Called Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs it’s down for a 1st of July cinematic release (at least it’s not straight to DVD). Check out the trailer below for a first peek.

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Ice Age 3 Trailer

The Family Guy universe was created by Seth MacFarlane, who you might also know as the creator of American Dad. It seems that Seth is multi-talented, originally trained as an animator he’s now also listed as a comedian, actor, screenwriter, producer, voice actor and composer. Originally aired in the states in September 1999, the series hasn’t had a smooth ride. To date it’s been cancelled twice and is the first series to be recommissioned due to DVD sales. Having survived these scares, the series has gone on to great success and now consists of six seasons totalling 106 episodes.

It seems that, like me, Seth is a big fan of sci-fi, and particular Star Wars. In the first five seasons of Family Guy there are a number of Star Wars gags that eventually led Fox to insist that MacFarlane open dialogue with Lucasfilm in case they got sued. Thankfully George’s sense of humour, teamed with a son who loves Family Guy lead to a relationship developing between the two teams. Eventually MacFarlane pitched the idea of doing an entire Star Wars themed Family guy episode, and amazingly it got the green light, and so we come to Family Guy Presents Blue Harvest. Blue Harvest is a reference to the code name used for the production of Return of the Jedi. Apparently when people heard that locations were to be used in a Star Wars production, people would turn up in there thousands potentially ruining shots that were supposed to be in deserted forests. The Return of the Jedi the production was therefore called ‘Blue Harvest’ instead so no-one would know.

Family Guy Presents Blue Harvest was originally an hour long episode. With the adverts removed and some footage restored that was too risqué for television, it now runs at approximately 48 minutes. That’s pretty short for a DVD with a retail price of £15.99 for the standard edition. On initial screening this episode was the second most-watched Family Guy episode ever behind the episode ‘North by North Quahog’ which is included on the DVD as an extra, and it does really need it to make it a more substantial release.

On to the main feature itself. The episode starts with the family watching TV when there’s a power failure. What to do with no TV! It’s suggested that they sit and tell stories and so Peter offers to tell the story of Star Wars, Family Guy style! We then cut to the familiar Star Wars back story rolling up the screen, only it’s not the text we know and love, it’s a new humorous Family Guy version. We then cut to the blockade runner being pursued by an imperial star destroyer over Tatooine. The animation of the space shots is impressive and is obviously CGI, which makes it stand out from the normal character animation. It does serve to give the episode a grander feel though, setting it apart from other episodes.

The story unfolds just as the original Episode IV story does. We’re introduced to all of the main characters that we know and love, but this time they’re played by Family Guy characters. Most of the main Star Wars characters are played by Griffun family members Princess Leia is played by Lois, Luke Skywalker by Chris, Han Solo by Peter, Chewbacca by Brian and an excellent piece of casting sees Stewie as Darth Vader. Lesser family guy characters take on the other major Star Wars roles, Glenn Quagmire as C-3PO, Cleveland Brown as R2-D2 and Herbert (commonly known as Herbert the pervert, who secretly lusts after Chris) as Obi-Wan Kenobi. The only really missing main character is Meg, who makes a very brief appearance as the monster in the garbage shute.

The plot follows the film pretty accurately but can shoot off at a funny family guy tangent at any time. It never really shoots off on too much of a tangent and the funny bits are brief diversions from the story of Star Wars as we know it. You do get the feeling that they could have pushed the envelope a bit more, but as this was a Lucasfilm approved project they probably didn’t want to bite the hand that feeds them. Due to the ratings success that Blue Harvest proved I’m sure they want to do parodies of the other films in the series at a future date.

We’re certainly not short of funny moments in this extended episode and I can think of several laugh out loud moments. Watch out in particular for the scene where Luke first meets Leia in the detention block of the Death Star and the escape from the garbage compactor, this time with an extra item! The animation of the space sequences stands out, as does the music score. As an officially sanctioned project MacFarlane also got permission to use the original music score, which as a Star Wars fan, makes it an even better parody. Whilst sticking to the main plot like glue, they also managed to work in a good number of jokes, so you’re never far from another laugh, chuckle or chortle.

