The quality control on the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Blu-ray release from Classic Media is… lacking, to put it mildly.
“How bad is it,” you ask? Three examples:
Exhibit A:
My wife and I ordered a copy of the 50th anniversary Blu-ray edition of Rudolph from Amazon, since they had it on discount. What we received had a slip cover, sleeve insert, and disc label all reading “50th Anniversary,” with a copyright date of 2014.
Unfortunately, the actual contents of the disc were the original 2010 edition, based on the menu design and the file timestamps. The (already meager) bonus features mentioned on the packaging, which were unique to the anniversary release, were nowhere to be found.
Yes, misprinted discs sometimes happen, even with major studio releases (sometimes with hilarious results). If it had just been that issue, I’d have written this off as a fluke—though to be honest, I have no idea how many other misprinted copies are in circulation, or whether they’d be recalled even if they were reported.
However, even if we’d gotten the correct edition of the disc, the problems don’t end there.
Exhibit B:
The 2010 version of the Blu-ray contains a noticeable audio glitch in the first verse of “Silver and Gold,” where an entire word has gone missing. (“Everyone wishes [skip] silver and gold…”). This line was correct, with the word “for” intact, on earlier releases; however, I can personally confirm that the line is glitched on the 2010 version.
Again, mastering errors happen, even on major studio releases. Still, once they’re discovered, they’re usually acknowledged by the studio once discovered, and often fixed on newer releases. That’s not always the case, though, even on major-label releases (for instance, the most recent Blu-ray of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast retained a mastering error where a scene from the extended version was wrongly used in the theatrical version).
Unfortunately, Rudolph falls firmly into the latter category. Although this audio glitch was mentioned by several reviewers of the original Blu-ray release, according to the comments on this AVSForum thread, it remains unfixed in the re-release.
But even that isn’t the worst sin committed by Classic Media in their Blu-ray releases of this holiday classic.
Exhibit C:
The packaging for the 2014 release very clearly states that the disc includes English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing. Similarly, the actual packaging for the 2010 Blu-ray includes a [CC] logo on the case.
There is no subtitle track whatsoever on the 2010 edition that we received. None. Nada. Nul. (And no, it doesn’t include NTSC closed-captioning data, either—yes, that’s possible to embed in the video stream on a Blu-ray, though largely pointless and rarely done since many players can’t even display it.)
“Maybe they fixed this on the actual 2014 disc,” you’re thinking? Nope. According to the same AVSForum thread linked above, as well as this DVDizzy review (which clearly shows the correct menu layout, and not what’s on the misprinted copy), there aren’t any subtitles to be found on that release, either, despite the box’s claim to the contrary.
Rudolph has aired on TV with closed captions since at least the early ’90s (and possibly even earlier; I’m only going off my own memory of watching it). The original DVD releases of it from Sony also included subtitles. Even VHS releases of it were captioned.
Seriously, Classic Media, how did you manage to screw up something that’s been present on so many previous releases of this film, get the details wrong on the packaging to add insult to injury, and then keep the erroneous packaging in circulation for 4 years (or 8, if we’re also including the original Blu-ray release)?!?
Verdict: guilty as charged.
Update:
Just received the Anniversary Edition of Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town from the same publisher.
At least this time, the disc is the version that it claims to be (with an “anniversary edition” menu screen, and files having a timestamp of 2015).
Unfortunately, just like Rudolph, the specs printed on the case are complete fabrications. The alleged subtitle track, once again, does not exist.
But deaf people aren’t the only audience that Classic Media has slighted this time around—how about a significant portion of the Canadian market? The packaging mentions the availability a French dub, but don’t get your hopes up, Francophones; the actual disc only offers English and Spanish tracks.
holy fuck. i want to cry. i hope the UK NHS sees this and stops letting psychiatrists torture us till we’re bedbound in dark rooms. i wish i were exaggerating
Certainly hoping so too.
(Though “debunked” doesn’t necessarily mean nearly as much as it should when the system is willing to let psychiatry professors producing terrible research take over whole conditions outside their purview to begin with. As long as that means said system can get away with not paying for actual treatments. Appalling, if not surprising, that this approach looked good elsewhere, with the quality of the research propping it up.)
“It’s a very corny old joke,” said Tim Fontaine, the man behind a new and increasingly popular Indigenous online news satire site called Walking Eagle.
“It’s a bird that’s so full of crap it can’t fly.”
Fontaine, a Winnipeg-based former journalist, may be a little sheepish about the title of his new comic endeavour.
But despite its name, Walking Eagle is taking off.
Launched barely a week ago, Walking Eagle’s mock news stories _ “Indigenous Services unveils new state-of-the-art honey bucket,” reads one headline _ are being shared and retweeted thousands of times. A publisher is already nosing around about a book, said Fontaine.
“It’s been incredible,” he said. “People are laughing.”
not that being undiagnosed or diagnosed as a child are the same, but everything i thought was an Early Diagnosed experience i’ve found some people who were undiagnosed in childhood had it too (and sometimes even attributed it to being undiagnosed) and every time i’ve heard “since i was undiagnosed as a child” “i wish i had been diagnosed so i wouldn’t have gone through x” it’s something that happens to autistic diagnosed children too
it is responsible, and the mark of a good audience, to critique problematic elements in the media we consume. For example, I love gothic lit – but a lot of it is incredibly sexist and racist. I can acknowledge that these elements are a problem and objectionable while still enjoying the piece for a multitude of other reasons. I can also say to myself “if I ever want to write my own gothic lit, here are some elements I should avoid.” Or, if I do want to tackle the issues of racism and sexism in my future gothic lit, then I can say “I will avoid writing in a way which implicitly or explicitly condones racism or sexism, while still emulating the praiseworthy elements of gothic lit.”
In essence, the fundamentals of intersectional media critique is this: “these elements of [x media] are problematic and we should rethink them in future media, both as audiences and as creators.” By rethinking these elements, I don’t mean utterly doing away with them, but rethinking how we approach them and how we read them.
We enter purity culture when our statement moves from “these elements of [x media] are problematic and we should rethink them in future media, both as audiences and as creators,” and becomes “these elements of [x media] are problematic and therefore anyone who consumes or creates [x media] is condoning everything about [x media].” The implication here is that, if one wants to be a good person, one should avoid [x media], because to do otherwise is to either implicitly or explicitly condone everything in [x media]. This type of attitude towards media is very common in conservative religious circles.
It moves fully into censorship when the statement moves from “these elements of [x media] are problematic and therefore anyone who consumes or creates [x media] is condoning everything about [x media]” and becomes “these elements of [x media] are problematic and therefore nobody can consume or create [x media] for any reason.” Those who break this rule are seen as evil and shunned. This type of attitude toward media is very common in fundamentalist circles.
A culture of censorship is the natural outcome of purity culture, because purity culture by its very nature seeks purity until even the whisper of objectionable content, in any context, is suppressed.
I would wager a guess that many people who are against anti culture are familiar with either these toxic conservative or fundamentalist attitudes towards media, and we are alarmed by their striking similarity with antis’ attitudes towards media. It is most certainly why I am against anti culture.
THIS, exactly. I’ve been railing against censorship for my entire life, and especially as a fan of anime and Japanese-made video games, I fell like we were JUST getting to a place where I didn’t have to worry that the localization of some game or other would be censored with re-writes or options removed or what have you….
And then this shit starts up and we have creators actively afraid to let their games be localized at all, or releasing them with options removed or edited just in case someone gets offended, and people are HAPPY about things being cut, and fling accusations at anyone who gets upset.
How have we managed to backslide into a less permissive culture so quickly?
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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