PJ20 movie disappointment

benjs · January 2012

vedderman wrote:

What's the point of releasing it on bluray anyway? The picture quality is shit. This is the worst quality i have ever seen on bluray. For example Thumbing My Way or Nothing As It Seems, which were not shot in the 80's or 90's...are indigestible.

And the movie content? Who cares about the Singles party, Headbangers Ball, Adam Sandler, Scott Stapp celebrity deathmatch,... The movie literaly jumps from 1995 to 2010. The inbetween time is just mentioned in a few words. I miss No Code/Yield/Binaural/Riot Act/Avocado era, some studio shots would be more interesting.

Well, that's just my opinion.

I agree. I don't know whether it's the source material, post-production, or transfer (I suspect it is all three aspects), but the picture quality is absolutely deplorable. This is understandable in the early days, but showing footage from 2006 and on with square clusters of colours like one would see on a 480i YouTube video (in my opinion) is unforgivable.

To those of you who missed out on the Deluxe Blu-Ray set, here's what you do: you go to one of numerous torrent sites with the two bonus discs available as DVD disc images (I think this is okay to say, as the item clearly is not for sale any more). Pick a size. Any size. If the file is 700MB, it doesn't matter - save yourself the space! Next, you take that file, and if you have a thing for Blu-Ray discs, by all means, burn the video files to a Blu-Ray disc. It won't sound as good - but the amazing thing is that it actually will look as good.

forester · January 2012

Any version is fine with me. Backstage up close footage from 20 years ago - happy it even exists.

Feiraco · January 2012

Marvellous documentary.
But everyone is entitled to his own opinion.

Jon Chorba · January 2012

I think the only thing that was missing for me was a better explanation of the Dave A situation. Other than that, everything about it was picture perfect!

UpSideDown · January 2012

I came out dissappointed after watching PJ20......I have no issues with the picture quality (loved the early footage), but the documentary itself seemed like a poorly written essay. Dwelled a little too much on Mother Love Bone/Andy, blazed by years at a time, weak attempt (if you can even call it that) at explaining the drumming history, and like 10 minutes of straight footage from the Italy DVD as well......blah

Ledbetterman10 · January 2012

UpSideDown wrote:

I came out dissappointed after watching PJ20......I have no issues with the picture quality (loved the early footage), but the documentary itself seemed like a poorly written essay. Dwelled a little too much on Mother Love Bone/Andy, blazed by years at a time, weak attempt (if you can even call it that) at explaining the drumming history, and like 10 minutes of straight footage from the Italy DVD as well......blah

Yeah these are all valid criticisms. Considering Eddie IS Pearl Jam. I would have liked more about pre-PJ Eddie than Andy Wood. And like you, I wish they properly explained the drummers as opposed to how they did it. That all said, some of the vintage footage is awesome and I wouldn't part with the Blu-Ray.

rival. · January 2012

UpSideDown wrote:

I came out dissappointed after watching PJ20......I have no issues with the picture quality (loved the early footage), but the documentary itself seemed like a poorly written essay. Dwelled a little too much on Mother Love Bone/Andy, blazed by years at a time, weak attempt (if you can even call it that) at explaining the drumming history, and like 10 minutes of straight footage from the Italy DVD as well......blah

spot on.

zero balance between eras, and they seemed to breeze right past the most "interesting" ones.

edit: i have no problems with the picture quality. hell... i LOVED touring band's feel and look and you can't get grainier than that.

MissJam81 · January 2012

vedderman wrote:

What's the point of releasing it on bluray anyway? The picture quality is shit. This is the worst quality i have ever seen on bluray. For example Thumbing My Way or Nothing As It Seems, which were not shot in the 80's or 90's...are indigestible.

And the movie content? Who cares about the Singles party, Headbangers Ball, Adam Sandler, Scott Stapp celebrity deathmatch,... The movie literaly jumps from 1995 to 2010. The inbetween time is just mentioned in a few words. I miss No Code/Yield/Binaural/Riot Act/Avocado era, some studio shots would be more interesting.

Well, that's just my opinion.

I think everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but I personally loved every bit of the movie, I think the history makes up for the poor quality of some bits of it. I think the whole movie was amazingly put together, produced, it made me cry, laugh... Ive seen it about 5 times, and never have enough of it.

Hamaury · January 2012

I loved the movie, but there were two things that bothered me:

1. How they don`t talk about Dave. A and Jack Irons. They don`t interview them, nothing. It was as if they weren`t even part of the band.

2.Boom. Also, didn`t say much about Boom, where they found him, why they add his as a fix support member.

The rest was great

DewieCox · January 2012

I was entertained by it enough, but it wasn't that great of a PJ documentary. I wasn't expecting any dirt on the drummer issue or Mike's drug problems or times when they didn't get along that well. I just think it was too much of a PJ infomercial. The most in depth they got was when talking about Andy Wood, when that realistically should've have gotten a passing mention.

I literally didn't feel like I learned a thing about the band. It seemed like they were trying to enhance their legacy more than anything.

Some cool bonus footage, though and the book did give more detail throughout their career.

titchinello · January 2012

DewieCox wrote:

I was entertained by it enough, but it wasn't that great of a PJ documentary. I wasn't expecting any dirt on the drummer issue or Mike's drug problems or times when they didn't get along that well. I just think it was too much of a PJ infomercial. The most in depth they got was when talking about Andy Wood, when that realistically should've have gotten a passing mention.

I literally didn't feel like I learned a thing about the band. It seemed like they were trying to enhance their legacy more than anything.

Some cool bonus footage, though and the book did give more detail throughout their career.

