FF:QLD DVDs

Tried to find any more substantial information about that MST3K: 20 Anniversary Edition but I'm afraid my guess is no better than anyone else's. There doesn't seem to be any actual information on this besides its Amazon page...

Although a commenter on the Amazon page alleges that info re: this set will be released at Comic-Con 25 July.

 

2nd season of Voltron - they didn't have the first :S

 

Cursed be the JB "Buy 2 Get 1 Free" sale, for it means I now have all of The X-Files plus the movie.

I hear I may regret purchasing Seasons 8 & 9, but since I never watched them, I figured I needed to see them for myself.

We'll see how much I can power through before the movie, which sadly means putting Stargate on hold.

Be seeing you,

Magnus Darcrider

 

I recently sat through seasons 8&9 (after owning them for over a year) and they do have some good episodes.

Worth owning for 'jump the shark' if nothing else. Maybe 'Sunshine days" too. Oh, and if you do truly like the x-files, don't watch "the truth".

I wish I hadn't.

 

Chris Carter called an episode "Jump The Shark"? I just found some respect for the series. I might have to try to get back into it...

 

I have a soft spot for any/all eps involving Morris Fletcher.

 

I became a Michael McKean fan from that one role alone (at least in a guest-role-spotting, "hey, yeah, it's that guy from the body-switching X-Files episode" capacity). When I learned he was David St. Hubbins from Spinal Tap, this pretty much elevated him to demigod status.

 

WANTTTTTTT

This is why I held off buying the regular boxes

 

That, my murderous little moppets, is an excellent deal. I heartily endorse the purchase of this product.

Be seeing you,

Magnus Darcrider

 

Got the set of Speed racer for about 25 at Target yesterday. Not sure if that was a reduced price or not, and am hesitant for a revisit, but I think I owe it to the kid to at least show him this. If only to explain why I got so excited by the springing car sound in the movie!

 

Bender's Game is up for pre-order on Amazon.

It won't get released 'til November 4th though. Ah well.

Be seeing you,

Magnus Darcrider

 

Picked up season 1 of The Sarah Connor Chronicles last week. It's pretty lousy as a set; no only do you get the tragically truncated 9-episode season with crappy menus and packaging, but there's no extras of any kind whatsoever. I really wanted some commentaries from the people behind the show. Here's hoping it takes off properly with season 2 and we get a proper set. There's no excuse not to, with the buzz for Terminator Salvation building the way it is.

I just finished watching the 6th episode, and it really truly is where the series takes off. Prior to that it's kind of "eh, whatever", just good enough to keep you watching, but feeling somewhat small and pedestrian. But then with #6, the introduction of Derek Reese and the flashbacks to the future, it suddenly gets real good, real fast. I'm hoping for big things in 3 weeks when the new season starts.

 

I just finished watching The Mysterious Cities of Gold box set which I got last Monday. I have to admit I was afraid that this show wouldn't stand the test of time. However to my delight it was still a great watch. As one of the producers of the show says on the extra's on disk four... No matter how good or bad the animation or camera work for that matter, if the makers of the show did so with passion for the story and characters then any show with such attributes will always last through out the years. Gotta say, The Cities of Gold is one them.

 

Mysterious Cities of Gold is out?? How'd that slip past my radar?? I see a soundtrack CD comes with a JB purchase, and the local release is comparable to other regions, so guess where I'm going this afternoon?

I actually picked up the Terminator - The Sarah Connor Chronicles set as well BBN, however that part of my brain that keeps track of region differences in DVD releases prevented me from opening the shrinkwrap until I checked it out on line. The R1 version is better (seriously, why do they bother making differences between regions sets of the same product??) so I took it back and have just ordered the set from Amazon.

What I didn't take back however was a little movie by Lawrence Kasdan called Mumford, and a cheap copy of the Alien Quadrilogy set. So finally I have actually DVD copies of Alien and Aliens in my house. To balance that out, I have copies of Alien3 and Alien Resurrection in my house as well...I will give them another chance though before I consign them to coaster status however.

Mumford is a neat little film about an unorthodox psychiatrist in the town of the movie's title. The reason I know of it is that it has a decent portrayal of a character with chronic fatigue syndrome in it, but outside of that it's a goo film.

Also, the Amazon Fairy left a little package for me this morning. I got my copy of Stargate: Continuum finally (since I'm still working through Stargate, no huge hassle). I also got:

Batman - Gotham Knight; I hear the commentary track is neat, and Kevin Conroy as Batman is always a happy day.
Stargate Atlantis - The Complete Fourth Season
Birds of Prey - The Complete Series; A good idea that went horribly wrong, and the reason why I'm not watching DVDs of a Starman series in this day and age. However it has it's good points (intriguing premise, neat soundtrack, hot cast) and some good extras.
Early Edition - The First Season; Man gets newspaper one day early, goes out and fights crime. Charming show.

Be seeing you,

Magnus Darcrider

 

Wow, I remember Early Edition.

I've increased my Voltron Collection. Now just missing the first and last.

JB has a nice box of 12 Kingdoms, I've got to get that at some stage.

 

The R1 version is better

I am filled with an unbridled and burning rage once more. What does it have that our POS edition doesn't?

 

I hear 12 Kingdoms is good, so worth the pickup.

