Friday, 1 May 2020

The Ice Warriors on Blu-Ray?


 UPDATE - It appears Best Buy listed the DVD release as a Blu-Ray releases by mistake in 2013. just picked it up and listed it as a Blu-Ray. Stand down.

We’ve had some very unexpected Doctor Who physical releases over the years. Who could have predicted Dark Water in 3D, The Faceless Ones animated or even Scream of the Shalka. But perhaps we could have a new winner…

Listed on Blu-Ray.com is Doctor Who – The Ice Warriors with a cut and paste from description from the DVD release.  Even stranger is the fact it is listed as a Region A (Region 1) release.  Not even The Power of the Daleks has been released on Blu-Ray in North America.

Both Episodes 2 & 3 are missing from the story but was animated in 2013 for the DVD.

Is this listing just a mistake?  Is it coming out in the UK also? And most puzzling of all, what is the purpose of this release?

The animation company that animated the two missing episodes, Qurios Entertainment, has not been active for well over 5 years now and the Producer of this animation – Chris Chapman says this release is news to him.  Even then I do not see the need to do a “The Power of the Daleks” style revamp of the animation as personally I think it is good enough.  In fact, I like it.

It is possible it could be animated again from scratch by a different company to bring it in line with recent animations, but what would be the point?  For the same cost you could probably complete The Underwater Menace or animate The Web of Fear, Episode 3.  If I were to choose a previous animation to revamp, it would be The Reign of Terror, which is full of random cuts and close-ups which do not quite work and perhaps clearing the rights for Britbox at the same time.

An obvious reason to re-release this story would be if one or both missing episodes were found.  There were rumours circulating a few years back of demo prints being sent to Germany.  If the two episodes were recovered, then it might make sense to give it the story re-release before The Collection.  Other than that, I really do not see a purpose to this release.

The story is out of print in North America and there has been recent re-issues of some of the rarer titles.  Has someone got the DVD and Blu-Ray mixed up?

Unless the wind is blowing in the direction of Germany, I am calling this potential release a fake.  With the fact this would be the first Classic Series Blu-Ray outside of The Collection in Region 1 land, I would say being suspicious is an understatement.

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