Promo Image for the Clone Wars: The Complete First Season Boxed set. Final package art will differ.

I’m still trying to figure out if I’m a fan of Cartoon Network‘s The Clone Wars series or if I’m just watching it out of a sick, thirty-year old Star Wars habit. I mean, I can actually say that I’ve genuinely enjoyed a handful of the episodes. That some parts of this series are the best Star Wars has been in years (the space battles, the lightsaber fights, the Yoda giggle!!!). But at the same time, it’s clunky and inconsistent. The animation is stiff. Some of the designs just don’t sit right with me. And the storytelling is often hampered by inane Lucas-style jokes or just plain-old lazy writing.

At the same time, I have to admit that I haven’t missed an episode. I’ve even shown it to friends. Sometimes, giving a recommendation to watch! I think I’m even responsible for getting a couple of people hooked on The Clone Wars!

We’ve known for some time now that Lucasfilm was planning a boxed-set of the first season episodes for release on Blu-ray (they’ve been releasing random collections of episodes on DVD since last year), most likely hitting store shelves sometime this fall. And now, thanks to a scooper on the forums of Blu-ray.com we’ve got our first look at what we can expect from the set. Though it’s exciting to get this sneak peek, keep in mind that it’s all rumour at this point, until an official announcement is made.

The scooper notes that the Star Wars: The Clone Wars Complete First Season boxed set will include:

• Original aspect ratios – 2.35:1 (Cartoon Network aired episodes cropped at 1.78:1 for 16:9 displays)
• Digibook Packaging – with book (around 40 pages or so) featuring concept drawings and sketches
• Director’s Cut Episodes
• Commentaries
• 2D and 3D initial renderings (characters?)

The Star Wars: The Clone Wars Complete First Season boxed set will NOT include the film, The Clone Wars that debuted in theatres last year.

And Warner Home Video is crowned the winner! The champion! The only studio capable of figuring out how to make BD-Live special features truly awesome!

Wow! I wasn’t a big fan of the Watchmen film but I really can’t wait to check this out. Looks like a lot of fun. Watchmen director Zack Snyder walks you through every scene of the film in the Maximum Movie Mode (available exclusively on North America’s Watchmen: Director’s Cut Blu-ray disc…Sorry, rest of the world), talks in depth about the shots and even goes so far as to pause the film to give visual comparisons with panels from the comic book!

I could watch this type of special feature for hours. And it appears that the Watchmen: Director’s Cut will test my stamina as it’s three-hour runtime will no doubt be stretched to four or five with all the pausing and chatting and comparing.

Via: Slashfilm.com

I love waking up to a good press release!

Warner Home Entertainment has forwarded details of their upcoming Superman/Batman: Public Enemies film, coming to Blu-ray and DVD on September 29. Too bad they left out the package art. Weird. They had it plastered all over the Warner press event a couple of weeks ago. Maybe that was just a temporary tease. Dunno.

Sigh

I’ll post it up here when they get their act together.

In good news: KEVIN CONROY AS BATMAN! TIM DALY AS SUPERMAN! CLANCY BROWN AS LEX LUTHOR!

For more excitement check out this exclusive “Making-of” interview over at Voices From Krypton: Exclusive: The Making of “Superman/Batman: Public Enemies”

SUPERMAN/BATMAN: PUBLIC ENEMIES

(September 29, 2009 – MSRP $29.99)
Video: 1.78:1 (1080p)
Audio: TBA

Special Features:

◦ The Blackest Night: Inside the DC Comics Event: Behind-the-scenes of BLACKEST NIGHT, the epic DC Super Hero event in which the dead shall rise.

◦ A Test of Minds: Superman and Batman featurette with Jeph Loeb, giving viewers a fresh and revitalized look at the team-up of Superman and Batman working together despite their often competitive and challenging relationship. 

◦ “Dinner with DC: With Special Guest Kevin Conroy”: Reprising his role from Batman: The Animated Series, Kevin Conroy joins the crew for dinner to discuss their creative approach and what the Superman/Batman team-up means.  The evening will be hosted by Voice Director Andrea Romano, Producer Bruce Timm and DC’s Gregory Noveck

Stop the presses!