According to TVshowsondvd.com, the R1 set has:

- "Creating the Chronicles" featurette - an all-encompassing look at the production process involved with every aspect of bringing Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles to television.
- Commentaries - includes executive producers Josh Freidman & John Wirth, cast members Summer Glau & Thomas Dekker, and more.
- Terminated Scenes (i.e. deleted scenes)
- Gag Reel
- Cast Audition Tapes - includes Lena Headey, Thomas Dekker, and Richard T. Jones
- Storyboard Animatic - featuring the storyboard sequence of the school session where Cromartie attacks and John narrowly escapes
- Summer Glau Dance Rehearsal
- Extended Director's Cut of Episode The Demon Hand

I know we get the deleted scenes for the R4. The featurette is the standard 30ish minutes for these sorts of things, but I'm curious to know more about the behind the scenes for this show. It's apparently cheaper to make than it looks, and if you'd told the teenage me who was enamoured with Terminator 2 nearly 15 years ago that there'd be a Terminator TV series in my 20s, I'd have laughed cos of the technical limitations.

There are only three commentaries on the set, but considering this is an abbreviated first season show that was a surprise hit, I'm not surprised at the "lightness" of extras.

I can understand your rage BBN, and I'm sorry that I didn't get to you sooner.

be seeing you,

Magnus Darcrider

 

I watched 12 Kingdoms while I was in Spain and fell in love with the series, so I really would like to get the box set, and it is really really shiny.

 

My copy of The Sarah Connor Chronicles should be here in a few weeks. I'll be happy to lend it out to the victims of this cowardly attack on Australian soil.

BBN, I feel your pain. I recently picked up the entire run of Deadwood, only to learn the commentaries and documentaries recorded for the DVDs were off-limits to non-Americans. It's a real shame. The characters and dialogue of Deadwood are crafted with such purpose. I would have loved to hear what the creators had to say about the creative process.

Chances are it's only a mundane rights issue, but it's hard not to entertain the idea of censorship. If the show itself drops the word "c--------r" every 6-10 seconds, imagine how colourful those commentaries must have been to get cut.

 

Thanks HB, that would be great. Who knows, maybe the commentaries are crap, but I just really want to get some insight on the process of adapting the Terminator mythos to TV, which they've done a bang-up job of.

Why, why, why do they do this? Do all those chunky interviews and commentaries add to the shipping weight of the discs, making them prohibitively expensive to ship over to us poor schlubs on the other side of the Pacific? Argh...

 

My guess (and it is only guesswork): many PAL and NTSC releases are created independantly from scratch, and getting the content/rights might not always be practical from the UK publisher's point of view. If anyone has (or can find) a justified explanation for the Disappearing Extras phenomenon, please let me know.

I've just started The West Wing season one. (A happy side effect of buying several gifts from JB's recent 3-for-2 sale. Owning the damn thing was just about the only way I could motivate myself to watch a White House drama.) Just a couple of episodes in, I already know the remaining six seasons will be joining my collection in a matter of months.

When people praised Aaron Sorkin's writing, I expected a fundamental intelligence and good humour to the scripts. What I wasn't expecting was a bizarre, rapid-fire offshoot of the English language. It's so dense and quick-witted that even a second's distraction could leave you trailing behind.

Stylistically, it couldn't be further from Deadwood, but it really reminds me of that potty-mouthed Western. In both cases, the showrunner fine-tuned character and dialogue to perfection, giving the series a vernacular and voice entirely its own. SOLD.

 

Picked up the R4 release of Battlestar Galactica: Razor today - got it with a snazzy little keyring which is going to pull double duty as a card protecter at the weekly poker games. According to the box cover, it has the webisodes, a commentary by RDM, and some deleted scenes. I wonder if we got screwed again on the version that got released... I'll find out when I sit down and watch it later. I still refuse to buy the slop that passes for Battlestar Galactica Season 3 on region 4 - I'm a discerning features fan and I want my bonus features Gods-frakkin-damnit! If local distributors won't put those commentaries and deleted scenes on there, I'm just going to have to go to Burn Direct.

 

Speed Racer actually holds up okay. YEY

 

Voltron held up well too
Well, that unexplained change in colour STILL bothers me but I'll learn to deal with it.

 

Colour change? You mean random animation colour changes per episode, or something more consistent? Still, I'm pleased though surprised that Voltron held up. I'd like to investigate this myself at some future juncture.

In other news, I picked up Dexter - Season 2 and The Mysterious Cities of Gold last week. Dexter came in a neat forensics bag with other props that'll be useful for staging a crime scene at some future time or faking it that I'm a detective at some future point when I need to get my gumshoe on. Second season is an improvement over the first with some neat and truly disturbing stuff going on.

The Mysterious Cities of Gold set is expansive enough that it feels like it's a worthy tribute to the greatness of this old cartoon. And there's a soundtrack. And a boatload of extras. This'll fill the time as I wait for employers to call me back.

Currently, I'm trying to hunt down the 3 disc edition of The Wizard of Oz. The R1 version is out of print, but the R4 version is identical by all accounts, and probably cheaper too, so that'll be good. It'll tide me over 'til I get news of a Wicked movie; which incidentally the musical was good, but a movie would iron out the problems that the novel and the musical both had (hopefully).

Be seeing you,

Magnus Darcrider