Taking the First Steps Into a High Definition World

September tends to be a big, busy month for the Jozic household, primarily because we have three kids starting school around that time every year, and also because it is the birth month for myself and my wife. This works out nicely for me, too, because I can usually count on something cool to be released - be it a book, CD, film, or some other pop culture-related event - that coincides with one, or both, of our birthdays. Last year, for example, we went to see Resident Evil: Afterlife, the year before that was the release of Whiteout (where I discovered I'm one of probably 10 people who doesn't hate that movie).

This year has proven to be particularly interesting, in that regard, for two reasons: September 9th (my actual birthdate) marked the release of Contagion which was directed by one of my favourite directors, Steven Soderbergh, and is the closest I think I'll ever get to seeing an adaptation of Richard Preston's The Hot Zone, so that was kinda cool; the other reason, Star Wars.

I know it's not cool to like the Star Wars movies anymore but I just can't help it. Even with the changes, the prequels, and all the controversy over the years, I still love these things in all their flawed glory. So, when I heard earlier this year that September would also mark the release of the complete saga on Blu-ray, I knew right then and there that the set would be mine. I told my wife not to sweat over birthday presents or anything like that because it was already settled.

Things got even better when I read the announcement that on the same day the Blu-rays were coming out, September 16th, we would also see the long-awaited premiere of the fourth season of Clone Wars, a show avidly followed by myself and my three kids.

In the days leading up to the release, I have to admit that the level of anticipation was high. We all kind of got into the mood to watch some of the movies but a moratorium was called on watching anything before the HD versions arrived. The cease-and-desist, however, only applied to the films themselves which left all the other licensed material and Clone Wars series up for grabs. A couple of weeks or so before the 16th I decided to dabble.

I recently came into possession of a Kobo eReader and had a copy of the Darth Maul short story, Saboteur, on it. Written by James Luceno, it revolved around industrial espionage and Maul's role in facilitating it. It was a surprisingly well-crafted little story and that inspired me to check out a number of Star Wars short stories available at the online store that were free to download. The Lost Tribe of the Sith is not normally the kind of thing that would interest me in expanded universe material but I found the first part of John Jackson Miller's tale pretty engaging and the rest is history.

It's been about a month, now, on a steady diet of Star Wars. I've been reading books, listening to soundtracks, podcasts, watching documentaries, and poring over the Blu-rays and their 40 hours of bonus features.

Now, if you've stuck with me this far, on to the subject of the Blu-rays.

I've read a lot of different reviews with a lot of differing opinions on the changes, the features, and everything else under the binary suns. The one thing they all agree on, however, is that the transfers are impeccable, the audio is stellar, and as HD presentations go, these discs are definitely demo material. You want to sell someone a BD player and a hi-fi stereo system to hear it on, one of these babies will probably do most of the work for you. The films look great.

I don't want to turn this into a defense of George Lucas so I'll skip any commentary on the changes for political reasons. Yes there are changes, no, they're not all bad ones.

As far as packaging and features go, I think they could have done a little better with the art direction considering some of their past efforts, but the book-like cover (similar to the one Fox used for the ALIEN ANTHOLOGY) displays nicely, is relatively durable, and holds all 9 discs without any issues. Each 'page' holds one disc and features episode specific artwork by Cliff Cramp. When not in use, it sits in a slipcase mirroring the artwork on the books cover.

Feature-wise, the ads all say "own every moment" and that's an out-and-out lie. From the get-go Lucasfim said they would not be including features from previous DVD releases, so how they came up with that tagline is a mystery to me. What is on the three bonus discs is pretty cool, though, don't get me wrong. Deleted and extended scenes, a collection of interviews with cast and crew, interactive archival material, the list goes on. The ninth disc includes all the classic making of documentaries (they even restored the voice-over by William Conrad, which is cool) and an hour-and-a-half of Star Wars spoofs culled from television shows and movies over the last 10 or 20 years. Probably the least of the features unless you don't have access to YouTube.

For all the griping online about this release, my opinion is that the good far outweighs the bad here. Having the previous releases, I'm not missing out on any bonus features. The only thing I think would have made for an exceptional collection would be if they included a solid transfer of the OT, as people remember it (circa 1984ish?), available to the public. I swear to God, most of the naysayers would probably shut up and it wouldn't matter how many changes GL made after that. I do have the OT on DVD (even if they are Laserdisc ports) so I'm not sweating it too much, but it would have been a nice surprise.

