Welcome to this week’s DVD Diggers... our last best hope for my absurd ramblings.
I’ve been trying to understand the concept of slipcovers for DVDs lately. It seems more and more DVDs are coming out in standardized packaging (thank god snapper cases have gone the way of the dinosaur), but new releases get a slipcase that acts as a sleeve for the DVD case.
Sometimes these cases make sense - they offer a foil or holographic version of the cover art for the DVD, like Finding Nemo or The Day After Tomorrow. More recently, the slipcover has just been to provide raised surfaces on the case’s artwork, like raised letters or characters.
This is made even worse on releases like this week’s Wild at Heart. Early looks at the artwork made it appear the slipcover had snakeskin artwork with a heart shaped window to show the original artwork that’s on the cover of the disc’s case. That’s not how the execution ended up though. Instead you have a slipcover with snakeskin print, with a heart shaped section with the images that were originally supposed to show through. Other than adding the snakeskin print, which could easily have been printed on the DVD case’s artwork, there’s no purpose for the slipcase other than extraneous packaging, so why bother?
Bah, enough about extra, useless packaging. Let’s move on to this week’s new releases...
TV on DVD
The final, final chapter of my favorite science fiction franchise comes to DVD with the release of “Crusade” - The Complete Series. As “Babylon 5” fans know, “Crusade” was set up as a sequel series that went bad quick. Thanks to constant meddling by TNT, who until that time had been the savior of “Babylon 5”, “Crusade” was a nightmare: episodes were aired out of order, the request was made to punch up the action, and production was stopped in the middle of the thirteen episodes they managed to make so some reengineering could occur (change in uniforms, etc).
This isn’t the first show to have this sort of treatment by a network, and the DVD release of these type series are typically a fantastic thing. The DVD format allows creators to put the series back in the order they want them in and to add commentary tracks explaining where the show might have gone differently if outside intervention hadn’t been a problem. I know many fans of “Babylon 5” who didn’t care much for “Crusade”, but I wasn’t one of them. I’ve been dearly waiting for this set to come out, and it’s unfortunate that my schedule won’t let me review it in more detail.
A less complicated series that received support from its studio is “Gargoyles” which sees the release of its first season this week. This is another must buy for me. The hype surrounding the show when it first came out focused primarily on the voice work being done by former “Star Trek: The Next Generation” cast members Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis. The voice work definitely shouldn’t be overlooked, and not limited just to those two - other voices are provided by Edward Asner, Keith David, John Rhys-Davis, Clancy Brown, Tim Curry... the list goes on and on. However, the story of the Gargoyles - flesh by night and stone by day - is quite a good one, not to mention the story has an overall arc, which is always a plus to me.
There Is No Spoon
The big release this week is the Ultimate Matrix Collection, which brings all three movies into one ten disc collection. At first glance, this is quite an incredible set, with each movie taking up a disc, and there being a supplementary disc as each movie is “Revisited”. Also included is “The Animatrix” collection of Matrix anime which, if you do the math, brings the set to a total of seven discs. The remaining discs offer supplementary material on tons of different aspects of the world around the Matrix movies, and creating that world. If you’re willing to fork out the extra cash, you can buy the Limited Edition of the Collection, which features a neat case for the movies, and a bust of Neo.
I have to admit, I’m seriously torn on this one. After all, half of the set has already been released in stand alone versions (the three films, The Animatrix, and The Matrix Revisited). I really enjoyed Revisited and would like to see what the other movies’ Revisited discs have to offer. I’m one of the few who really loved the Matrix sequels so seeing as much as I can from behind the scenes appeals to me.
On the other hand, the reason this set looks so great is because, as an audience, we were shorted on the DVD releases for all three Matrix flicks. Originally it was rumored that at least one of the films in this set would be an expanded version of the movie, but that has proven to be just a rumor. With the exact same versions of the movies as are already out, it’s really just the bonus features that make this set interesting, making it one of the most expensive double dips out there. What’s worse, is that if it’s true that it’s possible for there to be alternate or extended versions of the movies, there’s only more dipping to be done in the future.
The irony in all of this, of course, is that the philosophy of The Matrix movies had to do with material fixations, and that none of these things were important. So Warner Brothers is cashing in on a franchise that teaches you “there is no spoon”. The solution to this is easy - in my DVD library, “there is no set”.
Sorry Neo. Leave a message and the white rabbit will get back to you.
Got questions?
SUBMIT A SCOOP