Whether this warrants a separate release is another thing. This episode aired as the 1st episode of the sixth series (televised series, not DVD box set seasons. For some reason what’s sold as season 6 DVD is actually season 5). What I don’t know at this point is whether the version in the series box set will have all the additional footage added in, or whether it’ll be the originally screened version. Big Family Guy fans will buy the series box set. This release does include a lot of extras that won’t be on the series release, but whether that warrants an extra purchase I’ll leave up the individual fan.

The extras included in this release are:

• Commentary by Seth MacFarlane, Patrick Clark, Mike Elias, David Goodman, Joseph Lee, Dominic Polcino, Danny Smith, Alec Sulkin, and Kara Vallow
• A conversation with George
• Once in a lifetime: the making of blue harvest
• Animatic Version
• Family Guy Star Wars clip show
• 3D blue harvest scene
• Something Something Something Darkside teaser
• Introduction to Family Guy
• Bonus Family Guy Episode: North by North Quahog

I’m not a particular fan of commentaries, but I’m not against them either. With the unwatched stack of DVDs I’ve got at the moment I rarely find the time to watch a film through once AND then go back and watch it again with some people talking over the top. Whilst there are a couple of interesting things mentioned in the commentary, in my opinion there are too many people involved which makes it difficult to determine who’s saying what. There’s some repetition of things said in the conversation with George Lucas as well, which is well worth watching. Other extras that stand out are the making of Blue Harvest, which is a half hour feature with interviews from the major people involved in the project, and the bonus family guy episode North by North Quahog.

Overall as both a fan of Star Wars and now Family Guy I have to say that I loved watching Blue Harvest. I’m not sure how much replay value it has, the jokes are great the first time round, but less so the second. I think I maybe need to wait a while before watching it again so I can forget a few of the gags. The picture quality is great, the original Star Wars score and sound effects make the audio fantastic and the extras were pretty good. If you’re going to buy the DVD box set (should be season 7) that contains this episode then you’ll have to decide whether or not it warrants the extra purchase or whether you can wait ‘till the season 7 box set is out (could be a while, as it’s been affected by the writers strike). For me it was the best Family Guy episode I’ve seen.

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Family Guy Presents: Blue Harvest, DVD Review

James P. Sullivan (Sulley) and Mike Wazowski work for Monsters, Inc., the leading energy company in the monster world. Energy they get by scaring human children and converting the screams into power for light, cars and everything lse that makes their world run smoothly. However, there’s a power shortage, kids aren’t so easy to scare these days, and things are looking grim for the future so the pressure is on everyone to keep those children screaming.

At Monsters, Inc. they have a copy of every childs bedroom closet door, which can be used as a gateway into the room at night to scare the kids. Sulley, an enormous blue monster with orange spots, is their top scarer and Mike, a little green eyeball on legs, is his Scare Assistant, best pal and room mate.

One day, after a pretty hectic shift and while Mike rushes off on a date, Sulley accidentally lets a human child, which as every monster knows is one of the most toxic and disease ridden things known and a source of pure terror to any sane monster, into their world.

The movie follows the hilarious antics of Sulley and Mike as they try to return the little girl to the human world while avoiding such obstacles as the CDA (Child Detection Agency), their own co-workers and the rest of the monster world.

Review

The team that brought us Toy Story have done it again with Monsters, Inc. This is one excellent animated feature with loads of humour for both kids and adults.

Casting is excellent with the voices of John Goodman as Sulley; Billy Crystal as Mike; Steve Buscemi as Randall Bogs, the main villain of the piece; Jennifer Tilly as Celia Mae, Mike’s medusa girlfriend and the late James Coburn as Henry J. Waternoose III, CEO of Monsters, Inc.

The animation is superb and Pixar have improved the technology since previous productions. Things you’ld take for granted in a live motion film are fast becoming possible with todays technology such as lifelike fur and clothing that reacts realistically to motion and weather effects, including even the settling on of snowflakes in a blizzard.

Given that the movie is a comedy and mainly intended for children, the humour is excellent and pretty well balanced with lots of little bits that can be appreciated by adults as well. An absolutely excellent movie.

