Angry
Bird Toons Sony DVDs: Season Two, Volume Two
(original series) + Piggy
Tales: The Complete Second Season +
Stella:
The Complete Second Season
(all 2015 - 2016)/Beyond Beyond
(2014/Lionsgate DVD)/The Good Dinosaur (2015/Disney/Pixar
Blu-ray w/DVD)/LEGO DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League Cosmic
Clash (2016/Warner Blu-ray w/DVD)/Strawberry Shortcake: Berry
Bake Shop + Sweet
Sunshine Adventure (2015/Fox DVDs)
Blu-ray
Picture: B DVD Picture: C+ Sound: C+/C+/C+/C+/B & B-/B &
C+/C+/C+ Extras: C/C/C/C-/C-/C+/C-/C- Main Programs:
C+/C+/C+/C/C+/C/C+/C+
This
new cycle of child releases is made of the return (sometimes sudden
in some cases) of various franchises we cover, plus a new launch that
had mixed results.
The
quickest of the releases are a bundle from Sony (sold separately)
that include Angry
Bird Toons: Season Two, Volume Two
(original series) + Piggy
Tales: The Complete Second Season +
Stella:
The Complete Second Season
(all 2015 - 2016) that continue in the same vein and have very
similar content to the previous set of all three series we just
covered at this link...
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/13942/Angry+Bird+Toons+Sony+DVDs:+Season+Two,+V
Obviously
all involved want to keep the fun and fanbase going and that's fine,
but it is very similar to what we just covered, is child-safe, just
fine and did not cause me to have deja vu, yet I was surprised this
all arrived so quickly. You'll like the new ones, unless you don;t
want to have more of the same. The only difference is that a $3.99
game value items has been included in all three to go with the cross
episodes on each other's discs, trailers, small Making Ofs and
sometimes character profiles. That leaves me wondering how the Piggy
and Stella shows would look on Blu-ray.
Esben
Toft Jacobsen's Beyond Beyond (2014) is a
CGI animated feature from Copenhagen that is not bad, but not great
as a rabbit simply tries to get home, though not before encountering
new friends and obstacles. Only here in an English dub voiced by
Evan (a kid from the web), Jon Heder, Carey Elwes, Emily Deschanel
and Patrick Warburton, they are joined by others doing good-enough
work here, but hat cannot save us from a weak script and animation
that just looks too dated upon arrival. See how badly the moving
mouths come across.
Unless
something smart is somehow being censored, there is nothing to see
here much and this might become some kind of cult item at best, but
it just never works. A U.S. Making Of piece and Digital Copy are the
only extras.
There
is obviously no CGI limits on the new Disney/Pixar big budget
release, Peter Sohn's The Good Dinosaur (2015) that did not do
well theatrically when an animated dinosaur feature should have been
a no-brainer blockbuster. However, this was conceived during the end
of the original cycle of Pixar brainstorming that produced their
greatest hits, but like Cars 2 and the non-animated
Tomorrowland, is in the tail end of the wake of that greatness
and does not work too well.
With
its surprisingly simpler animation, despite some nice moments of
color and texture, a young and old male dinosaur make their way
across the land when they discover the young version of a human male.
The humor is supposed to come from all being out of their element
and how they become friends and survive. However, we've seen and
heard this one far too many times before and why no one at the
company or Disney thought to hit the halt button and rethink this
shows how on automatic pilot they have been on things in the past
year. Buying LucasFilm is not excuse either.
And
it is not that the dinosaur cycle if dead, as the recent Jurassic
World (faults and all) proved, it is just this needed to be
smarter like Hanna-Barbera's highly underrated animated series Valley
Of The Dinosaurs (reviewed elsewhere on this site) was. It had
humor, but more complex (by comparison) relationships and made great
statements about making friends with others different from us. This
film could not be a rip-off or remake of that, but with all the
creative minds at both companies, this need not have turned out so
flat and forgettable. Thus, it is one of the missed opportunities of
the year.
The
over two hours of extras include (along with Digital HD Copy) the
short Hide & Seek
promo clip, Deleted Scenes with option commentary, five Making Of
featurettes, animated short Sanjay's Super Team and a
feature length audio commentary track with the the people who make
the film possible. A Blu-ray 3D version of the film was also issued,
but that is not the one we got.
LEGO
DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League Cosmic Clash (2016)
continues what has been a series of Warner Blu-rays releases (with
DVDs as is the case here) that are only for children, are far more
comical than I would have liked and by there classic theme song imply
a continuance of sorts of the old 1970s Superfriends! series,
though that show could be darker. To compare, the best of this LEGO
cycle can be found at this link...
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/13331/Grendel,+Grendel,+Grendel+(1980/Umbrella+Regi
Here,
Brainiac is shrinking and collecting planets all over the world
(mirroring a more believable mad scientist episode of the original
Superfriends!) and actually seems a bit long at 78 minutes.
The similarities continue with that older TV episode (which ran under
an hour) with Supergirl showing up as the 'guest superhero' (it was
Green Arrow on the older episode), but its silliness soon ends in one
of the less-satisfying entries in this series. Children and fans
might find it worth a look, but I was disappointed.
Extras
only include Digital Copy and a Gag Reel.
Finally,
the new CGI version of Strawberry Shortcake: Berry Bake Shop
and Sweet Sunshine Adventure (2015) come out at the
same time in strawberry colored & scented DVD cases (!) with 66
minutes of main content each and more of the same from a series we
have not seen in a while. However, the makers are lining the gang up
against Bratz, the older Dora and LEGO Friends:
Girlz, though they don't seem to try so had here. Nothing new
here either, but it is at least consistent, though they are not as
convincing as the older hand-drawn version to me to the limits of my
interest (i.e., skip the show and go to a bakery). Extras on Bake
include a printable recipe, while Sweet adds a Music Video,
printable coloring page and small featurette. Both have Digital
Copy.
The
image quality breakdown in formats is very simple with the two
Blu-rays here tying for first place and DVDs for second, so I am a
little surprised that the 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition
image on Good is on the bland side and at least in 2D, does not have
the fun and excitement we expect visually from a Pixar production.
It is professional, the money is on the screen and there are no major
flaws, but it is nothing very memorable, so anything special must be
in real 3D only or forget it. Thus, the 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High
Definition image transfer on League can more than compete with
its fun use of colors. Sadly, both have similarly flat approaches,
but in League it makes sense as they are imitating a toy line.
The
anamorphically enhanced DVD versions are softer throughout and 1.78 X
1 image on all the TV titles and 2.35 X 1 on Beyond. They are
passable for the format, but no match for the Blu-rays, even if they
don't offer any demo moments.
As
for sound, the Blu-rays tie for first again as Good
delivers a nice DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 7.1 or lossless mixdown of
its Dolby Atmos
11.1 premium soundmaster in its best theatrical engagements. I
expected a bit more, but maybe we'll get the 11.1 on an Ultra HD 4K
Blu-ray edition, so the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on
Justice
can more than compete here with a pretty good mix of its own
throughout. The
lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on their DVD
versions are passable, but no match for the DTS-MA Blu-rays. Beyond
is also here in lossy
Dolby Digital 5.1 and the rest of the DVDs are in lossy Dolby Digital
2.0 Stereo with slight Pro Logic surrounds, but only the lossy Dolby
Digital on Good
really stands out above the rest of the DVDs.
Now
you can check them out for yourself.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
