Hugely disappointed in the main; the MTV party thing is woeful - who is that twat presenting???

The First Avenue and 'Ruffles' documentaries are very cheap affairs too; and really don't do justice to either subject.

However, I would say its worth the money alone for the two live clips of I Would Die for U/Baby I'm A Star and Take Me With You. The former is absolute genius - and shows what an incredible talent the man - and the Revolution are.

Prince's facial expressions are just sublime! and the dancing is laughably good - I was in bits laughing my head off at how good he is.

Oh and hats off to Sheila E - what a woman! she sure can play the tablas too!

Shelia was acting like a right twat on that mtv thing. she fucking needed to get over Prince.....she came across extremely arrogent and seemed to think prince was God.

I actually think the three documentaries are quite good. I think it's great that they were able to get interviews with all the members of The Revolution (bar Prince, of course!), Bob Cavallo, Steve Fargnoli, Alan Leeds, Terry Lewis, Jimmy Jam, Jellybean Johnson, Jill Jones etc - people who were VERY close to Prince back in the day. Before this, the only decent Prince documentary was the 1991 Omnibus special, and even that has dated now.

Sure, the MTV party is lame, but that's how it was presented. It's strange to look back and see just how different popular culture was back then. For memorabillia's sake, it's a nice item to have. Plus, Eddie Murphy's send up of Little Richard is a killer

Oh, and it's great to get all those videos onto DVD as well.
[Edited 1/15/05 20:19pm]

I recently saw disc 2 too (and Purple Rain of course). I'm quite a new fan, I missed out on the whole eighties decade (I was born in 1982) but thanks to this disk I can imagine what was going on at that time. Hilarious to see how people dressed then
And the live clips were so amazing! Prince, his singing, dancing, The Revolution... it's so exciting!

You missed out on a great era. I was a teenager back then and I wish I had been born earlier so I could have gone to clubs and really enjoyed the disco scene of the 1970s and the funk scene of the early 1980s to the fullest. By the time I reached 21, the 1990s were approaching and that was a horrible decade. I feel cheated.

By the way, I love disc 2 of the "Purple Rain" set.
[Edited 1/16/05 4:34am]

isadora said:

i was born in 1982 too!!! but i was disappointed in the second disc, being that no deleted scenes were included..

sounds cool.....i might pick it up

isadora said:

Haha me too (born in '83)! It was really funny to watch to see how pop culture was back then. I thought it was totally cool, but yes, Shelia E did come across as being VERY in love with Prince!!!

missfee said:

I agree.
I also thought that there would be an interview with Prince. Everyone else is interviewed, except him! That doesn't make any sense to me Although I can assume that he didn't want to, he doesn't really give a lot of interviews.

isadora said:

Not everyone. I was disappointed that Morris wasn't interviewed and I was VERY disappointed that Apollonia (hottie!!!) wasn't interviewed. Did someone forget to ask them? Whats up with that?

isadora said:

Hey Apollonia wasn't interviewed! Bummer.

cheap party that was.


lil richard and wendy r the best 2 watch.

i never thought wendy was that funny and attractive.

shelia was prob 2 shy...and ended up being stupid

I agree to your opinion that the 2 DVDs are quite good. I mean, what do you people expect ? Prince does not want to be involved in such a project so forget all your dreams about everything he has to give permission for. I guess that includes deleted scenes (if any have survived the 20 years at all).
So without Prince involvement, this is the best thing they could do:

- there's a great commentary track from director, producer, camera with lots of interesting stories and insight views
- there are a few quite interesting specials where you are able to see Revolution members + other people 20 years later sharing memories. If Morris Day does not participate it does not mean that he wasn't asked, maybe it's the same reason why he didn't participate in the Family Jamm concert: MONEY !!!
- there are all promo videos + movie trailers
- there's the MTV special which is lame but that's not the fault of the producers of this particular DVD
- and last but not least there's Purple Rain in DD 5.1


So really, come on ... UTCM + GB DVDs are lame but that PR 2DVD is the best thing they could do.

vainandy said:

