The Batman: Year One animated film premiered to rave reviews at the San Diego Comic Con over the weekend. Shortly before hand, Warner announced the full details of the Blu-ray disc, which will be released everywhere this coming October. If the reviews and the trailer above are any indication, this is going to be one hell of a Batman film.

BATMAN: YEAR ONE
(October 18, 2011 – MSRP $19.99)
Video: 1.78:1 1080p
Audio: TBA

SPECIAL FEATURES:

• Feature film
• Sneak Peek at Justice League: Doom, the next DC Universe Animated Original Movie
• DC Showcase Animated Original Short – Catwoman: This all-new entry to the growing canon of DC Universe animated shorts features the first first solo tale centered around Catwoman. The felonious feline’s adventure takes her through the seedy streets of Gotham City. Catwoman is voiced by Eliza Dushku (Dollhouse, Tru Calling).
• Featurette “Heart of Vengeance: Returning Batman to His Roots”: “The Dark Knight Returns” provided the denouement of Batman’s life. Frank Miller’s next seminal work would provide his near-mythic origin in “Batman: Year One.” This documentary uncovers the contemporary genius of Miller and the audience that was poised to appreciate the depths of his work.
• Featurette “Conversations with DC Comics”: The Batman creative team at DC Entertainment discusses the personal influence of “Batman: Year One” on their careers. Batman producer Michael Uslan leads the chat amongst well-known writers, editors and artists of the Batman lore, focusing their dialogue on the darker, realistic interpretation of Batman’s origins by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli
• Audio Commentary with Alan Burnett, Sam Liu, Mike Carlin and Andrea Romano
• “Batman: Year One, Chapter 1” Digital Comic Book
• Two bonus episodes from Batman: The Animated Series, handpicked by Bruce Timm
• Standard and high definition versions of the feature film
• Digital copy on disc of the feature film compatible with iTunes and Windows

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We saw a tease for Warner‘s upcoming direct to video Batman: Year One animated film on the Green Lantern: Emerald Knights Blu-ray a month or so back. As is par for the course in those pieces, there wasn’t much in the way of finished animation in the clip. Just a lot of design work, storyboards and interviews. With the release of the trailer above, we can finally get a sense of how this thing is going to look when it hits Blu-ray on October 18th. The animation doesn’t accurately reflect David Mazzucchelli‘s stunning artwork to me (the film is an adaptation of a Mazzucchelli illustrated Frank Miller comic book) but it seems pretty slick all the same.

Outside of the fact that the disc will contain a Catwoman short film, no disc details are known at this time. But rest assured, I’ll get them posted up here as soon as the studio gives us the heads up.

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Robocop can be many different things to many people – there are those, like me, who worship the original Paul Verhoeven movie as a flat-out brilliant example of filmmaking at its best, there are those who enjoy the entire series as a kitschy remnant of late 80s/early 90s action films and there are those who are just unabashed fans of the character. This new Robocop Trilogy boxed set is a mixed bag at best and clearly not aimed at my demographic. But for those fans clamoring to see their favourite tin-man-with-a-badge take down the bad guys in all three of his cinematic adventures, this set might just do the trick.

My first clue that this new 3-Disc Robocop Blu-ray disc set wasn’t aimed at me is the complete lack of special features. Though my love of Robocop extends only so far as the first film, I’m the kind of completest sucker who would have purchased a deluxe, feature packed multi-disc set of all the films. But, in truth, all I really long for is a straight-up 2-disc set complete with the best possible version of the original Robocop and all the extras that have ever been compiled, much like the previously available 20th Anniversary Collector’s Edition DVD, but in 1080p. Sadly, this new Robocop Trilogy set fulfills neither of those desires.

Disc one is merely a re-packaging of the already available bare-bones Fox Blu-ray. It’s dated MPEG-2 transfer is fine, I guess, but clearly far less impressive than one would hope. The image is inconsistent at the best of times, exhibiting impressive detail one moment, while looking overly soft or noisy the next. Black crush is also a problem throughout. That said, this is the best I’ve ever seen the almost quarter-century film look on home video.

