DVD colors are wrong help please & ACTING People who complain about the acting in this movie are thinking of acting they've seen elsewhere that they expect to have handed to them like a gift-package full of actor's mental acrobatics  Same with people who say there is no character development.
 
There's a CRISIS BIG-TIME in EVERY SECOND of this film.  Plus, there' so many GREAT CGI's, who wants to see the dynamics of psychological gymnastics anyway.  It wouldn't add to what you're being presented with, breath-taking second by breath-taking second.
 
The ACTING is good because there not heaps of it being done.  It's not that the acting is INFERIOR -- it's that it's held in abeyance as a contributor to the overall effect of this SMASHING film.
 
Dumb, those comments.
 
NOT the reason for this post, that just makes me angry.  Yeah, well.  Yeah, well, no, I mean.
 
ANYWAY -- my Ultimate DVD is so DARK in color that you can barely see the people on the screen.  Like the first scene in PARIS -- all you see are a few what looks like headlights -- you can't see the halg-finished Eiffel Tower, or the Catherdral.  (If you get real close to the screen you can just make out these things.)  The whole DVD is much too dark.  You can hardly see any of the eggs, hardly and of the action in Notre Dame with the bell, etc., almost none of the flying the babies do once they're hatched, etc.
 
Yes, I tried every setting.  PLUS, none of the SAME scenes are dark like that when seen in ANY of the Special Features.  When they play as part of Special Features, the colors are normal, like at the movies.  Trust me, I saw Van Helsing 4 times in theaters, I KNOW what it SHOULD look like.
 
My TV set is only a few months old, and I never ONCE had to adjust ANY controls, every picture has been super good, clear, wonderful rich, perfect color tones, never any tint, contrast, or brightness adjustment needed ! ! !
 
But WHO DO I WRITE TO about this.  ARE ALL THE UTLIMATES like that.
 
It's the same with actor commentaries on the MAIN FEATURE.  
 
HELP, I love this movie.  I still watched it a couple of times in the 2 days I've had it, plus one of the actor commentaries running instead of the real soundtrack, what's happeneing here ?  I never heard of this problem on a DVD before.
 
I was thinking --  is this because there are a LOT of BIG SCREEN TV's and home theater systems now and once it's "blown up" to the large size, these people need "concentrated colors" to begin with.
 
You can tell what I mean if you ever had a 35mm slide projector instead of prints when you took color snapshots.  The tiny cardboard slide are much deeper in color if you hold them up to a light to see what the subject is than when the projector lamp projects them on a home movie screen.  
 
Is that the reason ?
 
Thanks for any help.
 
I think if I spend $50.00 to buy an Ultimate Collector's Edition Van Helsing I shouldn't sit around writing emails about it, I should just watch it.  But it's too dark; I hope I am not still trying to solve this mystery problem in another 400 years and few hours !
 

thanks

all you haters can stop now, if you didn't like the movie, that's great, keep it to yourselves. I thought it rocked and will be picking it up.

so please just stop wasting your time posting about how crappy it was, go to work and make some money, or go get some sleep, stop posting here. ha
bye

DTS Hmmm - I gather we would have to wait for the pen-ultimate or the extreme edition to come out with DTS and an uncut version........

Why don't they just get it right the first time?

Hmm, I really want to get one of these, I usually prefer the deluxe editions, but I don't really care about the three classic films, and with the inflated price for that version, I'm inclined just to buy the regular edition.

sucks This movie was awful!! I can't belive anyone would want to buy it. I really wanted to like this move, but it fell way short on so many levels. The plot and CGI where terrible!! I know of some high school kids that could have done a better job on the CGI then what the "experts" did on the sad abortion of a movie.

Horrible? That figures. Thats PG-13 for yah.

A definite pass for me I can see how some folks would like the pure escapism as I have my own guilty pleasure in League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen. This is however clearly a B flic, if that. The special effects are poor and the acting and dialogue is horrendous.

For the most part I like realism in my movies of course keeping in mind the theme of the movie. The horse drawn carriage leaping over the bridge was too much for me and the female lead did more wire work than a tight rope walker at a circus.

A typical example, imo, of a movie that does not need a deluxe edition.

oh the 3-disc(or 2?) package is very good looking but it still cant save the flick.

Right, because... there was something WRONG with the theatrical posters....  This artwork is lame.

Artwork just looks plain terrible but I'd like to buy it just to see how it is. Don't care much of the artwork of the 3-disc set either but I might just buy the 1-disc edition. Don't care for more extras.

It's a good movie, if I don't think about it.  Thinking is your enemy when watching Van Helsing.  

3 discs Doesn't seem to be alot of extras to support 3 discs...and not even an EX track...cover looks good but

I always like my extras but nowadays they seem to be going over the top

awesome, 3 disk cover/disk are looks awesome! nice work Tom

Why not also a 2 disk set?

