Collectors, always be wary of anything that claims to be for ‘collectors’. Collectibles occur naturally when great things come together into groups, like the elements of carbon and lead. However, when the idea of a collectible is emblazoned on something and manufactured, like promethium, it’s probably radioactive and should be avoided ‘cause it’ll make your babies glow in the dark. Or something like that.

The ‘Collector’s Edition’ of Nightmare Before Christmas is finally out. The original ‘Special Edition’ DVD was released in 2000 without too much fanfare, and had been out of print since shortly thereafter. Because of this limited availability (which is common with Disney DVDs and their fabled ‘vault’), auction prices for the DVD have exceeded $100 at times, with people clamoring for an enduring copy of the classic as their VHS copies sputtered out. While these VHS and Laserdisc copies also exist, the release of this new DVD set has leveled out availability and pricing considerably.

The Collector’s Edition includes every bonus that was on the original Special Edition DVD : a few deleted scenes and storyboards, an extensive behind-the-scenes feature, over 450 images of concept art, a few small animation tests, trailers and posters, as well as commentary from the director, Henry Selick. This alone is a vast amount of extras for any DVD to include - and they did it all on one disc without sacrificing any quality. Also included on that singular amazing disc were two of Tim Burton’s previous short films : Vincent and Frankenweenie, running about 40 minutes total.

This new edition adds a few small things : an exploration of Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion ride as it was decked out in Nightmare decor for Christmas, and audio commentary by Tim Burton and soundtrack artists Danny Elfman - which is something I’ve pretty much always wanted to hear. Unfortunately, the audio commentaries were all recorded separately - at different times and later edited jerkily together, so there’s none of that ‘sitting around in a room laughing and reminiscing’ feeling, which is the best part of any audio commentary. The observations are mostly general things about the film, ignoring the scene specifics.

Burton and Elfman DID begin to feud with each other in the aftermath of this film (but later reconciled) because of the intensity of their working relationship, so perhaps that’s part of the reason they didn’t sit down together to discuss the film.

There’s also Burton’s original poem narrated by the incomparable Christopher Lee, and newly animated menus, which are a lot fancier than the old deal. This is now all spread over 2 discs, and additionally a ‘digital file’ third disc is included - presumably to thwart DVD piracy and such. This disc can be loaded into your iTunes or Windows Media Player, and then the movie can be watched on your computer or any portable media device that you might have. Be forewarned - every digital copy comes with a unique unlock code, and you need to be connected to the internet in order to activate it. When I tried to activate mine, the online iTunes store was having issues, so I had to wait a few hours before my request was processed.

I still don’t fully grasp the concept of additional digital discs, which are coming with more and more DVDs. The practical appeal of watching any movie on a 2-inch screen is lost on me, and if someone really wants to copy the DVD, they’re going to find a way to do it anyhow. Entire armies of socially inept geeks are toiling away in basements underneath X-Men posters to crack any code you slap onto a DVD. I certainly don’t advocate movie piracy, but the idea that I’m being charged extra for a digital copy that I don’t have use for, or have a choice about, doesn’t sit well. Aren’t we trying to use LESS plastic? And in terms of excess, the new DVD packaging is about twice the width of a regular DVD case - and half of that space is given over to an embossed, blurry portrait of Jack Skellington that’s just aesthetically bizarre. I have to say that I’d prefer an artfully done cover, or something lenticular, over more weirdly-used plastic.

Anyone who’s picking up this Collector’s Edition is probably a hardcore fan, and they’re being vocal about the subtlest of differences between this and previous editions. The familiar, blue Touchstone logo that always opened the film is gone, and replaced with a ‘Walt Disney Pictures Presents’, and while some folks are saying that this offsets the timing of the opening sequence, I haven’t noticed any differences. There’s a point in the opening song where part of the vocal track is strangely quiet, as if something were left out in the re-mastering of the audio. This problem isn’t present during the ‘commentary’ version of the audio.

While I haven’t heard anyone mention this yet, the picture quality of the film is absolutely different. Being an owner of the original DVD, I was able to switch back and forth between the two to pinpoint any strangeness, and indeed, this ‘restored’ version has higher contrast. Also, the organic, subtle wavering of the camerawork in the original is gone, now digitally corrected and aligned. Instead of a minutely drifting camera, we now have an attempt at a perfectly still image, but it’s just not a successful attempt. Instead of the wavering, the image now leaps left and right in jittery increments in order to correct itself into consistency. It’s kinda like if George Lucas went back into Star Wars and added all kinds of crazy lasers and monst… oh, wait. It’s way more jarring than the original camera, and a correction that makes the film difficult to watch.

