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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Same good show, with a little bit more
Comment: Since I lost my VHS version of this film, I had missed the occasional nostalgic viewing. This DVD version brings it all back. It's as good as ever, and includes some new enhancement to the setting at Pompeii. Worth replacing your old version.
Customer Rating:
Summary: See Gilmour Play
Comment: Pink Floyd Live At Pompeii - Great, great, great, great!!!! This DVD contains the "Director's Cut" as well as the original concert film. Basically the Director's cut features lots of extra visuals, including computer graphic recreations of Pompeii, the exploding Vesuvius, and other things like NASA shots of rockets going up into space, space walks, images of suns and stars and moons and planets, all the usual things you'd expect of someone depicting a "space rock" band. It also has some extra bits from the studio in Paris when they were recording "Dark Side of the Moon." The Directors Cut starts out with space and planets animated instead of the big zoom-in to the arena in Pompeei of the original film. Not really an improvement, although it's nice to see something different I guess. Cool to see a grand piano in a roman ampitheatre. Gilmour and Wright shirtless, Waters and Mason in black. Integrates black and white studio shots with colour live stuff from Pompeii. Guys walking over steaming earth, awkward cuts to Wright and Gilmour screwing up their Echoes lyrics. Mason flips his drum stick. Broken drum heads on his kit - 8 drums and 5 cymbals. Racks and racks of amps - one shot goes behind them and we see the cameras and crews that face the band. Back of amps all say "Pink Floyd. London." Shots of the London Underground, clock going backwards, empty platform. Throwaway film experimentation. Pink Floyd's psychedelic breakfast at Abbey Road studios as Nick goes weird about apple pie, Roger's veins as he tries out weird keyboard sounds. Talking about over-using equipment. "It's like saying `give a man a Les Paul guitar and he'll become Eric Clapton." Did Clapton play a Les Paul? Constructing the "On The Run" sequence with sequencers and keyboards. "Careful With That Axe Eugene" with wild lava flows and screams. The and eating oysters. "There's the danger of becoming slaves to the equipment, it happened before. Can't hide behind equipment." Saucerful of Secrets - Waters smashing cymbols with toms, Wright attacking his grand. Fly on Waters' arm - smashes gong that we see on the cover art - all of the guys thin and trim and gangly in t-shirts and jeans, barefoot sand getting into the effects pedals. The band talks money and economics, "rock is not dying like they say," and there's still money in it. Wright doing piano parts in shades fo r "Us and Them" as camera sweeps around. Gilmour "we're not a drug-oriented group. You can trust us." "One of These Days", mason on toms on ctymbols, weird geographic CG. Slow-mo on Mason as the song kicks into high gear, all you see is him, no Gilmour solo or Waters screaming. Mason loses a stick, then pulls a new one out. Nice butterfly logo on blue long-sleeve shirt. Keyboard too high in the mix. Interesting quotes about how well they've learned how to get along, "we're happy together." That wouldn't last. While the others are chatting, Gilmour pulls a perfect "Echoes" guitar solo. "Mesdomoiselle Nobs" with the wailing dog - Wright holding the dog, who sings on cue, Gilmour on harmonica, Waters on guitar (although it sounds like a bass) Address the topic of arguments and in-fighting by claiming that they have the same sense of humour and lust for money. "We can still combine our interest. That's when it breaks down, when one person finds that wheat he's doing isn't interesting, thinks he can do better by himself," says Mason. Then shifts to Gilmour noodling on the guitar, gives a big beautiful smile when he notices the camera. "What would rock `n' roll be without feedback?" Gilmour plays heavy, thick guitar solos on "Brain Damage," they obviously were never used since the finished product is much more relaxed. "Set The Controls For the Heart Of The Sun", Mason's purple butterfly t-shirt - he has two? "Echoes" in studio - Gilmour stops singing - is he being a prick? Images of Roman erotica, humans cavorting with fauns. Closing "Echoes" - sunnyday Pink Floyd with other backdrops. TERRIBLE computer graphics bit (1:23:35). DVD extras. Generally not great, although there is some good stuff. Three posters, one of which calls the show "A Zappaesque musical pastiche." Three newspaper articles from the day. Five "covers of bootlegs" pages with two on each page, so 10 covers. Four previous covers. Four albums' with graphics, two songs' lyrics (why only two? why bother?), one 24-minute interview with directore Adrian Maben that was very interesting. No voice of the interviewer, questions appear as banners. He explains some of the reasons why there were so many wanky graphics and things, he complains that "you are always unsatisfied with something, you never get it right," and I think that even after 30 years he's ruined his chance to "fix" his mistakes. But he didn't have much to work with - apparently the rushes were lost, so he couldn't add any material from 1972 into the film, so he put 2003 stuff in. Big mistake. I read on the Wikipedia that the shots from the studio in Paris that was supposedly of them recording "Dark Side of the Moon" was actually faked - the band had already finished recording the album and were mixing it. Other fake shots were done on a sound stage somewhere. You can tell which ones they were because there are no ruins of Pompeii, the band are squeezed together, and Rick Wright is beardless. But at least they try.
The "Beastie Boys" made a funny tribute to this movie for the video of their song "Gratitude." Cz-Cz-Cz-Czech it out!"
