ROTS musical DVD review

DVDfile has posted a review of the DVD that comes packaged with the soundtrack. Check it out:

http://www.dvdfile.com/software/review/dvd-video_11/starwarsmusicaljourney.html

 

Has anyone else viewed the DVD yet? Any other reviews of it?

 

Does ANYONE here know what will be the DVD's zone and format? Will it be available for Zone2/PAL??

PLEASE!!!

 

If you buy it in Zone 2, you will be able to play it... I haven't heard anything about a country not getting it. My version even came with subtitles in German, French and English (and maybe some other, but I didn't pay too much attention). I guess it's RC 0, like many general music titles.

And maybe I'll get around to write a review... Quick impressions are, A Hero Falls (Battle of the Heroes) is the best clip, some editing on the OT clips is cheesy (at worst including 2D-pictures with effects that make me cringe) and the introductions by Ian McDiarmid are somewhat painful to watch, as he looks like an actor who plays a narrator. The text, by the way, sounds like it's coming from a visual dictionary... I'll try seeing the whole disc without the intros again, but my first opinion is, they missed the chance to really re-tell the SW-saga and instead only re-told the parts that fit the concert music. There's a real imbalance between OT and PT music.
So, in the end, it's a nice bonus, but it's not a piece that would be worth the price alone. Like a bag of popcorn, maybe. Or does that sound too harsh?

 

That is harsh. I mean it was FREE!

 

nathanelm, it's labelled as all zones, NTSC.

I was underwhelmed by the "new" footage accompanying BotH, but that's because I've been thoroughly spoiled by the trailer and the footage released so far But overall, it's a good keepsake, something I wouldn't mind re-watching in a year or two. For a free DVD, that's better than nothing IMO.

 

Thanks, man.

Has anyone seen the special "Amazon.co.uk slipcase cover"? What's it like?

 

Personally I thought the bonus DVD was a waste. There was no flow to the video clips used. It just feels thrown together. There is no order to how things are edited. It's like they just took a bunch of cool clips and edited them together... oh and here's this cool music. The Across the Stars bit was good though.

Overall I am glad it was free because otherwise it would have been a waste of money. I'll probably never watch it again.

 

Personally I thought the bonus DVD was a waste. There was no flow to the video clips used. It just feels thrown together. There is no order to how things are edited. It's like they just took a bunch of cool clips and edited them together... oh and here's this cool music. The Across the Stars bit was good though.

Overall I am glad it was free because otherwise it would have been a waste of money. I'll probably never watch it again.

Agreed Ian McDarmid looks as if he`s reading cue cards,the music is roughly thrown together...

 

That's a good apprentice.

//gives drac a dollar//

 

The DVD did its job well, but I felt it was stupid how they kept throwing bits of unconnected footage together...

I mean, naboo battle in "The Forest Battle"? WTH?

It was obvious that they were just looking for filler in these tracks. But how much better would the DVD have been if they had thrown in some orchestra footage, ala Duel of the fates origional clip?

 

I think the worth of the piece depends on the audience involved. For someone looking for a very general overview of the STAR WARS saga, it's an enjoyable enough ride. It whets the appetite and doesn't spoil too much (of Episode III--though people who've never seen any STAR WARS at all would definitely not want to start their STAR WARS experience with this DVD).

Even those who have seen the films once or twice--casual fans--might well find it a nifty trip. Pure music fans--people who perhaps are John Williams fans first and not really that interested in the films--will enjoy it on the level of a concert performance.

But it does nothing to explain what Williams' real impact on the series is all about. The viewer gets only the most superficial of understandings that his music provides a narrative function, without really delving into how this has been achieved over the years. Indeed, the DVD does this a disservice by splicing together scenes that were never meant to be underscored by the music being played.

If you take it for what it is--a kind of video version of a "program guide" that you'd get if you went to the opera--you'll enjoy it. I'm tempted to say that, on that basis, it's even kind of a cool idea. But if you think you're getting something more akin to a documentary, you'll be much more disappointed.

It's pretty pictures set to pretty music, with a somewhat eerie narration given by the man who's the villain of the piece. And so it's fun--nothing more, nothing less.

 

My biggest problem with the DVD was that it wasn't really an overview of the saga. Instead, it felt more like an OT nostalgia piece. Four prequel tracks compared to over a dozen or so OT tracks? Meh.

 

I liked it but it was like "ok, I could do a whole lot better,."

 

I agree with Emperors prize. Many of those themes were played in the prequels as well, but they didn't use any footage from the prequels.

 

I enjoyed the DVD immensely, but not for the video content (though some of the RotS footage was pretty awesome). What really got me was the remixes of the OT music.

The material from ESB, particularly the IM and the Asteroid Field, was given new life, in my opinion. For example: in the ESB:SE soundtrack, 2:03 into Asteroid Field, one can indistinctly hear a concert A coming from the horn section. On the DVD, you can tell that they're actually double-tongueing and their spatial location in the mix is far more specific. The xylophone is also significantly sharper, among other sundry improvements.

The whole thing is more like a commercial for ProTools, or whatever genius remastering scheme they have going on over there. So my question is: why didn't they perform the remastering for the whole OT with the re-release of the soundtracks with the Trilogy DVDs?