Today is Transformers Tuesday

The much anticipated blockbuster movie, Transformers hits stores today! I’ve been counting down the days till its release. So over the weekend I was flipping through some flyers and I realized that this is going to be one of the biggest home video releases of the year. Retailers seem to be going all out to entice fans to spend money at their outlets by offering their own versions of exclusive collectors DVDs.

Transformers fans will have three different editions to choose from: a standard movie-only edition DVD, a two-disc special edition DVD, and a two-disc HD DVD edition. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Walmart is offering an exclusive 2-disc DVD set which includes the official unseen prequel to the feature film narrated by the voice of Optimus Prime, Peter Cullen. While Best Buy is offering an exclusive Transformers DVD gift set which includes the 2-disc Special Edition DVD and Optimus Prime and Cliffjumper Robot Heroes figures. And at Futureshop, they are offering the 2-disc set in a collectors’ Steelbook case, where you can choose between an autobot version or a decpticon version.

There are a lot of versions but I am not going to list them all, so I will just talk about one more that peaked my interest. Target is offering perhaps the most unique tie-in, with an exclusive package that transforms! Yea, you heard right, it actually transforms from an unassuming DVD case into a 15” Optimus Prime. In the case it includes a 2-disc DVD set and an all-new Transformers comic book.

All these various promotional exclusive collectors’ DVDs are quite overwhelming for me as a consumer, but I think it’s a really great way to promote a DVD release, especially to fans, and it gives people incentive to buy the actual DVD rather than simply download the movie or get a pirated version. I’m sure that Transformers fans are debating which one to choose, but then again, why not collect them all?