Beast Wars: Classic Episodes DVD impressions
03-20-01, 06:22 AM
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Well, unlike my initial report on Rhino's Transformers: The Movie disc, I have mostly good news to report on the Beast Wars disc just released by Alliance Atlantis (sold exclusively in Canada).
First, the good news:
-The packaging is very nice and features a reversible cover and insert, both with English on one side and French on the other. The menus on the disc itself are very well done.
-The disc contains the first seven episodes of the series, in chronological order. Rather oddly, episodes 6 and 7 are listed as "bonus episodes". Kind of pointless, but IIRC, Warner did something similar with their recent South Park discs. Oh well, whatever...as long as they're on the disc they can call them whatever they want.
-The disc is dual-layered, and the video looks great (as one would expect from such a recent CGI series). The sound is only 2.0 Dolby stereo, but it sounds just fine (and is much preferable to TF:The Movie's horrid "5.1 surround" catastrophe).
Now, the bad news (well, sorta):
-While the menus are beautiful, getting to them can be a pain. When the disc starts up, there is quite a lengthy introduction before the menu appears. If you push the "menu" button on the remote, the disc will restart, forcing you to sit through the intro again! The solution is to press the "chapter advance" button once the intro starts, but it's still kind of annoying.
-While the 2.0 stereo sounds great, the credits clearly indicate that the soundtrack was recorded in 2.0 surround. Why this isn't on the disc is a mystery.
-There are no extras. OK, there is an image gallery, but it's totally worthless--just 10 or 15 stills from the show. Don't bother.
-Each episode only has one chapter stop at the beginning of the episode. I think it should be standard that all TV programs should at least have chapter stops for every commercial break, but alas, not here.
-This may definitely irk some people - the episodes are shown back to back without the opening/ending credits. The opening credit sequence is available as a seperate selection on the main menu, but does not play before each episode. The ending credits for each episode are available at the end of the disc (chapters 8 and up), but they can not be selected from the menu at all.
-Remember the opening credits sequence I mentioned? Well, they used the wrong one. First off, it is the Canadian version of the credits ("Beasties" instead of "Beast Wars"). That's not really a big deal, though. The problem is that they used the opening to the third season, so expect to see plenty of characters that aren't actually in any of the episodes included on the disc.
I think that just about covers it. The disc has no extras and contains some quirks, but it delivers where it counts the most--the episodes themselves. I picked it up for around $20, and it's definitely worth the purchase. Hopefully if it sells well, more discs will follow!
First, the good news:
-The packaging is very nice and features a reversible cover and insert, both with English on one side and French on the other. The menus on the disc itself are very well done.
-The disc contains the first seven episodes of the series, in chronological order. Rather oddly, episodes 6 and 7 are listed as "bonus episodes". Kind of pointless, but IIRC, Warner did something similar with their recent South Park discs. Oh well, whatever...as long as they're on the disc they can call them whatever they want.
-The disc is dual-layered, and the video looks great (as one would expect from such a recent CGI series). The sound is only 2.0 Dolby stereo, but it sounds just fine (and is much preferable to TF:The Movie's horrid "5.1 surround" catastrophe).
Now, the bad news (well, sorta):
-While the menus are beautiful, getting to them can be a pain. When the disc starts up, there is quite a lengthy introduction before the menu appears. If you push the "menu" button on the remote, the disc will restart, forcing you to sit through the intro again! The solution is to press the "chapter advance" button once the intro starts, but it's still kind of annoying.
-While the 2.0 stereo sounds great, the credits clearly indicate that the soundtrack was recorded in 2.0 surround. Why this isn't on the disc is a mystery.
-There are no extras. OK, there is an image gallery, but it's totally worthless--just 10 or 15 stills from the show. Don't bother.
-Each episode only has one chapter stop at the beginning of the episode. I think it should be standard that all TV programs should at least have chapter stops for every commercial break, but alas, not here.
-This may definitely irk some people - the episodes are shown back to back without the opening/ending credits. The opening credit sequence is available as a seperate selection on the main menu, but does not play before each episode. The ending credits for each episode are available at the end of the disc (chapters 8 and up), but they can not be selected from the menu at all.
-Remember the opening credits sequence I mentioned? Well, they used the wrong one. First off, it is the Canadian version of the credits ("Beasties" instead of "Beast Wars"). That's not really a big deal, though. The problem is that they used the opening to the third season, so expect to see plenty of characters that aren't actually in any of the episodes included on the disc.
I think that just about covers it. The disc has no extras and contains some quirks, but it delivers where it counts the most--the episodes themselves. I picked it up for around $20, and it's definitely worth the purchase. Hopefully if it sells well, more discs will follow!
