Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

"Roots - The Complete Collection" (10 disc DVD set) contains the mini-series "Roots" from 1977 ("30th Anniversary Edition" version on three 2-sided discs), the mini-series "Roots: The Next Generations" from 1979 (on four discs, three of which are 2-sided), the television movie "Roots: The Gift" (on a single-sided disc), and "Roots: The Legacy", a collection of old and new archival material/documentaries spread across two single-sided discs. The content is excellent, and there are plenty of other reviews on this site which go into depth regarding the material. However, my one star rating for this "item" is based primarily on two things. First, this item constitutes a shameful forced double-dip manipulation on the part of the DVD producer with respect to customers who previously purchased either the "Roots" 25th Anniversary DVD set released January 2002, or the "Roots" 30th Anniversary DVD set released May 2007 (five months before this "Complete Collection"), and who now must in effect repurchase "Roots" for roughly $40 in order to purchase "Roots: The Gift" on DVD, which is in release only as part of this set, which doesn't include any DVD extras, and which easily could have been released as a stand-alone item for $10-$15. Second, the packaging is horrendous. Instead of packaging this set in a manner which would make shelf storage convenient and which would protect the discs from damage (think of the typical DVD "collection" box set - e.g. "The Matrix Collection", or any TV series season set), the collection comes in a huge "cigar box"-style case, with the DVDs wedged into tight "slots" in one of three long, flat cardboard folders in the box, much as if the DVDs were coins in a coin collection folder. Getting the DVDs in and out of these slots without scuffing them is difficult at best. Further, the set I received had four discs dislodged prior to opening, and these dislodged discs were scratched on both sides as badly as old rental store discs, while almost all of the other discs which were not dislodged from their slots had lesser degrees of scratch damage on one or both sides. Disc 1, Side 2 froze at the 41:30 mark, likely due to scratch damage. The bottom line is, unless you absolutely must own "Roots: The Gift", this collection should be avoided like the plague. It is largely a waste of money and space. Purchase "Roots" and "Roots: The Next Generations" separately instead. Most of the archival material from "Roots: The Legacy" is included on the 30th Anniversary Edition of "Roots". Edit: One thing I forgot to add way back when I originally reviewed this set is that "Roots: The Gift" for this set has been cropped to fill a 16:9 (1.78:1) television screen. Since "Roots: The Gift" originally aired on TV in 1988, this was years before anything on U.S. television aired in anything other than the standard 4:3 (1.33:1) screen aspect ratio. Widescreen televisions are perfectly capable of showing those old TV shows and old movies in the 4:3 format. "Roots" (1977) and "Roots: The Next Generations" (1979) are both on DVD in their original 4:3 screen aspect ratios. Maybe the DVD producers wanted to make "Roots: The Gift" look more like "a movie". If so, this was misguided. "Roots: The Gift" was made for television and shot for television. For the most part, I didn't notice any glaring framing issues on the DVD with the cropping from the top and bottom of the original image. However, that's usually not the case with this practice. And the viewer is not seeing the complete image as it was originally intended to be seen. It's also completely unnecessary.