I have four words for you, o great universe : Leave Well Enough Alone. Also : Digital Is Not Better. And : Bring Me Free Bacon. You know, while you’re at it.

If you don’t have the rare, original copy of this movie, it’s really a holiday staple in the vein of the Rankin-Bass delights, and it’s worth having - even for all of its excess. If you’re hardcore, you’ll want to hear the long-awaited Elfman / Burton commentaries, even if they’re fairly general observations. And if you’re all up on the Blu-Ray thing, that’s where the money is. That’s where you can really witness the 24-frames-per-second animation like never before. If you’re ultra-hardcore, pick up the $180 super-mega-pack, which is numbered, includes a Jack bust (with Santa Claus costume options), and a letter of authenticity.

I probably wasn’t the only kid to watch Edward Scissorhands for the first time and shed a single tear, thinking, ‘Man, I’m just like that Scissorhands guy… except my scissors are in my SOUL.’ I didn’t have a hilltop castle to retreat to, nor a Winona Ryder to awkwardly grope on (even though a surprisingly reasonable facsimile was found in my girlfriend at the time), so I’d retreat to my own inner sanctum and blast the Scissorhands soundtrack, safe from the angry and ignorant townsfolk.

The soundtrack, of course, is by Danny Elfman - one of the more distinctive names in modern cinematic composing, noted for scoring pretty much every Tim Burton film ever made, as well as Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners, and countless other films both dark and light. Around the same time that I was falling in love with his eerie angelic choirs and carnival melodies, I was equally appreciative of his non-soundtrack work with his band Boingo, previously Oingo Boingo, previously Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo. Sure, there probably isn’t anything in the world better than The Breakfast Machine from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, but it was all pretty good stuff.

I had a few musical collections as I was growing up, all of which were fun to complete in those scary pre-internet days when you actually had to go to the store and talk to people, digging through the alphabetical tape and CD racks until you found an album that you didn’t even know existed. Among my complete collections of The Beatles, DEVO and Jethro Tull, there was my growing Elfman collection. Oingo Boingo was primarily a West Coast phenomenon, with a majority of their eclectic fanbase living on the opposite coast from myself, so I often resorted to the Oingo Boingo Secret Society Underground Newsletter for my information and to become acquainted with my more well-informed Boingo-friends, but locating albums usually required a trip into SoHo and a lot of luck. For the record, ‘Boi-ngo’ and ‘Dark at the End of the Tunnel’ were pretty instrumental (no pun intended) during my teenage years, because I really found very little appeal in whatever was on the radio in those days.

And I gave up on Jethro Tull the day they named an album ‘J-Tull.com’. Seriously guys, pretty goofy. Way to sell out.

The Elfman love that I was exposed to through the Secret Society was pretty enormous, and I’ve remained in contact with a few people from the SS all these years. We communicated in odd video clips of Elfman interviews and obviously lip-synced Boingo telethon performances, candid photos and weird demo tapes. I was exposed to the cinematic bludgeoning that is ‘Forbidden Zone’, a black and white exploration into nonsensical perversity written and directed by Danny’s brother Richard Elfman (also father of the more well-known Jenna Elfman), in which Danny Elfman plays the Devil and performs a Cab Calloway musical number amid topless women, ending in a charming decapitation. The odd Elfman preoccupation with Day of the Dead themes found its way into my own collections, eventually inspiring my own accumulation of skulls and other such items.

Boingo filmed their last performance on Halloween in 1995, and recorded the whole thing on both video and audio for posterity, marking the end of my Boingo collecting days. Elfman himself has recently stated that he has no interest in bringing the band back together due to the hearing loss that he suffered while performing. A few odds, ends and unreleased things trickle in, but this was a case of a collection choosing to end itself after ten albums (and countless compilation and ‘greatest hits’ collections that I avoided), since my interests in Danny Elfman never really extended into looking at his unusual face for hours at a time and dreaming of what could be. My interests is purely musical.

Elfman’s most recent project is the Serenada Schizophrana, an orchestral exploration unassociated with any film, though two ‘Music For a Darkened Theater’ compilations of selections from Elfman’s soundtracks have also been released and are still very available. All of this is quite an accomplishment for a music who calls himself ‘self-taught’. So, happy birthday, Mr. Elfman. You weird creep.