Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World
(Volume One/Animated)
Picture: C+
Sound: C Extras: D Episodes: C+
With hits like the Michael Crichton/Steven Spielberg Jurassic
Park franchise and other hits that followed up to Peter Jackson’s King
Kong remake, the hope of somehow bringing back Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s
book The Lost World into a new hit version has been tried a few
times. The classic 1925 silent film has
been restored for the most part, while a failed live-action TV series was
produced yet never caught on. Then
there is this recent animated version from 2000 that is a missed opportunity.
I give the producers credit for essentially trying to
revive the book as an imitator of the original Jonny Quest, and in this
respect, it is no worse than any of the other revivals. That especially applies to the misguided
computer animated-only version Turner produced and nobody liked. On top of that, they then try to combine it
with the most underrated of all Hanna-Barbera series, Valley Of The Dinosaurs. Unfortunately, it cannot come close to that
and is too busy trying to be a 1980s-type of “hit you over the head” series
that it is one of the more unfortunate failures of recent times. That’s too bad, because they came
close. Too bad the look was not backed
up with heart and soul.
The 1.33 X 1 full frame image is not bad, but has some
fuzziness in the fine detail. The
animation has colors on the muted side, but is still trying to be an updated
version of its Hanna-Barbera predecessors.
The drawings might be a little more refined, but not as
naturalistic. The Dolby Digital 2.0
Stereo is odd, with dialogue sounding too forward, the actors talking at each
other too much and the music and sound effects being a little louder too often
than the talking. This is more obvious
if you go to Pro Logic mode, but we do not recommend that. There are no extras, but another volume is
on the way, so we’ll see where that takes us.
- Nicholas Sheffo
