Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World
(Volume Two/Animated)
Picture: C+
Sound: C Extras: D Episodes: C+
The follow-up second volume of the animated TV series
version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World is no better or worse
than the first volume. One hoped it
might get better, but it just moves on in its own way. Last time, I said that “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.”
Since then, I was reminded that Jonny Quest was
originally intended to be a revival of Jack Armstrong, the radio drama
and movie serial (reviewed elsewhere on this site, believe it or not) child
adventurer. Looking at these shows with
that in mind, I do not see much of Armstrong here, but by default, there is still
the lineage. Five more half-hour shows
are offered here, but start with the first volume. If you do not like that one, then skip this one. As for the original Jonny Quest on
DVD, it is better except for some censorship of dialogue and that Dolby Digital
1.0 Mono Warner keeps standing by like those cardboard snappers they used to
put their DVDs in. Oh well.
The 1.33 X 1 full frame image is again 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 and
there are what look like videotape zooms that are annoying and distracting. 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. It is maybe a tad harsher than the last volume too. There are no extras, but another volume is
on the way, so we’ll see where that takes us.
- Nicholas Sheffo
