I really wanted to love this Blu-ray. I had waited for years for a really good, clean, crisp version of Fiddler On The Roof to come out. It is one of the best movie  musicals of all time.  I was so disappointed I just wanted to kill myself. This Blu-ray technically is exactly what the folks at the movie company wanted it to be. Unfortunately, it isn't what the movie buying public and consumers of Blu-ray products wanted. When we bought our Blu-ray players we wanted clean.  We wanted crisp. We wanted a sharp picture, with vivid colors. Then the restoration technicians produce something like this. How can people just completely and thoroughly miss the point?

First let's talk about the good things. There are some nice extra features on this Blu-ray. I love the discussion with John Williams about adapting the movie music for the big screen. It was also good reminiscing with the daughters.

Another one of the good features is the sound quality. If you shut your eyes, and don't try to listen and watch at the same time, the soundtrack and the quality of what you're listening to is pretty astonishing considering the age of the material. It would have been nice if they could have synched the audio soundtrack to the video but apparently that was a little too much to ask for in this version. Amazing. They can take the Sound of Music, or something as bad as the movie version of South Pacific, and make you feel like you're watching a movie that was released two weeks ago. Then they take a movie as important as Fiddler On The Roof and can't even sync the sound and the picture consistently throughout the film. For all of the discussion about preserving the original intent of the director, I'm sure Norman Jewison really intended to have the sound and the picture sync together no matter how many nylon stockings he put over the camera lenses.

Now, let's talk about the video quality. The colors are actually pretty good. Nice saturation...nothing too faded, no color shift, etc. So what the heck is all this garbage about soft focus, nylons, trying to give the overall feel of a flesh tone? But on the whole, the Blu-ray version is actually worse video quality than the DVD version that was done five or six years ago. The bottom line is, in all honesty, they just messed up and messed up badly. The DVD version issued with this release is easier on the eyes than the Blu-ray. They should have just made Fiddler look as good as The Sound of Music or any of the other recent restorations of movie musicals from the 60s and 70s, instead of trying to do an artsy historical restoration that added nothing to the film. This restoration actually degraded the quality of the film, and I hope is not the last revision of one of the finest movie musicals ever made.

This, unfortunately, maybe one of those movies that just doesn't make the jump to Blu-ray. If that's the case here, that's okay. But in the future I wish they would put some kind of warning on the label to alert the consumer that they're buying a blurry version of an old movie who's audio is out of sync with the video.

Funny. I buy a steam iron and I expect it to be perfect. I buy a car and I expect it to be perfect. And for it to have the features that I paid for at the dealership. Why can't the movie studios the same thing for its consumers? It's one thing not to like a movie after you leave the movie theater. We sort of expect that sometimes. But for an established movie, and a Blu-ray release to fall this short... Somebody really should get beat with a lamp cord. If it is available, buy the DVD version contained in this release. Skip the Blu-ray.

And for those who already purchased the Blu-Ray...there is hope.  No you haven't had a stroke.  It's made that way.
I really wanted to love this Blu-ray. I had waited for years for a really good, clean, crisp version of Fiddler On The Roof to come out. It is one of the best movie  musicals of all time. I was so disappointed I just wanted to kill myself. This Blu-ray technically is exactly what the folks at the movie company wanted it to be. Unfortunately, it isn't what the movie buying public and consumers of Blu-ray products wanted. When we bought our Blu-ray players we wanted clean. We wanted crisp. We wanted a sharp picture, with vivid colors. Then the restoration technicians produce something like this. How can people just completely and thoroughly miss the point? First let's talk about the good things. There are some nice extra features on this Blu-ray. I love the discussion with John Williams about adapting the movie music for the big screen. It was also good reminiscing with the daughters. Another one of the good features is the sound quality. If you shut your eyes, and don't try to listen and watch at the same time, the soundtrack and the quality of what you're listening to is pretty astonishing considering the age of the material. It would have been nice if they could have synched the audio soundtrack to the video but apparently that was a little too much to ask for in this version. Amazing. They can take the Sound of Music, or something as bad as the movie version of South Pacific, and make you feel like you're watching a movie that was released two weeks ago. Then they take a movie as important as Fiddler On The Roof and can't even sync the sound and the picture consistently throughout the film. For all of the discussion about preserving the original intent of the director, I'm sure Norman Jewison really intended to have the sound and the picture sync together no matter how many nylon stockings he put over the camera lenses. Now, let's talk about the video quality. The colors are actually pretty good. Nice saturation... nothing too faded, no color shift, etc. So what the heck is all this garbage about soft focus, nylons, trying to give the overall feel of a flesh tone? But on the whole, the Blu-ray version is actually worse video quality than the DVD version that was done five or six years ago. The bottom line is, in all honesty, they just messed up and messed up badly. The DVD version issued with this release is easier on the eyes than the Blu-ray. They should have just made Fiddler look as good as The Sound of Music or any of the other recent restorations of movie musicals from the 60s and 70s, instead of trying to do an artsy historical restoration that added nothing to the film. This restoration actually degraded the quality of the film, and I hope is not the last revision of one of the finest movie musicals ever made. This, unfortunately, maybe one of those movies that just doesn't make the jump to Blu-ray. If that's the case here, that's okay. But in the future I wish they would put some kind of warning on the label to alert the consumer that they're buying a blurry version of an old movie who's audio is out of sync with the video. Funny. I buy a steam iron and I expect it to be perfect. I buy a car and I expect it to be perfect. And for it to have the features that I paid for at the dealership. Why can't the movie studios the same thing for its consumers? It's one thing not to like a movie after you leave the movie theater. We sort of expect that sometimes. But for an established movie, and a Blu-ray release to fall this short... Somebody really should get beat with a lamp cord. If it is available, buy the DVD version contained in this release. Skip the Blu-ray. And for those who already purchased the Blu-Ray... there is hope. No you haven't had a stroke. It's made that way.