Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

My Fair Lady, both the stage and film versions, have played major roles in shaping my understandings of music, theatre, cinematography -- and even, linguistics. Over the past 20 years, I have owned this film on VHS (twice), laserdisc, DVD (twice), and now on Blu-ray. Knowing what I do about the current film elements held by CBS, this Blu-ray is a severe disappointment. In the early 1990s, the original film elements were deteriorating in vaults; it was brittle, cracking, fading, and suffered from differential shrinkage. CBS paid a good sum in 1994 to save the film from being lost forever. Using digital technology to the best of their abilities, a new archival element was created -- preserving the film and allowing a new generation of viewers to see it in a condition not seen since the 1960s. At the same time, 35mm prints were created for LD, VHS, and later DVD transfers. Imperfections in the prints were not noticeable and yielded the best presentations in those formats due to their limited resolutions. Now we come to the Blu-ray. I am not entirely sure if this transfer comes from one of the previous 35mm prints (the only tell-tale sign is the 2.35:1 aspect ratio). However, this print has major flaws that were not seen in the previous releases. First, and somewhat minor issue, the text in the title sequence has some distracting movement; this becomes less apparent if you are watching on a screen smaller than 32". The major problem has to do with an image distortion on the left and right sides of the image. Approximately 20% of the screen is affected. It is as if you were viewing the film with tunnel vision -- or watching a 2.5 hour dream sequence where the DP has ordered Vaseline to be spread along the sides of the lens. The edges of the picture is hazy and milky -- sometimes, it appears as an amber haze in scenes that are dimly lit. Unfortunately, this occurs throughout the film. Even funnier, the 1994 'Restoration' credits presented at the end of the film also has the muddy edges! It was digitally generated on a solid pink background -- there shouldn't be any change in color. Contrary to what I have read on many on-line reviews, this disc will not satisfy the 'typical' Blu-ray viewer. How many films have you seen where the image fades and loses color along the edges? It is obvious that this disc was put together with little thought or consideration. The artwork on the cover is a rehash of a previous DVD release with more Photoshopping (flip the image along the vertical axis and add a pink-to-white gradient in the background); if the rights are available, it would have been better to use the original poster artwork. The art on the actual disc is generic -- a solid light blue with the title printed at the top. Possibly due to rights issues, only a few of the special features from previous formats are available on this disc. I believe this was an attempt to capitalize on the holiday season, since My Fair Lady often receives air time in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I was extremely skeptical since its release was quickly and mysteriously announced this summer. I have contacted CBS Home Entertainment about the image problem. So far, I have not heard back from them.