Customer Rating:
Summary: Can Pink Floyd be any less than fantastic?
Comment: Compared to the original version of "Live at Pompeii" this one has more material in it, without anything dropped. There are some more interviews, where Roger makes fun of the interviewer, that's so much fun! And some Odyssey like video parts have been added to the songs that looks pretty cool.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Too much tampering with a good thing
Comment: "Pink Floyd Live At Pompeii - The Director's Cut" could have been a better film than it is, even with the extra and new footage, if Adrien Maben hadn't tried to run the gamut here. It's total overkill. The audio is now more clear sounding, and the picture is now sharper than it was, and some alternate footage from the time is included to enhance the experience, but there is some serious inconsistency in the bigger picture.
In its original form, the viewer gets an opening sequence made up of some eerie music the band recorded for the film, some shots of the Roman ruins, and the preliminary stages of the road crew setting up the equipment. Now, there is a black screen, with a heartbeat and some heavy breathing. I felt like I was watching "Friday The 13th." You then get some nice spacey images during the first bars of "Echoes: Part One," looking suspiciously like Stanley Kubrik's "2001: A Space Oddessy." It does fit the music, and it's probably what the band would have shown on "Mr. Screen," as they called it, in the shows from those days, so I took this in stride. It is, after all, a new version. The visuals are really very beautiful during this, but the majesty of this performance is belied by footage of David Gilmour and Rick Wright recording the vocals to the original version in the studio. The sound itself is from the "concert," but seeing them fumble through outtakes during this, takes the covers off them. And even though there is no acting, per se, Gilmour does what every film director says not to do; he looks directly at the camera between lines. But even with these glitches, the film still does look and sound good.
And even cleaned up, the original footage, already in existence, as well as some other exposition, has a slightly gritty look to it, causing the "documentary" feel, and it works. But there is some computer-generated imaging which jars the viewer out of the lull they achieve while enjoying the band's performances. Time and circumstance do not allow a complete play-by-play in this forum, but if the original footage had a digital-era clarity, or the segments of new digital-era footage were slightly grittier looking, the transitions would have worked wonderfully. This is only my opinion. But, usually, new treatments are supposed to fit seamlessly into the original piece; here, it's the metaphorical "sore thumb." And too bad, because it is a very ambitious cut, worthy of watching anyhow. The scenery shots, previously unused, are unbelievably beautiful. The landscapes, from the original cut, and the shots taken from the vault and added in, are breathtaking. For real.
Certain things I wouldn't have done (I know, this is Adrien Maben's film, not Jerry H's film) if I were the director, though, include one thing I didn't care for, in the original film. It's not bad, but not what I would have done. In some of the outdoor footage, there are some stunning landscapes, with the band members walking through it, on an outdoor hike, looking something like The Beatles in "Yellow Submarine." These shots should have been done without Waters, Wright, Mason, and Gilmour, out on some nature-hike. It's just pointless. They only worked together, they didn't go hiking and whatnot, but this is only a viewpoint. And the other thing: The newly included black-and-white footage of the interviews from the cafeteria. The only saving grace here, is some conversations with Rick Wright, conspicuously absent from the original cut. But, really, watching Roger Waters eat oysters for lunch, is one of the most disgusting things I have ever seen. I cringe at the sight of this, and even writing about it. And he obviously has a holier-than-thou attitude as well. He makes some very valid points in his conversations, but here, he is showing just how boorish he can be. But I guess, these parts show us that they are just a bunch of regular guys who laugh and joke with one another, they aren't embassadors from another planet. I just wouldn't have included these clips.
But, as I have said earlier, sometimes the new edits work very well. During the climax of "A Saucerful Of Secrets," there is some stock film of a volcano erupting, and the flooding of a city with hot lava, including a shot of a horrified little girl watching her home town being destroyed by one of God's temper tantrums. But, some of the additional visuals look like something you'd see while using a Play Station video game. This is what cost this video a star for me.
Also, as a gift to the purist, the original "concert" is included in the bonus features, in tact, the first of the three releases, no interviews, no toying with the running order, just the band playing their best material of the day for the camera crew, and this is a 5-plus rating on the 1 to 5 scale available here.
My favorite bands are Pink Floyd, The Who, Steppenwolf, and The Mothers. Videos like this are the reason.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Two Movies for the Price of One
Comment: One evening in 1973 I was watching reruns of 'Night Gallery' on my 10 inch black and white TV and I began flipping channels during the commercial to see what else was on. On PBS I couldn't believe what I was seeing, PINK FLOYD! I looked at the TV Guide and saw it Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii. Needless to say, I did not go back to my other show and I looked in vain for years for a repeat of the show. Well, now it is on DVD in color on my big screen TV and is an instant nostalgia device. One thing I don't understand though is why everyone complains about the director's cut. I agree that it isn't necessary since it detracts from the power of the original which launches right into the music without the 'fan club sentimentalities' and dressings of the director's cut. But BOTH VERSIONS are on the disk, so watch the ORIGINAL CONCERT MOVIE first if you just want the simple truth and later watch the DIRECTOR'S CUT if you want more, but please don't whine.
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