"We eat ham and jam and spam a lot!"

[robotech_master]

So, I just put in the movie-disc of the new Monty Python and the Holy Grail special edition DVD, to check and see if what was said on the Digital Bits site was true--and it seems to be.

Finally this morning, a lot of people are reporting subtitle problems with Columbia TriStar's Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Special Edition DVD. It seems that on many players, the subtitles occasionally will not stay turned off. This is known to occur with many Toshiba and Sony players, along with a few other brands. We still haven't gotten our review copy of the disc, so we can't verify this, but a lot of people do seem to be having problems. There also seems to be a missing title during the film's opening credits. When the film's title appears, there should be a second, burned-in subtitle that reads: "Mønti Pythøn ik den Hølie Grãilen". It's not there. We've contacted Columbia to see what the story is, and we'll let you know when we hear anything.

And it seems to be true for my player, too--the Swedish subtitle wasn't there (which kind of spoils part of the joke of the opening credits by its absence) and the English subtitles would keep turning on unexpectedly.To make matters a little worse, someone on the Monty Python newsgroup indicates:

Hi. Me again. Just received this from Python producer John Goldstone. As you can see, he emphatically denies any problem with the DVD. From what I can tell, it seems to be more of a problem with a handful of DVD players, rather than the disc.

"The Swedish subtitles in the Main Title sequence are part of the original negative and so there is no way that they can not be on the DVD. I personally approved the whole DVD mastering process and would have spotted such an error which is not possible anyway."

Yeah, right.

On the bright side, I had forgotten how incredibly funny those credits were--it's been years since I watched the show, and I've only ever seen it once. I can't wait to show this thing to my Dad. And the bonus material was quite nice, too--particularly the Lego movie on the second disc.

And also on the bright side, Digital Bits did say this evening that Columbia Tristar was looking into the problem and would replace the defective discs. I hope it's a hassle-free process.

I suspect that the mysteriously self-activating subtitles may have something to do with their "follow the killer rabbit" feature--which apparently works like the white rabbit one on The Matrix. Wouldn't surprise me. I wonder how that Swedish subtitle got left off, though? Perhaps they used the wrong print? Or perhaps they had to compose a new title element for just that one frame and forgot to include the subtitle? Strange.

Comments

Subtitles Coming On and STAYING on

[(Anonymous)]

Hello,

I have a toshiba dvd player, SD-1600. I am trying to find out if there's anything I can do to stop the subtitles from turning on on my MP&THG special edition DVD?
I did a search and got to this page and it looks like it's my DVD player, and NOT the dvd. Which really sucks. The only thing I can do to stop the subtitles for awhile is to go into my dvd player menu and cycle through the subtitles, which ALL say "off" even though they are on the screen. Once I cycle though, they go away. Usually for about five minutes or so. If anyone has a better way of getting rid of the subtitles, please email me at willatvideomax@yahoo.ca
....your help would be greatly appreciated.