tonyc3742

Reading the fine print - it says Death in the Family is "variable: 18-31 minutes".
The other shorts add up to 65 minutes (Sgt Rock, Adam Strange, Phantom Stranger, Death).
That's...not what I expected. And one review says it's basically Under the Red Hood with some Batman commentary.
Is the digital version sort of like Clue streaming? "That was one ending - but this might have happened". Or does it include the shorts?

Mike86

Hmm.. that’s a bit disappointing. I was really looking forward to this one. I guess it is labeled under the DC Showcase Animated Shorts line. I expected a bit more than half an hour (tops).

tonyc3742

Maybe there ends up being a bunch of paths, so to motive the watcher to re-watch to try a different path, they kept it short? I'm not likely to watch a full length CYOA movie more than once, but if they're episode length....Then again, I don't want to watch 24 of the same minutes four times to get 2 different minutes each time....

From the doblu review:Four other effective shorts are included in all, some previously released as companions on earlier animated DC films.

Characters like the Phantom Stranger and Adam Strange probably wouldn’t sell enough on their own to justify solo releases, which is how they end up playing second fiddle to Batman.

.... Realizing a 30-minute short feature isn’t a great bargain digitally, the digital copy includes the four bonus shorts.

Mike86

Yeah, but I don’t care as much about those shorts. It’s a pretty good Batman story, and it’s kind of a shame that they didn’t go more full blown. A lot of aspects of the story are pretty dated though and would have needed changing anyways, but still.

PhantomStranger

The bonus shorts are all pretty good, each one doing a good job of capturing the essence of the character. The shorts for Death and Phantom Stranger are fantastic. None of the paths in the Batman branching story run longer than 30 minutes, and some run shorter. All depends on which choices you make in the story.

Spiderbite

How's the Sgt. Rock short? Damn, I loved me some Sgt. Rock comics as a kid. I even had an action figure.

Red Hood

DC is doing a Death Metal Short animated film starring David Hasselhoff as Superman.

OldBoy

anyone see this new Batman: Death in the Family? Really only 40mins, no matter what you choose? is the interactivity cool?

PhantomStranger

The longest path by far is a standard retelling of Under The Red Hood. The interactivity and its interface are actually pulled off quite nicely, better than I was expecting. The one little thing I had a quibble with is how dark each path takes Jason's characters, there are no real happy endings. A couple of the routes have fairly abrupt ends begging for expansion.

I probably wouldn't pay full price but it's worth a look if you are a Jason Todd and/or Batman lover.

Red Hood

Just a heads up, most of the Blu-Rays for the DC Animated films are right now on sale for less than $10 each on Amazon. Saw the recently released Superman: Man of Tomorrow for $5.39

fujishig

It doesn't seem like HBO Max is going to be getting these as quickly as DC Universe has, either. In fact I don't even see them getting the ones that are on DC Universe right now.

Red Hood

I believe I read somewhere that the transition of many of these films will occur once the video version of the app is closed at the end of the year. Of course, knowing how these bean counters think, they may be trying to license all of these films to Netflix, Hulu or somewhere else.

Adam Tyner

I just finished watching it, and...yeah, pretty dreadful and much longer than it really needed to be.

One kinda funny thing is that I was repeatedly struck by how much it looked like The Venture Bros., and then I saw in the credits that Titmouse handled the animation, so...yup! Checks out.

PhantomStranger

If I remember correctly, the animated Deathstroke project was written and conceived outside the normal animated DC pipeline. It was spearheaded by producers from Berlanti's television stable. That is why it feels so different from most other animated DC projects. I'm pretty sure the screenplay was a rejected pitch for a live-action television series.

OldBoy

anyone know what this Batman: Soul of the Dragon is all about? i didn't even know about this until i saw the review at bluray.com. it says there is little Batman even in it...

kefrank

Here's the trailer:

Looks awesome to me - Bruce Timm doing a Batman/Enter the Dragon 70s-stylized mash-up? Yes please!

PhantomStranger

Basically, Warner won't approve any animated DC movie idea that doesn't have Batman crammed into it for marketing purposes. Superman gets his one token solo release a year but that is really it. Bruce Timm and others have been candid discussing that problem.

rocket1312

And in this case they get to cram in Batman and beat Marvel to the punch with their token kung fu fighter before the Shang-Chi movie comes out.

For the record, Shang Chi > Richard Dragon, but Bruce Timm working on anything > MCU.

Mike86

That’s disappointing if Batman is barely in it. I thought the concept of a throwback type Batman story sounded kind of cool as a one off. May wait on buying it in that case.

kefrank

With as much Batman-centric content as there is, I think it can be pretty cool when Batman is part of an ensemble instead of the focus. But I'll be watching this on HBO Max and only subsequently buying it if it's really good.

Mike86

Not that I disagree, but I love a good Batman film. Especially the animated ones. I thought it was going to be a Batman/Ra’s centric throwback detective story.

davidh777

The funny thing is that the trailer really reminded me of Sons of the Tiger, a ‘70s Kung-fu series but was a Marvel property, not DC.

mrhan

Well, at least they decided to make him look like Bruce Lee from the original novel written by Denny O'Neil under his psuedonym. Makes me wonder if it was he or DC who decided to change the character's look when the comic was released.

will travel

Looking forward to BATMAN: SOUL OF THE DRAGON.

OldBoy

Batman: Soul of the Dragon was pretty damn good. i loved the 70's aesthetic, the limited actual Batman and mostly karate centric moves. it really was a blast and something a little different from the majority of these DC animated movies. very well put together.