Why is Borat (2006) unavailable on Blu-ray in the US?

What's up with that?

 

But seriously... I have no idea.

Blu-ray existed in 2007 when "Borat" came out on DVD, and it was a big hit.

It makes zero sense that it didn't get a BD release back then, much less one over the last 14 years!

 

I thought someone sued(fratboy in RV?) and the settlement meant no US blu. Weird since the original release forms had lots of fine print.

 

But wouldn't that impact all versions of the film?

"Borat" still came out on DVD. Did the frat boy sue just to keep the movie off high-def formats but lower-res versions were okay?

 

If it helps, the U.K. release is region-free. Easy enough to import, if you’re desperate to own it on BD.

 

If what I read on IMDB is correct, "Borat" was shot on 720p cameras, so I wouldn't expect a BD to offer a substantial improvement over a DVD.

It's not exactly a photographic showpiece, y'know?

 

I have no idea what it was shot on. It was quite funny at the time, but I’m not that committed that I need to own it in any format. I might buy the BD, if I came across it in a charity shop.

Like you say, it’s not exactly Lawrence of Arabia. I’m not sure I need to see SBC’s mankini in hi-def.

 

I have the region free EUR release. The original DVD is overall a nicer presentation I think, at least in terms of the packaging, disc-art, menus... seems like this movie was really one of the last hurrahs for the dvd format. It comes off like something straight out of SBC’s faux-Kazakh universe. If you, like me, bought the original dvd when it came out, you know exactly what I’m talking about.


Practically all of that goes down the drain with the import Blu Ray, that little extra attention to detail just wasn’t put in. But purely from the standpoint of video quality, it is a fairly significant upgrade over the DVD. For most of the footage anyway. It’s not a home theater demo disc by any means but it does make a lot more of the original source material, or at least whatever wasn’t filmed on very low-res handicams.


If you can get it cheap and like the movie, I say go for it. But there are rumors that the original film was recently picked up by Criterion, and now with the sequel out I’m sure that will be seeing some sort of physical release too - maybe a package deal. So I’d probably wait a bit and see if a US release finally does happen. Maybe it’ll be even better than the import.

 

"desperate" is the perfect word!