Audio/Video

This is a THX certified production so you pretty much be sure picture and sound are excellent. The Setup section comes with the THX Optimizer, which allows you to set up your sound and picture for the best effect.

The picture is presented in 1.85:1 Anamorphic widescreen and is absolutely crystal clear with vibrant colours throughout. The sound options are Dolby Digital Surround or DTS 5.1 and is very good. They used something called binaural recording, of which there are some samples in the extras, to give you a feel of being right in there.

Extras

The Collector’s Edition is a two-disc production so there are loads of extras…

Disc 1

• Audio Commentary by Pete Docter, Lee Unkrich, John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton – This is pretty good although,a s there are four them, it’s quite difficult to tell who is saying what.
• Trailer for Finding Nemo, which is the partnership’s next movie for release in 2003 and it looks pretty good.
• 5.1 Surround Sound Effects Mix, which allows you to listen to the movie minus voice and music, just the sound effects.

Disc 2

This is all extras, with a short introduction by some of the team giving a guide to the two main routes through the material.

Outtakes – As shown through the end credits, these were obviously specially produced and are a set of pretty high quality snips that add some extra comic moments.

Mike’s New Car – An animated short film, featuring Mike and Sulley. last about three and a hald minutes and is pretty funny.

For The Birds – Another animated short, which was shown in the UK theatres alongf with the movie. It’s pretty short at three minutes but it’s hilarious and won Best Animated Short Film prize at the 2001 Academy Awards.

Human Door – Behind this door, you’re in the door vault and there are more doors to look into…

• Tour – This is a 20 minute combination of some of the material in this area.
• Pixar – This contains the Pixar Fun Factory Tour – A three and a half minute piece introducing the team and a short tour of the Pixar studios and an Easter Egg.
• Story – Over 36 minutes of material on how the story was developed. Includes story boards, deleted scenes and a childs picture book concept of the original story line.
• Monster Files – About seven and a half minutes of stuff on the cast and what makes a great monster. Includes a gallery of character design artwork.
• Design – A guide to Monstropolis and the set designs used in the movie. Includes six galleries of images, a virtual fly through of five of the sets used, how they dressed the sets and a guide to some of the “in” jokes used on the sets.
• Animation – Over 20 minutes of detailed information on the techniques and technology used to animate the characters, clothing and weather effects
• Music and Sound – Goodman and Crytal recording the Monster Song, a piece on the sound design and information and examples of the binaural recording techniques used.
• Release – All the promotional material such as the US premiere, trailers and TV spots, outtakes (again), a poster gallery, how they changed the English signs and voices to accomodate international releases and a multi-language clip reel with samples of over 30 languages they used.

Monster Door – Behind this door, the material is more monster oriented…

• New Monster Adventures – A range of short animations and games such as Mike’s New Car (again); Monster TV Treats; Ponkickies 21; Boo’s Door Game; Welcome to Monstropolis, an animated interactive comic and a music video.
• Behind The Screams – Outtakes (again), a 23 page amusing programme to accompany the company play “Put That Thing back Where It Came From!” and a special, on the job report on the energy shortage with Mike and Sulley explaining how Monsters, Inc is helping make thing better.
• Orientation – You’re a new employee of Monsters, Inc. and here’s all the information you’ll need to get through your first day such as the welcome speech, the short tour, the history, the employee handbook and everyones ultimate goal – the Monster of the Month gallery.

Overview

Disney and Pixar have done it again! This is a marvellous film and the complete DVD package is excellent.

I’m not sure how long folk will be impressed with the amount of detail or volume of information provided in extras of this quality but this is definately a “Get it while it’s hot!” package.

Highly recommended!

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Monsters Inc, DVD Review

I ended up missing it at the cinema and when news of the DVD Special Edition came out, I was in two minds whether or not to get it. Eventually I decided to give it a shot. To tell the truth, I think I’m just a sucker for Collectors Editions and Box Sets. I just can’t resist those flash shiny boxes. So now that it’s here I’m actually glad that I bought it. I’ll tell you why in a moment, but first some disk details.