The 80's were fun as a teen. I was 14 when Purple Rain came out in 84. That's when i fell totally in love with Prince. That MTV party was lame, but they didn't do things on as grand as scale as they do now with a whole lotta hype. The hairdos are hilarious to look back on, but they were the sh*t back then.
I'm not sorry I bought the DVD, though. I enjoyed both of the discs.

isadora said:

I remember the eighties well, Prince hardly spoke (if at all) back then. That was part of his thing, it made him mysterious and people wondered what his speaking vioce sounded like. Anyone remember what he said when he got the Oscar?

toejam said:

Ahh, I'd have to strongly disagree. Sure they've collated a few individuals and close friends from Prince's past - but they offer next to nothing of interest or value. Of course I'm not expecting an incite into the machinations of the man himself; but surely a reflection of the creative process behind Purple Rain - the music and/or the film - would surely have been of more interest than the owner of First Avenue realing off the 'floor plan of First Avenue' or Jimmy Jam revealing that the side entrance of the club was 'where the cool people came in'. Or some chief with greying hair saying 'yeah First Av was revolutionary cos it was so multicultural!!' - ok!!!

The extracts from the Revolution were near-woeful too; while Wendy and Lisa were relatively interesting - the others conveyed information that was either irrelevant/ambiguous/dull or fawning adoration (Sheila E in particular). Sure I didn't expect to hear a jot from Prince - but something of relevance to the LP, music or even film would surely have been not too much to ask. Instead what we get is a retrospective of the 80s which was less representative than even those abhorant and tacky Top 10 nostalgia 'list' programmes on Channel 4 (UK).

And as for the MTV thing - I was itching to fast-forward every step of the way it was so dire. You've got to ask yourself - would you re-watch any of disc two again; and I'm pretty sure few of us Prince fans would - save for the bits I mentioned in my first post - and the simple reason is - it offers next to nothing new about Purple Rain or indeed Prince.

I'll give you the Eddie Murphy bit mind!
[Edited 1/17/05 16:50pm]

vainandy said:

Vainandy

This is the voice of the Misterons.....

I know how you feel. I was 21 in 91 and the 70's and 80's were hell decades. the 90's just a waste of time. Its a good thing the naughtys are turnin out pretty good so far. heh Im in New Zealand. Theres a party happening down here. U should cum! Funny thinking these "NEW" kids are gettin into Prince and I could be there dad.....scary.

Misteron

slm4m said:

I like P better with his mouth shut.

Actually, here in America, the years 2000 - 2005 have been worse than the 1990s. At least house music was above ground in the first couple of years in the 1990s. After that, nothing but midtempo hip hop and ballads.
[Edited 1/18/05 19:53pm]

slm4m said:

That was one of the things that drew people to see the movie -- "You mean Prince can actually talk?" Yeah, I remember that -- people were shocked that Prince could actually sustain an entire movie.

slm4m said:

I fail to see how anyone can justify the 80s being a better decade than the 90s or even the 2000s - the 80s was woeful - save for Prince! - the styles, the materialistic values, the OTT cocaine factor - aww it makes my head sick thinking about it. Brett Easton Ellis summarised the decade up perfectly in American Psycho.

Musically and stylistically - and culturally the 90s was a MASSIVE improvement. I'll let this decade pan out first before passing judgement!

Has anyone noticed a younger Charlie Murphy in back of brother Eddie at the MTV party? Quite funny to see him hanging out with Eddie at a celebrity bash, just like he says he did on the Chappelle show.

misteron said:

Scary, too, that they could be better spellers than you...

the 80's were by far the best era of music ever, in my opinion that is. Nothing will ever come close to re-creating the 80's, most of todays music is utter shit and the 90's were ok, but towards the end it started to produce rubbish.i would much rather listen to an 80's mix cd then any cd released with todays music on it.

there are a few exceptions of course, im not sayin ALL todays music is garbage, but a lot of it i put down to the lack of bands, everyone just wants to be the solo star, have people make their beats, write their songs, tell them what to wear, how to act etc. Puppets, thats what they are....