I watched the Magic Years on laserdisc last night, and Champions of the World today. It seems to me DoRo fooled a lot of people with the latter.
Though Champions goes to 1995's Made In Heaven, it was basically a heavily edited version of Magic Years, glossed over with some new graphics and a little different footage (not much).
Would they, not Brian and Roger, be the ones to decide to finally release Magic Years on DVD? Champions is all right but Magic Years (timeline to 1986) is much better in content and continuity.
What does everyone think about this? Do you think DoRo raised false hope in 1995 with release of Champions? (Remember, DVD was only available in Japan then.)
I thought that COTW was pretty poor. Yeah, instead of a magic years mish mosh n some new stuff, maybe it should have continued, but on the other hand, there probably wasnt enough new viual material to make up the length of the Video, so they hadnt much choice. During the 'Mother Love' rewind through the years, half of the years are wrong!! Simple things like that can sometimes make stuff look 'Thrown Together'
I think they're both bad. I think there isn't any really good Queen documentary.
Beatles fans had a great documentary spread over 5 dvds. Why can't we have something like that!
If we ever get a new documentary we'll get the stuff we've already seen on Magic Years. While there's so much archive stuff, like the Smile recordings or appearances on tv or when they received an award. Sometimes it just sucks to be a Queen fan :(
deleted user 12.07.2004 02:37
This time i disagree, I tend to love both the documentaries: The Magic Years volumes are pretty, and we have to remember that a 3 tapes set was released back in 1987 while The Beatles 5 dvd (wasn't more than 5?) anthology came out some years ago; I think that MY was just great at that time.
I also love Champions of the world; yeah, DoRo show the usual inaccuracy in some dates but after all it's quite an useful documentary and many footages are not on MY.
Bits like Freddie's interview in Brazil, in 1985, are priceless!!
cheeeeeers!
I think the greatest gaffe was the interview with John Deacon, mislabelled as 1973 when it was clearly 1978!! And the "backwards years" are a real laugh. DoRo probably didn't mean to be so careless but it was noticed.
At least the VH-1 Legends was correct.
Beatles Anthology came out in 1995, 31 years after The Beatles invaded America. (It had been set for 1994 but things didn't quite work out!)
I love the Anthology set also. Brian and Roger should get someone other than the DoRo team and seriously think about doing a similar project and call it Queen Anthology (just to grab peoples' attention, not copying the Beatles' idea).
I'm thankful George was still alive and well then; if there had been a longer wait there probably wouldn't have been a Free As A Bird or Real Love!
Think if Brian and Roger DID go ahead and do it and get major people involved with the project. It could take years but at least there would be one, definitive thing that future fans could reference. The Beatles experienced new popularity as a result of Anthology; newer generations discovered them and learned everything from the beginning. That's the way it should be with Queen!
Lisa J Goodrich wrote: Beatles Anthology came out in 1995, 31 years after The Beatles invaded America. (It had been set for 1994 but things didn't quite work out!)
I love the Anthology set also. Brian and Roger should get someone other than the DoRo team and seriously think about doing a similar project and call it Queen Anthology (just to grab peoples' attention, not copying the Beatles' idea).
I'm thankful George was still alive and well then; if there had been a longer wait there probably wouldn't have been a Free As A Bird or Real Love!
Think if Brian and Roger DID go ahead and do it and get major people involved with the project. It could take years but at least there would be one, definitive thing that future fans could reference. The Beatles experienced new popularity as a result of Anthology; newer generations discovered them and learned everything from the beginning. That's the way it should be with Queen!
I believe I read at BrianMay.com something about the Queen box sets. The FM Solo collection also sais the box sets will come...
I watched both of these today via digital video masters I received from Queen Productions (they've remastered and restored all of the film bits.. looks stunning!) and I'd have to say that overall I enjoy them both. This new version of COTW is about 28 minutes longer and has a segment of Richards playing some of Freddie's last vocals on their own, which is amazing. It's much like the Bo Rhap thing on GVH1.
Just wondering, could you provide technical information about this digital medium that contains the extended versions? Like, format, etc.?
And why did you get a copy? And how?
They're on D-VHS, which is still a relatively new format. I'm doing some work which I can't really talk about, but I am borrowing some rather expensive equipment including a JVC D-Theater deck which plays these.