I know what you mean, I enjoyed it well enough, but in the end felt like something was missing. hard to explain exactly what, it just seemed as though there was plenty of time going on about the first half of their career, and then realised time was running out and rushed through the second half. thats how it seemed to me.

vedderman · January 2012

Oh yeah, and what's the deal with "Bee Girl" with the blank screen at the end of disc 3?

boyo79 · January 2012

red mos wrote:

IgotshitID wrote:

the singles party was halarious

I love how Stone was talking to Cameron Crowe while driving around Seattle, and Stone was like, Oh God, you have footage of that?" Then they show the footage. Love how Ed was pissed cause his monitors weren't working, and went and ripped the sound thing out of the wall. Turned out to be the lighting rig he destroyed, and he was like "why is it getting brighter in here?"

Great moment of the movie.

Do agree that more of the No Code/Yield/Binaural/Riot Act era could have been included. Seemed like they really skipped over No Code and Jack leaving/Matt joining.

benjs · January 2012

rival. wrote:

UpSideDown wrote:

I came out dissappointed after watching PJ20......I have no issues with the picture quality (loved the early footage), but the documentary itself seemed like a poorly written essay. Dwelled a little too much on Mother Love Bone/Andy, blazed by years at a time, weak attempt (if you can even call it that) at explaining the drumming history, and like 10 minutes of straight footage from the Italy DVD as well......blah

spot on.

zero balance between eras, and they seemed to breeze right past the most "interesting" ones.

edit: i have no problems with the picture quality. hell... i LOVED touring band's feel and look and you can't get grainier than that.

I'm all for grain, what I'm not all for is those clusters of pixels all of one colour that you see when you watch a bootlegged copy of a film, especially in scenes with dark spots that are approaching true black.

Dirty Mosquito · January 2012

I would be more than happy to take your Blu Ray off your hands if you are that unhappy with it. I wouldn't want you to feel cheated.

Let me know.

iOnlyownMymind · January 2012

I didn't buy it. Watched it on PBS instead and it was enough for me. Couldn't believe they used footage from the Italy dvd. In 20 years of shows they couldn't make a movie with all new footage that was previously not officially released?

vedderman · January 2012

Dirty Mosquito wrote:

I would be more than happy to take your Blu Ray off your hands if you are that unhappy with it. I wouldn't want you to feel cheated.

Let me know.

Sorry i don't have it anymore.

vedderman · January 2012

iOnlyownMymind wrote:

I didn't buy it. Watched it on PBS instead and it was enough for me. Couldn't believe they used footage from the Italy dvd. In 20 years of shows they couldn't make a movie with all new footage that was previously not officially released?

I agree!

Spiritual_Chaos · January 2012

1. The problem people are talking about when it comes to the video quality of the DVD/BD is not source related as in "the stuff was shot on video in the early 90s!". I think everyone gets that early stuff was shot on cheap consumer level equipment backstage.

It's about the encode/compression and/or not going back to the source in the professional stuff. The videos for thumbing my way (shot professionally and even on film I allways imagined? and the Immagine in cornice left overs should not look as bad as they do.

Its a hack job. The IIC DVD looks better than than the PJ20 BD. Someone messed up with the encode for the BD and DVD.

2. Touring Band does not have grain. Grain is something you find in film. In video you find noise. And it giving a special feel to Touring band is great - but it has nothing to with the pixelated, blocky and compressed look of PJ20.

3. The Pj20 documentary sometimes felt like something you could watch on a christian cable channel. And sometimes it felt interesting. But I don't think PJ has the legacy or has had the past to really warrant a great documentary. The ticketmaster-thing, Roskilde and the "rivalry" with the media and Nirvana is the only things to build it around to get a documentary for a general audience.

Average Joe don't care for 25minutes on how they worked out the songs for Binaural.

BUT -- I wished they could have gotten interviews with every band memeber about the making of every record. Cut that into 1hour cdocumentaries and put one in each special edition box set.

So, the TEN boxset could have had a documentary on DVD covering the album and all the songs - from the bands, managers, record company and critics point of view. Then the same for all the other albums. That way - the people who wanted themto dig into that could have gotten it.

vedderman · January 2012

Spiritual_Chaos wrote:

1. The problem people are talking about when it comes to the video quality of the DVD/BD is not source related as in "the stuff was shot on video in the early 90s!". I think everyone gets that early stuff was shot on cheap consumer level equipment backstage.

It's about the encode/compression and/or not going back to the source in the professional stuff. The videos for thumbing my way (shot professionally and even on film I allways imagined? and the Immagine in cornice left overs should not look as bad as they do.

Its a hack job. The IIC DVD looks better than than the PJ20 BD. Someone messed up with the encode for the BD and DVD.

2. Touring Band does not have grain. Grain is something you find in film. In video you find noise. And it giving a special feel to Touring band is great - but it has nothing to with the pixelated, blocky and compressed look of PJ20.

3. The Pj20 documentary sometimes felt like something you could watch on a christian cable channel. And sometimes it felt interesting. But I don't think PJ has the legacy or has had the past to really warrant a great documentary. The ticketmaster-thing, Roskilde and the "rivalry" with the media and Nirvana is the only things to build it around to get a documentary for a general audience.

Average Joe don't care for 25minutes on how they worked out the songs for Binaural.

BUT -- I wished they could have gotten interviews with every band memeber about the making of every record. Cut that into 1hour cdocumentaries and put one in each special edition box set.

So, the TEN boxset could have had a documentary on DVD covering the album and all the songs - from the bands, managers, record company and critics point of view. Then the same for all the other albums. That way - the people who wanted themto dig into that could have gotten it.

Well said! I agree.

PJ20 movie disappointment

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