The sequels fare much better in their technical presentation. Both Robocop 2 and Robocop 3 look pretty great in their first foray into the world of high-def, considering their relative ages. In fact, the Blu-ray presentation contributed to my ability to actually sort-of enjoy the second film in the series for the very first time (I’ve seen it two or three times over the years, perpetually disappointed by the drop off in quality between it and Verhoeven’s ‘Cop). Sadly, nothing can save the abysmal Robocop 3 from it’s hackneyed script, clumsy direction (Fred Dekker of Monster Squad fame), cheap production design and bottom-of-the-barrel bad acting (it had to be hard to replace Peter Weller in the title role but damn, does Robert Burke ever make an uncomfortable mess of it!) Both films offer nice, robust high bit-rate AVC encodes and don’t exhibit any signs of unnecessary digital tampering.

The big shame of the set, aside from the lack of a new transfer on the 1987 original film, is the omission of all of the special features from the 2-disc 20th Anniversary Collector’s Edition DVD, which includes the wonderful documentary “Flesh & Steel: The Making of RoboCop“. I suspect we’ll be seeing another release of the film on Blu-ray at some point in time, with all the extras carried over, much as Fox did with their second dip into the Predator pool.

But for now, I would recommend this new Robocop Trilogy Blu-ray boxed set only to those who have been desperate to get their hands on the complete collection of films in high-def. Though the original film is just a re-packaging of the old Fox disc, the sequels look and sound great in their Blu debut. If you love those films, you’ll be happy with this set of discs.

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300: THE COMPLETE EXPERIENCE (2007, Blu-ray released July 21, 2009 – MSRP $39.99)

I’m not going to try to sell you on 300. You either like the film or you don’t. If you’re here, reading this review, you probably think the movie’s all right and are no doubt familiar enough with the story, so I’m not going to bore you with it. It is, at its core, a two-hour fight scene. It’s an amazing battle, and incredible eye candy to be sure. But really, this sort of action epic, light on story, heavy on special effects is either your bag or you’re going to look elsewhere for your cinematic delights.

That out of the way, let me say WOW! I love this Blu-ray package. What an amazing job Warner has done with this set. Double-dip be damned, if you care at all about this film and are the sort of person who enjoys bonus features on a disc (I know there are two or three of you out there who couldn’t give a Spartan’s spear about them) then it’s worth ditching the old bare-bones one in favour of this, the 300: The Complete Experience.

This disc takes all the bonus features from the old Blu-ray disc edition, the stuff you could only get on the HD-DVD version of 300 and adds a whole new, rule-breaking way of experiencing the film – The Complete 300: A Comprehensive Immersion. This feature is worth the price of the disc alone. When you enter into it, you’re greeted by the director, Zack Snyder who walks you through the usage of it (and if you’re still confused, there are three pages devoted to the Comprehensive Immersion in the digibook packaging – more on that later.) There are three “timelines” to choose from while experiencing the film, each offering you a different stream of information focussed on a different element of the film and/or its production. “Creating a Legend” focuses on Frank Miller‘s vision and how the story made the transition from page to screen. “Bringing the Legend to Life” is all about the filmmaking process. “The History behind the Myth” was most interesting to me, as an opportunity to examine Miller and Snyder’s take on the tale from a historical standpoint. The interface may be a little clunky when switching from one stream to another but it doesn’t detract from the fun of the feature.

Without dwelling any further on the special features (there are a ton more and they’re all worthwhile – again, great work, Warner) I just want to add a note about the digibook package. This thing is gorgeous. I don’t care as much for artifacts in this day and age as I used to. I enjoy not owning CDs anymore. I read a lot of digital books. I get my news from the internet. But for some reason, I still like to have the films I care about in a package I can hold. Something tangible. And this book feels like a million books, and looks it too! The digibook gives one a feeling of reverence for a film that mostly likely doesn’t deserve it. It’s a small, sturdy hardcover that’s snazzy, embossed and quite shiny. There’s just enough content inside to get you all fired up to want to watch the film but not enough to distract while watching it. And again, if you’re at all confused by the way the Immersion feature works, it’s all laid out for you here. Really, I couldn’t ask for much more from a 300 Blu-ray experience. Highly recommended for fans of the film!

For a full list of bonus features, read our 300: The Complete Experience disc breakdown here.

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