The Criterion Collection The Princess Bride () [4K UHD]

As other reviewers have already said, this film is a classic but the Criterion 4K release is a disaster. So far I've returned 2 copies to Amazon and will be returning the 3rd copy they have sent me. All 3 copies I received started pixelating almost immediately and quickly worsen to the extent that the disc cripples all functionality in my player. The only way to remove the disc is to yank out the power cord and then (if I'm quick enough!) keep pressing eject upon switching it on again.I also noticed that upon closing the disc tray of my player, this disc causes it to spin so loudly and rapidly unlike any other disc I own, for an extended period of time before the menu actually loads.I realise that by returning it for the third time I am putting Amazon in the position of administering this procedure yet again, for no fault of their own. Amazon's customer service has been stellar.I have also emailed Criterion, who in a typically corporate fashion, fawningly encourage their customers to contact them in case of defective products, because they "care so much" that their customers receive good quality items. Given the cheap, faux book packaging that Criterion manufactured for this release I find that difficult to believe. And given that Amazon have managed to facilitate the return of previous faulty copies I received quicker than Criterion could be bothered to even reply to my emails, I doubt that Criterion give a hoot about what their customers receive or whether it functions. I'm still waiting for a reply from them. We are all waiting for them to admit they released a faulty disc.I've never before received so many consecutive copies of the same product which all failed to work. It's a record for me, and I own a lot of discs.I even tried to be proactive while I waited for Criterion to get up off their rears and see if it was possible to resolve this issue myself. So, for those of you who are fans of this entertaining film and are wondering whether you want to pony up the better part of £40 for this plastic beer mat, in the hope that any problems can be resolved by yourselves:-- Updating my player's firmware to the latest, month old, firmware made no difference.- Spending numerous hours reading the many online forum threads complaining about this release and performing all manner of recommended tweaks and tricks in my player's settings made no difference.Think I'll consider the German 4K release before bothering with another Criterion copy.To confirm to myself that my player (Panasonic UB820) was fine, I tested other 4K discs I owned and they all worked perfectly pre fimware update, post firmware update and they worked whether or not any tweaks were made to the settings. Which is exactly as you'd expect for a product that is fit for purpose.I wonder if Criterion will admit to there being an authoring or manufacturing problem?Luckily we are no longer in the early days of DVD and there are now numerous independent boutique releasing studios out there. Criterion releases are no longer the only shade of "special edition" produced to exacting standards for enthusiastic film fans and collectors. I'll be looking elsewhere for high-end editions and probably only resort to a Criterion release after it has been on release for a while. Even then I'll probably put in the due diligence first and see what the enthusiastic, early adopters are saying. But still, the low quality materials/manufacturing of their releases in recent years has been slowly putting me off their products. Their Princess Bride 4K disc is probably the straw that broke the camel's back for me. These days they seem to like charging the prices that they used to charge for their laser discs, except that in return you now get media that cost pennies to manufacture.Edited 2nd Jan 2024:Just to follow up here in case anybody finds this useful. Criterion contacted me by replying to my email in which I demonstrated the issues with this release. I was asked to return the 4K disc to them and they would send me a re-pressed replacement disc. I obviously did not bother because Amazon resolved this for me weeks ago with a refund and with much less effort required by me. But it seems that the offer to send a re-pressed disc is an admission of some sort of production/manufacturing fault for this title. I've been unable to find any public notification of this. I wasn't motivated to look too hard though. Criterion did not attempt to offer any explanation of what the problem was, nor what caused it. It seems they'd like to simply send newly re-pressed (ie. fixed) copies of the 4K disc to people who experienced problems without any public announcement. That to me suggests that they will continue selling the original faulty pressings that are out there and when customers who experience problems complain directly to Criterion, they will get a re-pressed, 4k disc replacement sent to them. So the only way to get a working 4k disc (if you are one of the unlucky people for whom this disc does not function) is directly from Criterion, and it will cost you some international shipping fees if you do not live in the USA.

So UHD (4K) Blu-ray discs are supposed to be region free as a standard that was industry agreed. Knowing this, I assumed that the 4k UHD Blu-ray I was buying was region free and that any HD versions included may be region locked.But no, this is region locked and is worthless in the UK without an appropriate player.1* is no reflection on the film but reflects them going against an industry standard for no good reason, that actually makes it massively more likely that people will pirate a 4k file of the film if they can't own the physical media, and having features that are inaccessible.