PAL transfers of feature films will be sped up, and won't look as good on an NTSC system anyway, but the Criterion transfer is quite good, certainly acceptable to anyone, and any attempt to improve on it is, well, silly.
That said, again as your resident Python expert, here's some Life of Brian stuff you won't see on the official DVD, that I happen to have.
Well, first there's the wonderful soundtrack album, which features Graham Chapman and Eric Idle babbling on about nothing. There's also an hourlong CD with the Pythons (bootleg) where they talk about the Life of Brian controversy.
Clips from the heated discussion the Pythons had with religious leaders on TV appear in many documentaries, such as the recent Python "comedy connections."
Two audio-only sketches deleted from Life of Brian appear on the bootleg Python CD, Hastily Cobbled Together For a Quick Buck .... which is usually downloadable from my PythoNET.org site.
The sketches are "Otto's Suicide Squad" - a specially remixed version of the cut scene from the film, with exaggerated album-like sound effects, strange to hear .... it's followed by a much longer version of the Suicide Squad song.
Second sketch - "Psychopath." Rewritten to appear in modern day, this was actually a Life of Brian deleted sketch.
During the time of the Python 30th anniversary celebration on the BBC, the annoying Jonathan Ross hosted a documentary about the deleted scenes from Life of Brian, interviewing Terry Jones, who provides live commentary on the cut scenes. Got this on VHS somewhere. I believe it's from the Paramount Comedy Channel.
The various documentaries on Python have focused a segment on Life of Brian .... in the 30th anniversary celebration on BBC2, we got a discussion of Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, which Eric Idle extended for the VHS/DVD release with a clip of him performing the song on "Top of the Pops."
The entire Top of the Pops clip, which is embarrassing as all hell, in that cheesy modern-day-Eric-Idle way, used to be on my website somewhere, as an RM file I believe. I still have the file, but never had it on VHS or anything.
There was also a "music video" of Bright Side of Life edited to clips from the Flying Circus, which I probably had as a file at some point, probably have the file somewhere.
The Life of Brian script book, which I don't have, has been reprinted and can be scanned. It's got a lot of strange material in it besides the film script.
As a ridiculously minor point, I have a copy of the Suicide Squad deleted scene somewhere which is a second longer than you see on the DVD. You hear Judith say "Brian?" and Brian turns to look at her, linking into what we see in the final film. Very bad quality. I had these deleted scenes for years before they ever turned up on a DVD.
OH!
Most important thing. There's a travelogue film narrated by John Cleese called Away From It All. It aired before Life of Brian in many theaters, and was never released after that. I get letters about it all the time. I had it as a file at my website (and still have it somewhere), but I've lost my actual VHS copy of it somehow ....
It's very funny - it's all stock footage, and has John Cleese becoming slowly but surely more annoyed and frustrated as he narrates the travelogue. Particularly when talking about Venice. "More fucking gondolas." A "slow burn" so to speak.
Trying to think of anything else.
I've got the deleted "Satan Animation" from a Flying Circus episode - deleted with the help of John Cleese due to its controversial nature, this might fit with Life of Brian.
Anyway.
As yer resident Python expert I am annoyed beyond belief that people obsess over the Python films yet don't seem to care about tracking down lost/unreleased episodes of At Last the 1948 Show (I have three unreleased ones), or all of Rutland Weekend Television (14 episodes. Followup to Flying Circus by Eric Idle. It's classic. Better than his Python work. You haven't seen it).
Or the little deleted scenes from Flying Circus for that matter.
There's good Python you haven't seen, folks. Just letting you know.
What about the lyrical beauty of Terry Jones' The Wind in the Willows (US title Mr. Toad's Wild Ride)? Or the equally lyrical beauty of Neil Innes' The Innes Book of Records?
Yes Python fans, isn't it time you discovered the Bonzo Dog (Doo Dah) Band?
Are you excited about the CD release of Hastily Cobbled Together For a Fast Buck? Had you heard the album already? Had you heard 1948 Show sketches which now only exist as audio? Have you heard the albums in general?
Are you excited that they've found a copy of Out of the Trees?
Had you heard of any of this stuff?
Yeah, years ago I was a Python internet guy. People sent me stuff, a lot of stuff, that I was amazed I hadn't heard of before. My experience of Python became different from most people's .... I was a fan of all the more obscure stuff, not the obvious films and TV series.
British comedy in general - when you're an American, it takes some effort to actually be up on what's going on over there. Most British comedy, even the really popular stuff, doesn't get released over here, so generally, even though I try to keep up, I have to randomly get packages from British friends to see ANYTHING.
If you read your average brain-dead entertainment magazine (like, say Entertainment Weekly), their knowledge of Britcom seems to jump from Python to Blackadder (or AbFab) to The Office.
We need so much more, we need our Young Ones and Bottom, our Day Today, Brass Eye and Jam, our Knowing Me Knowing You and I'm Alan Partridge, our Red Dwarf of course (and even The Strangerers), our Spaced, our Big Train, our Look Around You ... Darkplace and Nighty Night (series 1 at least), People Like Us, The Smoking Room, Peep Show ....
I dig my Britcom.