naturally, but this disc includes an insert directing you to that same landing page with a link to the non-existent app.  Oh well.  Stupid tease.  Anyway, it includes all the content from the 2012 blu except for that, and adds a bit more.  First of all, they brought the trailer back, which is nice.  I assume the 2012's dropping of it was an oversight.  But really what the 40th Anniversary Edition brings to the table, what justifies its existence since it's otherwise the same transfer and same collection of features, is a new half-hour featurette.  It gives us two festival Q&As with the Pythons from Holy Grail screenings, one of which is hosted by John Oliver.  It's okay.  They tell a lot of the same anecdotes they tell in the commentaries and other extras, and they clown around a bit, but nothing especially funny.  It's certainly worth the watch if you've got the disc, but not worth double-dipping for. 

At the end of the day, though, it's pretty good news.  Ultimately, while again I'd say don't double-dip from the 2012 blu for the 2015 blu unless you're the Pythons' #1 fan, it is the best edition going.  And it's available super cheap.  Best Buy sells them brand new for $6.99 in my neighborhood, as long as you're happy getting the edition without the castle playset.  The Q&A's were underwhelming but not a total bust, and it's nice to have the trailer back.  And the only content you're missing out on across all the past editions, really, is that little Spamalot featurette and Dentists On the Job.  I also wouldn't recommend going back to buy that DVD just for that, though if you feel you must, you can surely get that super cheap, too.

If Sony really wanted to justify yet another edition down the road - and given their track record, they surely will - what I'd really like to see is all that mysterious "Holy Book of Days" content put on a second bonus disc that we can actually just watch like regular people, without trying to sync our blu-rays up to our ipads or whatever other ridiculous broken idea they had.  And maybe a new featurette with more legit Spamalot content, like a little footage of the Broadway show and interviews with the cast.  They could even go back and recover that little animated featurette, just to placate the obsessive completists.  I mean, if nothing else, the 50th Anniversary is going to hit us eventually; and I'd like to see something more than just novelty packaging and swag.

But yeah, in the meantime, the 40th Anniversary Edition is all you need.