this release has certainly kicked up a fuss on all the FB DS pages. suffice to say most of the comments are on how much more or less it "sucks" than the Burton version.
The '04 pilot definitely has its share of detractors. The fact will always be that there's no possibility to ever please everybody. If that were the case there would never be an unfavorable review about anything.
Is the '04 pilot 100% perfect? No. But then neither is the original series. So...
As I always try to say, the best thing to try to do is to try look at any new version of DS on its own terms and try not to compare it to what's come before. Most importantly, is it true to the characters, regardless of how some other actors may have played them compared to how the new actors may be playing them? And while DS isn't Shakespeare, the analogy to DS regarding how different actors interpret Shakespeare is a valid one. But speaking of what's come before, as I've also said, one of the main reasons I enjoy the pilot as much as I do is that it's the freshest take on DS up to the point that it was made. It doesn't slavishly follow the hoDS mold, which is what DC had actually wanted but he was overruled by John Wells, DC's fellow exec producer, and Mark Verheiden, another exec producer and the writer of the pilot. And thanks heavens for it. And Verheiden had fresh takes for a series had the pilot been picked up, but sadly they never got to play out. And similar to NBC and the cancellation of the '91 series, it's too bad that TPTB at the WB came to realize after it was too late that they'd made a mistake in passing on the pilot...