Oh, and speaking of surprises, one really cool feature is the full-length animated short that accompanied the Holiday Special broadcast featuring the first appearance of Boba Fett. The animation was done by a very young Nelvana and its inclusion here on the set is a rare treat, indeed.

So, that's the Blu-rays, from a certain point of view. No regrets here and I plan to revisit these movies again many times after this. If any of you naysayers happen to have friends who have the set (and considering it's the biggest selling BD catalogue title, it's highly likely you do) I would recommend sitting down with them sometime and giving the discs a once over. It's worth checking out.

As for the other side of my Star Wars mania, it's lessened, somewhat, but still going pretty strong. Among other things, I'm currently in the middle of re-reading Heir to the Empire (20th anniversary edition with annotations), I have the Dark Horse Empire run on hold at the library, Clone Wars is still running every week with new episodes, I'm tackling the Jedi Apprentice series to get some early Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan action, and am grabbing issues of Jedi: The Dark Side and Dark Times, two of the best Star Wars comics on the racks. I also recently wrapped The Force Unleashed and am thinking of revisiting the Tartakovsky Clone Wars DVDs.

Yeah.

And with that, take care and may the force be with you!

mike

Trek Commentary in High-Def

As some of you may know, I bought Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan on BD for boxing day (along with a few other Trek movies) and part of the reason was to hear the new commentary track by director Nicholas Meyer and Enterprise executive producer, Manny Coto. I wasn't sure what to expect, seeing as how I had listened to the previous Meyer track done for the DVD release and the fact that I recently read his amazing autobiography, The View From the Bridge, and was a little worried that it would be a retread of everything I had heard or read previously. Meyer & Coto, however, do not disappoint and conduct a nice, informative discussion about the film, the franchise and the industry. Always nice to listen to anything new by Meyer & haven't heard Coto in a while.

Although it wasn't the new fan track, I also listened to the audio commentary on First Contact by Ron Moore and Brannon Braga and found it to be equally interesting and very interesting. Braga takes a lot of shit for 'ruining' Trek but listening to the guy on this track he comes off as very knowledgeable about the franchise, very willing to acknowledge what works and what doesn't in the film and the series, and I can't help but think that fandom should cut this guy some slack. I would be interested to hear or see more from this guy in some form or another. Maybe he should write a tell-all book about his experiences with the franchise like everyone from the original cast.

Moore, as always, is a commentary dream. He is incredibly frank, well-spoken, funny and a compelling creative force. I used to love listening to his Galactica podcasts and this track was different only in its polish (the podcasts were recorded on Moore's laptop in his home). I also loved the fact that Moore couldn't stop referring to the movie as an episode until Braga finally stepped in and called him on it. Considering he went from writing the series, to writing the finale "All Good Things", to the Generations movie and then First Conact in quick succession, I can't really blame him. In my opinion, all the Next Generation movies feel like episodes to me. Sue me.

I also explored the BD for VI but it was pretty unremarkable so I'm not going to elaborate on that here and I haven't even touched IV yet so I'll leave my commentary here.

Live Long and Prosper!

mike

Boxing Day Shop-a-Thon

As per usual on Boxing Day, I and the rest of the family head out and grab some decent bargains on the kinds of things we enjoy: DVD/BD for me, electronics for the wife, games for the boy, and clothes for the girls.

Among my many other acquisitions, I finally managed to complete the Star Wars saga on DVD for very cheap. I have always had the prequel trilogy and the box set for the original trilogy, but when they last released the original trilogy in the two-disc packs with the theatrical releases included as a bonus disc, I only bought Episode IV. I felt the whole 'Han shot first' thing was important to have since the Special Edition version of events drive me batshit crazy. I passed on the other two, however, due to their few alterations and figured I would pick them up when they became available for a reasonable price (reasonable for a double or triple dip, anyway). Four years later, here we are.