Plot

After a long and wonderfully animated opening scene (I won’t got into details, but if you’ve seen the trailer then you know already), an Iguanodon egg ends up on a remote island inhabited by a group of Lemurs. The lemurs take the Dinosaur in and name him Aladar; they raise it as their own. Years later a meteor storm forces them to leave the Island and escape to the mainland.

Lost in a strange new land they come across a herd of various Herbivore dinosaurs that are trying to find a green and fertile land where they can settle. They join the herd and soon find that things are quite different to life on the island. The herd needs to move as fast as it can as they are being pursued by a pair of vicious Carnotaur’s.

Audio / Video

The disk comes with a 1.85:1 Anamorphic[Widescreen format picture. If you’ve seen the Toy Story or Bugs Life DVD releases then you’ll know what to expect from a direct digital transfer. If you haven’t seen these transfers then let me promise you that they provide the best picture quality you’ve ever seen on a DVD. Dinosaur is not exception to this rule. Because this is a direct digital transfer you can forget terms like film scratches or marks on the print. You just need take a good look at one of the close ups of a lemur and see the detail level on it’s hair to see how good this picture quality is.

This review is based on the DTS 5.1 audio track on the disk. The soundtrack is excellent and utilise all the speaker channels to a great extent. All dialogue is perfectly crisp and clear and the musical score is very dramatic and effective. The LFE (Subwoofer) channel gets a good pounding in places, in particular the meteor storm sequence.

Extras

What are the extras like on this disk? Well how long have you got? Seriously this two disk set is packed with extra, I’ll try to be as brief as possible otherwise this review will just go on an on.

Disk 1

The first Audio Commentary feature is from the Directors, Visual Effects Supervisor and Digital Effects Supervisor This is a very good commentary track with loads of insight into the various methods used to film each scene and also plenty of background info on the scripting, plot development etc. One of the things that struck me was the amount of locations throughout the world that were used in this film. They explain how during the opening sequence with the eggs journey, they switch from one location to another and then another, very impressive.

The second Audio Commentary features a host of Production Team members. The commentary is host by Producer Pam Marsden who introduces each commentary member outlining their roles and responsibilities in the film. I actually enjoyed this second commentary more than the first one as it gave far more information about the processes used in the making of this film.

Film Fact Fossil Dig is a collection of behind the scenes features that you can view in several different ways. You can have a fossil icon appear on screen while you watch the film. Selecting this icon will bring up the featurette relevant to that particular scene. Alternatively you can watch all of the featurette’s separately via the extras menu. Finally you can watch the featurette’s via the chapter selections.

The remaining extras on Disk one are aimed squarely at children. They consist of games and information pages that are narrated by an extremely annoying American kid. They include Aladars Adventure a point and click adventure game set in the cave scene. Dinosearch is a basic find the pieces of the Dinosaur game. Finally Dinopedia uses the same annoying narrator to give some Palaeontological information about the Dinosaurs featured in the film.

Disk 2

Disk 2 starts up with a rather cool alternative version of the early Carnotaur chase scene. Once this has finished your presented with the main menu in the form of a PC on a desk, the options are selectable from the monitor. The main menu is split into six categories, these are:

Development
Creating the Characters
The Production Process
Music & Sound
Abandoned Scenes
Publicity

Each of these menus branches of into sub categories that contain video clips, featurettes, still photos, animations and more. There really is too much here to go into heavy detail on as the review would go on forever. Suffice to say, there is a lot of material here if you want it.

I also noticed several Easter Eggs on this second DVD that contain deleted scenes and some short extract from old Disney productions hosted by Walt Disney himself.

Overall

Having now watched it several times I think that the reviews I had read were being rather unfair. I personally enjoyed it very much, it’s not the greatest Disney ever as far as plot goes, but it certainly stands up well. The story seems to start off as your basic Tarzan type plot but soon develops into something more. It is of course your standard good against evil story, but then again so is Star Wars.

The effects have to be seen to be believed, the combination of real footage with CG Dinosaurs works faultlessly and there’s plenty of interaction between the CG and the backgrounds to make the whole thing more realistic. I have to say that I was more impressed with the animation of the Lemurs than the Dino’s. Not that there’s anything wrong with the Dino animation, but the level of detail on the small Mammals faces and the way the body hair reacts to the environment (wind, rain etc.) is incredible.