All the classic movies fans dont want another DVD with these 3 classics!!! They alreaydy have the Collection...

different details DVDFile.com is claiming that they are 2-disc & 3-disc releases. All the extras listed are on the 2-disc, while the Ultimate Edition's only difference is the 3rd disc with the classic films.

I wasted $7.50 seeing this crap in  the theater. There is no way in hell I am buying the DVD. I hated this movie.

Wow you get those three extra films!  That's great!  It saves me money from buying the Legacy collections, which I want but can't afford.

Ah great now I'm so confused as to what I want.  I might end up buying the single disc and buying the Legacy collections but I don't know how many repeat viewing I could get.

Decisions, decisions....

A total of three discs...

So is that 3-discs total, or 3-discs for Van Helsing, plus another disc or two for the older monster flicks?

The date has moved forward to the 28th September...

Quote: Originally posted by El Fitzy
 overblown and unrealistic CGI

You went to a movie about a guy who fights vampires, werewolves and Frankenstein... and are complaining about unrealistic CGI?  Please.

Quote: Originally posted by Clayton Petty
ummm...this movie rocked, and I hope it's a 2-disk, that would be cool. I guess since it made over 150M, it didn't suck...yeah, go on w/ your lame dawn of the dead

Just because a movie made a lot of money doesn't mean that it's good. And it didn't make $150 million. It made around $118 million.
I'm going with Dawn Of The Dead that day. Liked it much better. I was disappointed with Van Helsing. I knew it was gonna be a popcorn movie with no plot, etc. and I went in with that in mind but still didn't like it. Plus the movie felt like it was 3 hrs long. After 45 min-1hr I lost intrest in the movie.

I loved Van Helsing. I'm a huge fan of the Universal monster films, and Van Helsing is one of my favourite films of the year. It had a lot of good ideas and good effects, although it wasn't as deep as I hoped it (Sommers often talked about the richness of the three monsters pre-release). Oh well, hope it's a 2-Disk.

Didn't see it, but 27.95 is pretty high for a single disk, so I am betting its 2. Most of the single disk releases of popular films first releases are 19.99 retail and like 15.99 at the discount stores.
Seriously, if I want a review I'll go to Metacritic.com If you want to review something review the DVD package, which is what this site is for. We aren't really interested in your taste in film.

noooo............
this is qiute possibly the worst action movie i have ever seen. i would say it was full of plot holes but there was no plot for the holes to be in.

stop bitching the film didn't have any wonderful acting, nor did it have a complicated plot, but I thought the movie was an entertaining summer film, I'll buy it!

I'm really looking forward to this. While admitting that Van Helsing is not great, I contend that this is one of the most undeservedly maligned films of the year. The movie has it's flaws (mostly being constructed on an excuse rather than a plot), but a lot of the vitriol aimed at "Van Helsing" seems to stem from either 1) a dislike of CGI or 2)the attitude that the monsters should have been Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney, Jr.

For me, CGI is what it is and it's used a great deal in "Van Helsing". But it's easily as realistic as most stop-motion I've ever seen. The fact that it looks like CGI is not a fault. Most special effects look like special effects, some just better than others.

As for the monsters, well, Universal's Dracula was never Bram Stoker's Dracula. Their Frankenstein was never Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. Their Wolf Man is not a traditional folk tale werewolf. These characters have never been fixed, but are constantly re-interpreted and re-imagined each time they're used. As for my own criticism that the movie uses an excuse rather than a plot, it's no worse or hokey in my book than most of the original Universal monster movies (and I've seen them all many times), just bigger and more elaborate.

I'm old enough to remember when John Carpenter's "The Thing" was released to equally undeserved critical and box-office drubbings. People hated it because it 1)wasn't a repeat of the Howard Hawks film (ooh, it was gory and gross and icky and had bad language and didn't have a woman in the cast) and 2)was scary in a summer when aliens were expected to be cute (E.T.). Well, these days nearly everyone considers Carpenter's "The Thing" to be a classic.

While I admit that "Van Helsing" is not of the same cloth as "The Thing," I believe that in time it will come to be appreciated for what it is just as Carpenter's film has. It's expertly made, visually stunning, and there's never a dull moment.

"Van Helsing" is essentially "Indiana Jones starring in House of Dracula". You'll either get it or you won't. Those who don't will hate it. Those who do will enjoy the ride. And I'll wager that ten years from now many of the detractors will watch it and genuinely wonder why they disliked it so much.

The commentary with the actors makes this a rental for me - I wonder whether they'll be honest and really rip the movie apart or whether they'll try to defend it.

This film suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccccccccccks.

good movie but... this movie was awesome.  It just ran a little too long.  I wouldnt buy it but Ill rent it

It might be a two-disc set, waiting on confirmation...

doh thought it would be out on the 12th, sounds good, too bad it's not a 2-disk, good it's widescreen of course, I REALLY hope they don't fumble up the artwork on this one! one of the top movies of 04' along w/ Passion, Spider-Man 2, and King Arthur