on the second day of release

heya


indeed normally it would be, look you see, the case that i trot along to HMV on the actual day of release of an item which had piqued my interest some. in this instance, though, as the title suggests i waited for the second day of a particular item to be on sale. this was quite deliberate, and we will get to that at some point in my waffle.

for now, though, here is, for it is just as good a place as any to start, the one window display at HMV as it appeared to the world which passed by today

yes, by the power of Greyskull indeed, that is Star Wars The Force Awakens they are promoting with some passion and enthusiasm. actually, double what you can see before you in the above, for the secondary window of the HMV was also heavily promoting this motion picture.

i do long for the days, dear reader, when a new record was promoted as heavily as is the case with films like Star Wars are now. a new record these days gets - at best - a half a poster as a means of advertising it. best this change as and when The Stone Roses do release something this year.

inside, then, and to my surprise they had quite a number of copies of this Star Wars film available for purchase. here, look, this is just one rack of a number of racks what had copies of it.

surprised? very. for some reason HMV, along with in fairness absolutely everyone else, had been taking "pre-orders" on the DVD and blu ray of this film since before the film had even had a cinema release. for such a thing to be relevant and have a point to it, i was expecting to see that they had sold out and had rather hoped to get told off for not pre-ordering. this was not the case.

pre-orders for DVDs and blu-rays that will be freely available does not make any sense, then. i mean, i get why the kids do it with computer games - the "digital ones" will, at the least, start downloading for them at midnight on the day of release. but why exactly is it that i would have wished to pay HMV money back in December for a disc I was only going to get now here in April?

speaking of paying.......

yep, i bought the blu ray edition, which comes with the film on one blu ray disc and the extra stuff on another blu ray disc. in America i believe they get a smart "combo" of the blu ray and the DVD in one box, but that's not on offer here.

yes, i did indeed pay £15.99 for this blu ray set. the very same blu ray set that most other stores are selling for £14.99, or if you like one pound less. why did i buy, then? mostly because it's me, i suppose. i love HMV, and i know that a cause of keeping HMV an active thing in my life will be having to pay a higher price for items off them every now and then.

i, as you can semi-see above, went with the "dark side" slip cover for the blu ray. the alternate was a "light side" white one, which just looked like it would get dirty. this slip cover business for the new Star Wars film is interesting as practically every store selling it has the choice of these slip covers, and all of them are claiming that they have it as an "exclusive". hmn.

back to pricing, and the DVD price strategy which HMV had in place was special. it is marked, right, as being £9.99, but also as being part of their 2 for £20 deal. so if for some reason you wanted to buy two copies of The Force Awakens - one or both as a gift, perhaps - HMV would in effect charge you 2p more for doing so.

the front of the blu ray disc box proper has, thankfully, got the rather smart poster for the film on it. the back of the slip case pretty much reflects the back of the box. not reflects, because that would be a mirror image, wouldn't it? you know what i meant.

what can i say of the back of the box? well, i am quite surprised that there's an image of nancy boy Luke Skywalker on it. my understanding was that his part in the film, in particular his appearance, was meant to be one of them "spoiler" things. i guess they just assumed that everyone who bought the disc would have already seen the film at the cinema, or via one of them smart illegal download things.

a review of the film from me? it will come one day soon, dear reader, but not today. i would think that everything which could be said of the film has been said many times, but i will throw my comments out there one of these days. overall, a good, and much better than expected, slice of entertainment.

them are indeed the two blu ray discs for your viewing pleasure. it is a nice touch, actually, that the film is on a disc alone. that means they used the capacity of a blu ray disc - 50GB, i believe - to present the film in the highest quality possible.

the back of the blu ray box in Commodore 64 mode to finish? and why not.

so, with no confirmation of when The Stone Roses will be releasing something, this will be my last rip to HMV on a close to day of release basis for a bit. i have no doubt at all that i will pop in and browse at some point, but after a lot of excitement already this year there's no more confirmed release dates for me to keep on the calendar.



live long and prosper!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!