So, any complaints? Well as far as the film goes the one character that irritated me was the small Dinosaur that was styled to act like a dog would with a lapping tongue, fetching sticks etc. Considering that the rest of the characters were obviously fairly true to current Dinosaur theories (apart from talking of course) this one just didn’t seem to fit.

The other problem I had the first time I watched it was that I just couldn’t get my head around Dinosaurs talking. It wasn’t so bad on the second viewing because I’d accepted it. Luckily none of the Dinosaurs ever burst into song during the film, I think
it would have been just too much for me if they had.

One other thing to watch out for is player compatibility problems. I know that there have been several reports of this special edition not working on certain DVD players. I watched it on a Pioneer 525, and I had some issues with it. Although the film played fine, I couldn’t pause it or skip chapters while it was playing. It also took me several attempts to remove the captions when playing in DTS mode.

I would recommend this disk set to anyone, especially if you have young children. The effects are gobsmackingly awesome and the Digital Transfer more than does this justice. The audio quality is exceptional and the disks are packed with features for both adults and children alike.

The only things to be concerned about are any compatibility problems you may have with your player and suitability for very young children. The film is actually rated PG and there are some scenes of mild violence, but hey it’s a Dinosaur movie after all.

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Dinosaur, DVD Review

Review

I’ve always been a big fan of the Pixar films, right from the original Toy Story. While this is partly down to the superb imagery and the way they bring such artificial worlds to life, it’s also down to the great level of humour in their films. Although on a basic level they appear to be children’s films, there’s always so many levels to the humour involved that they can be enjoyed by anyone.

With this in mind I was very surprised that I wasn’t exactly blow away by Monsters Inc, it just didn’t seem to have the depth of previous titles. Although the right elements were potentially there, in that it was by far the best looking Pixar film to date (at the time) and there were plenty of gags and film spoofs. It just seemed considerably more childish than previous released, it also didn’t help the both Shrek and Ice Age were around the same time and I felt these were both much better films.

It was with some relief then that I discovered that Finding Nemo was a real return to form for Pixar. The film does look stunning with a real feel of an underwater environment, the way light trickles through from the surface and everything undulates under the current is a joy to watch. I also found it really funny with some great set pieces and very strong characters. Dory played by Ellen De Genre is definitely the star of the film, Ellen plays the dizzy forgetful fish perfectly.

There are many great characters here including the fish loving sharks (“Fish are friends, not food”), the thrill seeking, surfer dude turtles and all the inhabitants of the dentists tank that Nemo find himself in. Essentially this is the same formula as all previous Pixar films in that it’s a buddy movie, but that doesn’t really matter, when it’s done this well. I’m so happy to see Pixar return to form and I look forward to the release of The Incredibles now

Video/Audio

I am to be truthful quite stunned by the amount of reviews around that sing the praises of the video quality on this disk, as I personally think it is awful. Before explaining myself let me go through the video details. Disk 1 contains a 1.78:1 Anamorphic version of the film while Disk 2 contains a 4:3 cropped version. Although I’ve stated that the video quality is awful it’s only for one particular reason. In many respects it’s superb with rich vibrant colours and fabulous contrast and brightness. However there is a major problem with digital compression here. The average bit rate throughout this disk seems to be between 3 -5 mbps and this low rate has a real effect on the picture quality. In many scenes there are clear digital problems around some of the characters (Marlin in particular). This gives a halo effect around some of the characters and in some cases colours even seem to bleed into the background. For me it was so evident in some scenes that it actually detracted from my enjoyment of the film. With Pixars history of releasing such superb quality DVD’s it’s a huge shame to find the quality on this one so disappointing.

Thankfully the audio quality is a completely different matter. The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is superbly immersive. You get a real feeling of being in an underwater environment from every swish of a tail to the gurgling of bubbles. There’s also plenty of bass throughout, especially during scenes like the underwater mines explosion. A really top quality soundtrack.

