Place: Culver's Frozen Custard & Butterburgers
Lunch: Northwoods Walleye sandwich, cheese curds, Culver's root beer
"Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" came out on DVD today. History shows that if you go to one of the major discount chains on release day or the few days after, you can get major releases on sale...usually around $16.
So I dropped by Super Target, the Target with amazing super powers. Sure enough, there it is, on sale for $15.97...IF you want the barebones single-disc edition. The two-disc edition is $22.97.
Welcome to the newest greedy scam of the major film studios.
It USED to be that a two-disc special edition didn't require extra cash. For the three previous movies, the only edition released was the two-disc edition, which you could buy for the going sale price (which, as I recall, was around $15-$17.) Now you get the single-disc edition for that price which lists NO extra features of any kind on its cover, or you pay more for the two-disc set with its fancy 3-D-ish cover and list of extras.
This is rather annoying without even getting into the price difference. Suggested retail price (translation: fake skyrocket price only mall music/movie stores would be stupid enough to charge) of the single-disc edition is actually $28.98, while suggested retail of the two-disc set is $30.98, a difference of two dollars (he said in his best Bob Barker voice). Target is getting $7.00 more for the two-disc set. A quick check online proved that Amazon was doing close to that as well with a $5 difference ($15.99 and $20.99). Best Buy was getting $14.99 for the single-disc and $20.99 for the two-disc set, a $6 difference. The retailers are just as guilty as the studios.
Scoundrels.
There's actually four versions of the DVD on display: The full-screen single-disc edition, the widescreen single-disc edition, the two-disc "special edition", and an eight-disc box set which includes all four movies in two-disc editions.
Of course, you could always go with the "no-disc" edition, and tell the studios and retailers to go screw themselves. But you won't. And I didn't either. THIS time.
