We've waited so long for this. We could get a better one, because we deserve a better one, but instead no one knows when or whether will the Estate release the next Bad Tour 2nd leg concert in better quality.
See, this is one of the reasons as to why I don't come on this site much anymore.
The fans do not
deserve anything. What is the Estate at its core function designed to do? Make money off of Michael Jackson's name and music. They could easily achieve this with Greatest Hits collections, rarely venturing into unreleased territories. The fact that they're still trying with releases like this after this long is a blessing. Secondly, if the fans
deserved a high-quality Bad Tour show, then why didn't Michael himself release a show? He had 21 years to do it himself but he chose not to, because he didn't want it to be seen by the masses outside of a live situation; it was within his perfectionist nature. But surely people remember this, and that it's the Estate being dealt a bad hand with the condition and quantity of archival material from this era. They're not the only ones whose archives from this time period are in disarray, or whose concert material has been compromised.
As for what's seen in Spike Lee's documentary, don't take any of that as an indication of a fully filmed concert; they're just outtakes from the Another Part of Me video integrated into the final cut. I'm surprised people are in shock and awe over something that has been known for decades. The only footage that has been seen in film at all from these shows was released in 1988 and 1989; nothing else since then.
And once again, I must stress the point that Michael had never intended to release ANY Bad Tour shows! And that he had 21 years to do so, but had chosen against it! In some ways, you could call releasing any Bad Tour show a betrayal to Michael's artistry and perfectionist nature, regardless of visual quality.
Umatic tapes degrade worse than VHS tapes do, and I believe that even more after watching the bonus features of the DVD. The Way You Make Me Feel actually looks worse than the VHS to me; there's a real lack of detail in some places, and it suffers from light bleeding and graininess just as the VHS does. People complain about these things without realising that - once again - these shows were never due to be released, so why would he take great strides to record this material in high-quality footage with concert film-quality cinematography? They were all destined to be watched by him so that he could improve his performance, so no-one would go to that much trouble unless he expressly wished for it, which he obviously didn't.
I've watched the DVD a couple of times recently, and having watched a lot of concerts from the 70s and 80s, it doesn't look that bad in comparison. Could it have been better? Possibly, but we don't know the condition of the tape, nor do we know the full condition of any of the other material, nor are we
not entitled to know:
it doesn't belong to us. We as fans are not owed anything by the Estate in the same way that Michael never owed us anything.