One thing I have enjoyed about the box set and these discs is the fact that they are covered with different kinds of Star Wars art, poster or otherwise. The covers are photo mash-ups of the original poster art, then there is different poster art, or possibly production art, on the sleeve inside, and more art on the discs themselves. I remember there being a very expressionist style to the inserts on the box set. Just very nice efforts on the packaging, overall.

So, I now have one set of original trilogy on VHS and two on DVD, but I have a strong suspicion that the BD release in the next year or two will not include the theatricals as a bonus feature since George would rather they be forgotten, hence my desire to grab these while I still can.

Among my other boxing day treasures, I mostly upgraded many of my DVDs to BD versions. I always make sure there is something different about the BD before I do so, otherwise I just feel like a tool for spending money again. There has to be new features, or exclusive features or being totally remastered or something to justify it. So, I grabbed the X-Men trilogy, the first 30 Days of Night, Star Trek II, IV, VI & First Contact, V For Vendetta, The X-Files: I Want to Believe, Chocolat, Hellboy II, Terminator Salvation and a couple others I'm probably forgetting.

Also grabbed some books over the holiday season like Joe Sacco's Footnotes in Gaza, the second book in Stefan Petrucha's Timetripper series, and George Lucas' Blockbusting, which I've had my eye on for a while.

Oh, and Jen bought me Homicide: Life on the Street as my Christmas present this year. A good haul, overall.

Until next year!

mike

Send In the Clones

So, a little while ago I bought the first season of the Clone Wars animated series on Blu-Ray and apart from being just amazed with the overall quality of the presentation, I have kind of been rediscovering these early episodes and seeing them in a slightly new light.

Stories that seemed a little 'meh' on first viewing stand a little taller when watching them in a clump on this set. I've started to really appreciate the writing more, especially in light of where things have gone with the next season. I also think I've started appreciating their time and dollar budgets a little more and have been cutting them some slack for any early missteps. Again, when you see how far they've taken things in season two, you start to see these things from a certain point of view.

One of my favourite things that has really stood out have been the textures on the show. Everything from the characters skin to the sides of buildings and the clone armour have been textured in such a way that they have a very painterly feel to them. And when I made the connection between the crews love of early Star Wars production artwork and the look of Ralph Mcquarrie's artwork, it was like a lightning bolt to the head. Everything on the show is, essentially, a three dimensional, walking and talking Mcquarrie painting. It's great.

And there are so many other tiny details and minutia that make this show a truly underrated effort. I know it is popular, but it doesn't get talked about much outside of Star Wars fandom and the playground. I would actually love to see someone who has lost their Star Wars mojo post-prequels try this show out and see what they think of it, to be honest. I think they might be surprised.

Anyway, that's my Lucas-related post for the month.

As always, more later.

mike

Will the Disappointments Never Cease?

One of my most enjoyable moviegoing experiences this year involved going to Sam Raimi's Drag Me To Hell with a couple of friends at a second run theatre here in town. I figured I would enjoy the movie but had no idea just how much. Like almost all the critical reviews, I felt that Raimi had put together one of the best horror movies in the last ten years and effortlessly recaptured the low-budget scare-fest that introduced him to cinema goers across the world.

Today marked the release of Drag Me To Hell on DVD and Blu-Ray and, like a good little soldier, I went out and bought my copy (in Hi-Def since having a PS3 now means I have no excuse not to). On my lunch break, no less. I wanted to be able to grab my copy, get it home and not have to stop anywhere between the end of work and sliding that puppy into my PlayStation.

Browsing through the disc I discovered that, with the exception of some production diaries, there are no meaty features to speak of. No commentary (which I was pretty sure would be there), no sizable documentaries, just 30-odd minutes behind-the-scenes clips showing how they created the nose-bleed scene or the maggot scene. I should probably check if they're branching, now that I think about it, because that might make them a little more entertaining. But, the point is, this is a 50GB disc and that's all you have to offer?

Argh!

On the plus side, the video is flawless and the audio is source audio, so I don't regret the Blu-Ray purchase in the slightest. I'm especially looking forward to the movie night some friends and I are putting on where we'll watch it on a 52" plasma screen with the sound pumping out the roaring soundtrack. I just wish that there was a bit more in the extra features department to satisfy the features whore in me.

Anyway, watch the movie if you haven't, check out the DVD if you can.

Until next time...

mike