According to awesome game-nerd site VG247, we Playstation 3 owners have got a treat in store for us, coming down the bits-and-bytes pipes before the holidays. Their super-secret sources deep in the bowels of Sony have revealed to them that we’re going to get a firmware update to version 3.0 that will amount to a having a completely new gaming/media machine. A radical PS3 operating system redesign. Awesome!

Here’s what they have to say:

“The before-rumoured reputation system will be included. We were told that, “A reputation system in which users will be able to evaluate each other will be provided for… game applications.

“There will be a new API available to so the user can… allow users and also obtain users’ reputation.”

A “grief reporting system” will be included in the update, allowing gamers to take screens of offensive players and submit them to Sony. Apparently this is going to be similar to the LBP system, and is likely to include a text input.

Firmware 3.0 will allow patches will be downloaded in the background, meaning you’ll no longer have to sit staring at the screen while Random Shooter updates itself with a 500Mb fix.

There’s more. Simultaneous HDMI and digital optical outputting will be included in the release, a move likely to bring big smiles to the audio heads in the crowd.”

Apparently there’s a lot more that they won’t talk about right now. Ok. This is all cool and the notion of having a drastic system overhaul is always fun but man, all I really want from my PS3 that I’m not getting right now is the ability to play MKV files. That damn Matroska AVI container is killing me! C’mon, Sony! Get working on bringing us THAT!

Why the hell don’t we have this movie on Blu-ray yet?! Urrrr…

All right. Let me explain. Transformers: the Movie, the animated giant-robot extravaganza that shaped my youth, came out in 1986. You know the film. The one with that song that goes, “YOU GOT THE TOUCH. YOU GOT THE POWER!” Yeah. That one. In the last number of years, the film has arrived in the home video market on DVD, in a variety of versions. Some full screen, attempting to show the full animated frame but looking way too loose, compositionally. Some widescreen, attempting to replicate the matted cinematic presentation (where movie theatres chop off the top and bottom of the picture – really, it happens ALL the time!) but looking way too tightly composed. Each version suffered additional problems in colour fidelity and compression. It seems that no studio, no release is able to get Transformers: the Movie quite right.

And then came Metrodome. This UK studio has tried again and again to release the perfect version of Transformers to home video. And to be fair, they’ve come the closest in their 2006 Blu-ray release of the film. So there. We actually DO have it on Blu-ray. Just not in North America. And nowhere near perfect yet.

Metrodome’s release of Transformers: the Movie is possibly as sharp and detailed as a transfer could be with the old film elements. However, the Blu-ray disc’s colour timing and audio mix are in desperate need of improvement. As you watch the film, colours shift all over the place, sometimes drastically changing from shot to shot within a scene. This may also be a fault of the original elements. But in the hands of a studio with a slightly bigger budget, it’s possible that we could see a more balanced representation of Transformers: the Movie. The audio mix, on the other hand, may be beyond help. It’s always been terrible. But perhaps an HD, uncompressed audio track would rescue a little sonic fidelity from the otherwise thin source.

Sony holds the rights to release Transformers: the Movie in North America. God only knows why they haven’t bothered bothered to release a Blu-ray version yet, milking the hype driven by the two live action films. I can only hope that they’ve got the film in a lab somewhere, with hordes of technicians labouring over it day and night, to build the perfect Blu-ray release – impeccably framed, perfectly colour timed with booming uncompressed audio and a bevy of extras.

Sadly, at this point, I think there’s as much chance of Sony giving us Transformers: the Movie on Blu-ray as there is of Megan Fox turning up in my bed.

NOTE: The UK Metrodome release of Transformers: The Movie is ALL REGION. It will play on any Blu-ray player in any part of the world. So, even though it’s not perfect and not on store shelves in North America, if you can’t wait to own it on Blu-ray, it’s yours for the purchasing! I’ve included two links below: The first is for the US Amazon.com where you can pick up a version of the UK disc at a premium. The second is Amazon.co.uk where you can get Transformers: The Movie for very little but with an slight import cost.