The Abominable Snowman –
Choose Your Own Adventure series
Picture:
B- Sound: B- Extras: C Main Program: B
Since its
debut as the Digital Versatile Disc, the DVD was touted as being so interactive
and instead, we got so many commercials, overly long menus and other load-ups
and warnings that people converted the “V” to mean Video. It is a reflection of some ignorance, but
also of the frustration of how the format did not automatically deliver on what
it initially promised. Though it took a
very long time, the simplest and most clever narrative option is to offer the
viewer was to have at least two choices as to where the story could go
next. Books had been doing it for years
and the Choose Your Own Adventure
series so successful in print has finally arrived on DVD with The Abominable Snowman.
Can
Benjamin (Frankie Muniz), Crista (Lacey Chabert) and Marco (Daryl Sabara) North
find their Uncle Rudy (William H. Macy) before he is never found again in the
Himalayas as he was tracking down the legendary Yeti creature? It will not be as simple as a quick trip and
all kinds of things can go wrong. By
offering choices to what happens next, the young audience is reintroduced to
the idea of a narrative and it meaning something in this age of mindless video
games that detest storytelling and the general clip-vid mentality the whole
media has succumbed to. However, it is
also done with a surprisingly good level of quality and even adults will get a
kick out of it; especially technophiles.
Let’s hope this is the beginning of a long, healthy series of such DVDs.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is very good, with very consistent color
and picture fidelity, even if this is not animation with the greatest
detail. Looking like something between Disney’s
Tarzan and the original Jonny Quest, it is pleasant to watch
and will fit in to anyone’s current animation collection. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is also on the
lively side, if not a sonic masterwork.
Extras include a superfluous Music Video, interviews with the voice cast
and fine half-hour look at Nepal.
The DVD case additionally offers a colorful adventure journal.
- Nicholas Sheffo
