Monsters, Inc. (Mandarin Chinese Edition) Review

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(More customer reviews)Pixar's 2001 hit, MONSTERS, INC., continued the studio's tradition of creating wonderfully fantastical worlds of incredible imagination in design utilizing the very best in computer animation. What is the hallmark though of a Pixar film is the fact that the development of character is always at the forefront and is never relegated to existing on a superficial level in order to showcase the many hours of hard work that went into creating the animation. MONSTERS, INC. is of course a great buddy picture, pairing two opposites together, and setting them forth on their adventure. Just as Buzz Lightyear and Woody were teamed up to create such a memorable pair in the TOY STORY movies, so too does MONSTERS, INC. couple the diminutive and always frenetic and full of energy Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal), with his enormous friend Sulley (John Goodman), the leading scarer at Monsters, Inc., a company that exists to provide electricity for Monstropolis by collecting the screams of children as the monsters pop out of the kids' closet doors at night. When a toddler, Boo, inadvertently follows Sulley back through the doorway and into the monsters' own world though, Sulley and Mike must set out to try and get her back to her own world while battling those in the company that have ulterior motives. The result is a wildly funny and dynamically original movie that exudes a tremendous amount of heart from its characters.
The voice casting of Crystal and Goodman is phenomenal, and the two play off of each other so well that they create some hilarious moments on screen. Both though are allowed to fully develop their characters, and the relationship between Mike and Sulley is given the freedom to grow and change throughout the film, and this is key to the story's success. Had the enormously talented Crystal's Wazowski only been seen as the comedic sidekick of Sulley, and never given the liberty to go through his own personal character arc, a much weaker picture would have emerged. Directors Pete Docter, David Silverman and Lee Unkrich though do not go for the easy gag, but rather stay true to each of the character's own motivations, thus allowing their relationship with one another to organically grow throughout the film. By doing so, the team of Mike and Sulley become one of the most memorable from the Pixar catalogue.
Seeing the film in HD at home with the Blu-ray release of the film is in a word, breathtaking. Even though the film is now almost nine years old, the animation in MONSTERS, INC. is still beyond compare. Not only is the world of Monstropolis so completely artistically original and populated with such unique interpretations of monsters, but the level of detail in the animation is staggering. Looking at some of the skin textures of some of the monsters will quickly illustrate how much time and attention to detail went into animating the film, but by far, the scene that best exemplifies just how good the animation in MONSTERS, INC. is involves Mike and Sulley being banished to the Himalayas. Here, the thick blue and purple fur that covers Sulley's body can be seen blowing in the winter storm as small pieces of snow become stuck within it. The animation in this scene alone ranks as among the best, and serves as a milestone in computer animation excellence. Being able to see it in HD at home will bring an entirely new level of admiration for what the filmmakers were able to achieve with the movie.
For the Blu-ray release, Disney is including four discs that include the Blu-ray version of the film, a DVD version, a digital copy and a Blu-ray disc of bonus features. There is so much value with this set, that it, along with the similar edition of UP that is being released on the same day, will prove to be must have Blu-rays for everyone's collection and are rightly sure to be one of the most popular gifts given this holiday season.
The bonus material included with MONSTERS, INC. is simply amazing, and will keep a viewer engaged for hours discovering the vast amount of supplemental material on the film. The bonus features include:
Disc One
Filmmakers' Roundtable (22:00)
MONSTERS, INC. Ride and Go Seek: Building Monstropolis in Japan (7:58)
"For the Birds" Academy Award® Winner for Best Animated Short in 2001 (3:21)
"Mike's New Car" Academy Award® Nominated for Best Animated Short in 2002 (3:46)
Audio Commentary
Disc Two
Roz's 100 Door Challenge-A fun game that will place you in what job you would be best suited for at Monsters, Inc.
Pixar Fun Factory Tour (3:34)
Story is King (2:00)
Monsters are King (1:29)
Original Treatment (13:40)
Story Pitch: Back to Work (4:36)
Banished Concepts: Intro to Banished Concepts, Assistant Sulley (2:15), End of Day (2:22), Bad Scare (2:51), Scream Refinery (1:06), Original Sulley Intro (1:00)
Storyboard to Film Comparison: Storyreel (5:14), Final Color (5:14), Split Screen Comparison (5:14)
Art Gallery
Designing Monstropolis (4:48)
Set Dressing Intro (3:24)
Location Flyarounds
Monster File: Cast of Characters (5:51), What Makes a Great Monster (1:24)
Animation: Animation Process (3:11), Early Tests (8:02), Opening Title Animation (2:06), Hard Parts (4:58), Shots Department (2:16), Production Demonstration: Intro, Storyreel (1:50), Layout (1:50), Animation (1:50), Final Color (1:50)
Music and Sound: Monster Song (4:13), Sound Design (3:15)
Release: The Premiere (:56), Trailers and TV Spots, International Inserts (1:06), Multi-Language Clip Reel (3:45), Toys (1:29), Outtakes and Company Play (7:00)
Wrap-Up (:42)
New Monster Adventures: Monster TV Treats (1:09), Ponkickies 21, "If I Didn't Have You" Music Video (1:11)
Behind the Scenes: On the Job with Mike and Sulley (2:31)
Orientation: Welcome to Monsters, Inc. (:58), Your First Day (3:34), History of the Monster World (1:36)

