Doctor Who: The Greatest Show In The Galaxy (1988/Story No. 155/BBC DVD)/Starship Troopers: Invasion (2012/Animated/Sony Blu-ray)
Picture:
C+/B- Sound: C+/B Extras: C Main Programs: C-/C+
When even
good Science Fiction becomes franchised, it can wear thin quickly. Here are two examples.
Doctor Who: The Greatest Show In
The Galaxy (1988)
is another weak Sylvester McCoy entry, this time facing an intergalactic
variant of a touring circus, but this is a “psychic circus” up to no good and
the Doctor needs to figure out what they are doing and stop them. Though I like the idea and concept, it is
done in a slap-dash, trivial way that helped slowly kill the series in its
original form after Tom Baker left. I
was not impressed by much outside of some production design and was glad when
it ended. For diehard fans only, extras
include a Music Video, Making Of featurette, PDF DVD-ROM materials, Photo
Gallery, four clips, Audio Commentary by four of the supporting cast, Isolated
Music Score and Deleted and Extended Scenes.
Following
two poor liver action sequels to the 1997 Paul Verhoeven genre classic and the Roughnecks spin-off, Shinji Aramaki’s
computer animated Starship Troopers:
Invasion (2012) brings back Casper Van Dien as Johnny Rico as a promoted
Rico as the new troops (and some of Rico’s old friends) fight and kill more
bugs. Without any political context that
Verhoeven offered in the original film, that is mostly all you get here and the
animation is not always state-of-the-art, but at least this is made in the
spirit and with the attitude of the first film and has its interesting, amusing
moments.
With
animation that will remind one of the failed Final Fantasy CG feature Sony issued theatrically years ago, but
this moves better. Even if you are not a
diehard fan but liked the original film, there are enough amusing moments to
give this one a look, but don’t expect much beyond that. It all just makes me sad that the first film
was not the giant hit it should have been.
Extras
include a Blu-ray exclusive Conceptual
Art Gallery,
plus Gag Reel, Deleted Scenes, In-Depth 11-Part Making Of Documentary and
Filmmaker Commentary.
The 1.33
X 1 color image on Who was shot on
professional, analog PAL videotape and looks good for its age, but also has the
usual detail limits, yet I cannot imagine this looking better than it does
here. The 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High
Definition image transfer on Troopers
looks better, but not by as much as I expected with some detail limits on the
animation and just a general sense of it all of it coming up short. Though not cheap to make, it seems a bit
behind the best CG out there and it not always as imaginative as it could be.
The lossy
Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Who is
just fine for its age, but don’t expect much more sonically, but the DTS-HD MA
(Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Troopers
is pretty good with a consistent soundfield and some interesting sound
effects. That does not mean it could
compete with the original Verhoeven film for sound (the Blu-ray (unreviewed)
does not do the best to capture the original mix either) but it is consistent,
which is what we expect from all current Blu-ray titles.
- Nicholas Sheffo