Extras

Disk 1

• Visual commentary – This is actually a very good commentary track. The commentary itself is broken up with occasional additional footage including behind the scene sections, deleted scenes, scene breakdowns and interviews etc. These additional sections actually bring the commentary to over two hours but they also help to keep you interest throughout. If you prefer you can also view these extended sections separately. I should also mention that Disney’s history of making incompatible DVD’s comes through again as I couldn’t get this commentary to work properly on PowerDVD 5 on my laptop. It would keep jumping from scene to scene and restarting from the beginning randomly, nice one Disney.
• Making Nemo documentary is an informative if perhaps a little brief documentary. It contains lots of behind the scenes footage at Pixar Studios and gives a good insight into the amount of work that goes into a Pixar production. It also shows that all Pixar employees do seem to be slightly mad although they also clearly have a lot of fun in their jobs.
• Virtual Aquariums– A selection of seven different scenes from the film that can be viewed full screen. While these scenes do demonstrate the incredible amount of detail Pixar puts into every single background the extra itself is ultimately pretty pointless.
• Design Galleries– This is broken into four sections and show concept diagrams from Art Review, Characters, Environments and a full Colour Script of over 300 images.

Disk 2

• Exploring The Reef – When this starts it looks like it’s going to be a serious nature program, however the Finding Nemo characters start to make an appearance and it soon turns into a highly amusing farce. Behind all the jokes however there is a serious preaching here about how mankind is destroying the ocean and we need to start taking more responsibility.
• Knick Knack is a short animation that was made by Pixar six years before the release of Toy Story. It features a snowman stuck in a snow globe who desperately tries to escape the globe in order to get to a stunning blonde figurine. Even though the animation now looks dated, the magic Pixar humour is abundant in the short and makes for a few minutes of great fun. There’s also an additional commentary track to go along with it.
• Mr Rays Encyclopedia – This is a selection of short information clips on many of the species featured in the film. They are all presented with voice over from Mr Ray (Bob Peterson). This is definitely one for the kids, as the information is very short and dumbed down considerably.
• Fisharades is another one for the kiddies. It’s basically a little game featuring the schooling fish from the film. Basically the school starts to make the shape of something and you have to guess what the shape is before the timer runs out.
• Story Time – A graphical story book, which features two options a narrative read along or a read to yourself mode. Once again one for the kids, although the animation is quite nice they they’ll probably enjoy it quite a lot.
• Behind The Scenes – Character Interviews, Studio Tour and Publicity material are included in the section. Nothing much here I’ m afraid, the character interviews seem to be mainly voiced by impersonators not the original cast and the rest of the material is pretty light. There’s also a short and easy to find Easter Egg in this section.
• Virtual Aquariums

1. More of these as in disk 1, however these are slightly better as some of them feature characters from the film swimming around inside a tank.
2. Sneak Peeks – Trailers for Home on The Range, The Lion King, Santa Claus 2, Special Edition DVD’s, Spy Kids 3D and most importantly Pixars next feature The Incredibles. The Incredibles feature is actually very good and this feature looks promising.

The two disk pack comes in a plastic amaray case with a nice shiny cardboard outer sleeve. Subtitles are available in English, French and Spanish and the film is broken into 32 chapters.

Overall

Given that many of the extras mention the fact that this film was three years in the making and a hard journey, doubled with the fact that they all seem so proud of it. It seems such a shame that the same pride wasn’t put into the video quality of the DVD release. Perhaps the fact that it’s set underwater is a real strain on the DVD format, I can’t see it myself though as the bit rate is so low in many points through the film that it just seems like a lazy print. I also suspect that I’m going to get a lot of negative feedback from this review as every other review I’ve read raves about the quality of this disk set. Personally though, I also think that the quality of the extra features is pretty poor as well. Although it looks like there’s quite a lot here, there isn’t really much depth to many of the extras apart from the commentary.

I’m probably being overly critical but I don’t really care if I am as previous Pixar releases have been of a really high quality and considering Finding Nemo is such a good film the lack of care put into the DVD is for me inexcusable. Don’t listen to my ramblings though, I recommend that you get hold of a copy yourself and make your own mind up. Perhaps I’m wrong and everyone else out there is right. I for one will be waiting and hoping that they do something different with the Region 2 release though.

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Finding Nemo DVD Review