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Pixar's original classic - Mandarin Chinese Edition. The giant, blue-furred James P. "Sulley" Sullivan is a scare-monster extraordinaire in the hidden world of Monstropolis, where the scaring of kids is an imperative in order to keep the entire city running. Beyond the competition to be the best at the business, Sullivan and his assistant, the one-eyed Mike Wazowski, discover what happens when the real world interacts with theirs in the form of a 2-year-old baby girl dubbed "Boo," who accidentally sneaks into the monster world with Sulley one night.Language: Mandarin Chinese (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 5.1)Subtitles: Chinese, EnglishRegion: 6 (This DVD will not play on most DVD players sold in the US or Canada [Region 1]. This item requires a region specific or multi-region DVD player)

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Roughnecks - The Starship Troopers Chronicles - The Complete Campaigns (1999) Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a television series based both on a book by Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers, and a movie of the same name, directed by Paul Verhoeven. The movie was problematic in several respects. On the director's commentary of that movie, Verhoeven explains that he did not have enough money to create the alien insect warriors and create the human military technology in Heinlein's book. He decided to create the aliens and present the human soliders without the weapons that they had in the book, making it appear implausible most of the time that the humans had any chance in the battles at all. This series corrects this problem by providing the troopers with weapons that give them that chance. The other problem with the movie was that Verhoeven disagreed with the political theory advanced in the book, in which only those who serve in the military can become full citizens and can vote. Apparently having lived through World War II as a Dutch child, Verhoeven has a very low opinion of any militaristic society. He therefore satirizes Heinlein's views and fills the movie with military uniforms based on Nazi uniforms, often making it hard to sympathize with the defenders of humanity. Verhoeven's satire was great in Robocop, but produces an uneasy effect in the movie. Happily, the military philosophy is hardly mentioned in the series and the military uniforms are not based in any obvious way on German World War II dress. The series actually resembles most closely the cable mini-series Band of Brothers produced by Tom Hanks for HBO. In the Hanks series a group of soldiers train, fight their way across Europe, and end up in Germany. Like Hanks series, Roughnecks is organized into a series of campaigns, beginning with battles on Pluto (there is nothing much about basic training until episode 20) and ending up with a defense of Earth on the ground. People die; the ones who don't are affected and change in various ways, for better or worse. With regard to the animation, it was incredible CGI 3-D style animation for its time. It is not quite as good as Toy Story or Shrek in many respects, but the main reason is that it was operating on a television budget, not a major motion picture budget. Plus it was trying to animate characters that looked like real people rather than cartoon characters. The goal of the series in terms of animation was the same as that of the creators of the film Final Fantasy that appeared about a year or so later. This series does not miss the quality of Final Fantasy by much and it did it first. Because the series was canceled four episodes before the end of the season, the title of the DVD, suggesting that it is complete, is controversial. The four episodes that should have completed the forty episode season, 33, 38, 39, and 40, are still missing. The DVD gets to forty with four clip show episodes, which summarize past events with voice over narrations. The last of these is a court martial of the Lieutenant Rasczak, reshowing events and questioning whether he acted properly. These four clip shows allowed the producers to meet their obligations to produce 40 shows without having to create new CGI images. The series is not actually complete in that four planned episodes were never finished. However, The series does have considerable unity. In truth, the series could have been tied together nicely if it had ended one episode earlier with the funeral of Lieutenant Rasczak and the elevation of Johnny Rico, the main character in the book, to lieutenant to replace him. There is actually no end to the war in the book, and no plan to end the war in the series. Presumably the creators of the series meant to continue the war for many seasons. Thus, the final episode can be regarded as a hint of what would have come in the future with Rico now functioning as an officer. The series is a worthy tribute to Heinlein's book and will most likely be regarded as an important step along the way in CGI animation. I have given it five stars because technically is probably more of an achievement for television than Final Fantasy was for the big screen. One regret is that it is not in widescreen. The opening scenes in each episode are in widescreen, suggesting that it would have been possible to produce widescreen much as Babylon 5 was reformated from 4:3 to 16:9. It is sad that this fine animation project was never given an opportunity to find an audience on television the first time aournd, since it was scheduled at such a poor time of day (very early morning), when sci-fi fans were unlikely to be awake. Hopefully, it will do better as a DVD collection.

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Roughnecks - The Starship Troopers Chronicles - Trackers (1999) Review

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(More customer reviews)People keep emailing my Roughnecks site about the proper DVD order, so here it is:
This is the order the Roughnecks DVD's should be watched in:
(but skip the clip-shows on the "Trackers" disk and save them till last)
1. The Pluto Campaign (episodes 1-2-4-3-5)
[episodes 3 and 4 deliberately switched around, disk plays in "correct" order]
2. The Hydora Campaign (episodes 6-7-8-9-10)
3. The Tophet Campaign (episodes 11-12-13-14-15)
4. The Tesca Campaign (episodes 16-17-18-19-20)
[also known as the Tesca Nemerosa campaign]
5. The Zephyr Campaign (episodes 21-22-23-24-25)
[also known as the Ice Asteroid campaign]
6. The Klendathu Campaign (episodes 26-27-28-29-30)
7. Trackers (episode 31; clip-shows 1 thru 4)
8. The Homefront Campaign (episodes 32-34-35-36-37)
[there IS NO EPISODE 33! 37 is the "final" episode even though it's a cliffhanger]

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