Review by Jeffrey M. Jacobson. (March 21, 2004)
Transformers is ™ Hasbro and Takara. Transformers Program content: ©Sunbow Productions, Inc.
As with the other Transformers sets, these DVDs were made from a 35mm film transfer. The video could have looked better if it were less compressed, and Rhino could have used less compression if they used their disc space more efficiently.
The audio options are pretty much the same as with the previous set. The "Original Broadcast Audio" track, as well as a 5.1 and 2.0 track with added sound effects that I would never want to listen to. This time around the Original Broadcast Audio is now the default audio track! Unfortunately, the other tracks are still there wasting space.
The extras on this set are very disappointing. There are only two extra features on this set, and only one of them is not a waste of disc space. Since none of the extras are even listed on the packaging, I would have to guess that they didn't spend much time on them at all, and just threw them together at the last minute.
This is the good extra feature I mentioned earlier. Wise discusses the episodes he wrote and changes that were made to his scripts. Most of the discussion is about "The Rebirth", which was cut from a five-part episode down to three parts.
After watching the interview, I was interested in reading Wise's original scripts. But Rhino did not include them.
This is the same as the other version of "The Rebirth" on this DVD, only the recaps and previews have been removed in an attempt to make this appear to be one long episode. But they left in the episode titles for parts 2 and 3, so it's just the same as watching the multi-part version and pressing the skip button. This extra feature wouldn't have been quite as pointless if they would have at least removed the on-screen episode titles for "The Rebirth" parts 2 and 3, which they could have done very easily.
The original 35mm film versions of the episodes did not contain the on-screen episode titles. Rhino had to recreate these themselves*. If Rhino wanted to edit all three parts of "The Rebirth" into one episode, why not do it right and use the versions without the on-screen episode titles?
* I know that they had to recreate the on-screen episode titles because on the Season 2 Part 1 set, they corrected a spelling error in one episode's title, and introduced an error in another episode's title. (If you want more info on this, see my review of Season 2 Part 1.)
Like all of the other sets, these are not original animation cels used in the show.
Rhino had plenty of room left on the last disc of this set for some more extras. Here are some things that they could have included. (These suggestions were also included on a list that I e-mailed to Rhino before their season 1 set came out.)
None of the Transformer toy commercials were included in any of Rhino's DVD sets. The Season 1 set released in the UK included some of the toy commercials, so it's not like they don't exist anymore. I don't see any reason why they couldn't have been included.
It would have been great to have a menu where you could select and listen to the different background music and main title themes from the series (without dialogue and sound effects, of course). It is clear that Rhino had access to (at least some of) this music, because they used it during some of their bonus materials on the Season 1 set.
There was a Japanese OVA (released in 1986) called "Transformers: Scramble City Hatsudouhen" which took place between season 2 and The Movie. Here is a link to the IMDB listing: Transformers: Scramble City Hatsudôhen (1986).
As I mentioned in my review of the Season 3 part 1 DVD set, only the second of two versions of Dark Awakening were included in that set. They could have included the first version on this set as an extra.
(Obviously, this suggestion was not included in my pre-Season 1 release e-mail to Rhino, since it deals with something they left off of the Season 3 Part 1 set.)
When The Transformers series was dubbed into Japanese and shown in Japan, it had a different opening and closing credits sequence and music. Season 3 was retitled Transformers 2010 and also had a new opening and closing credits sequence. (Season 4 was never shown in Japan. Instead they started making their own spin-off series.) These Japanese opening and closing credit sequences for the original series would have made good extra features, but were not included in any of Rhino's sets.
And yes, I am aware that on the season 1 set they have features called "Japanese Opening", "Japanese Opening with Slate", and "Transformers Theme Song in Japanese". But these features are mislabeled. More info on what these features actually are can be found in my review of the Season 1 set.
Rhino's season 1 set contained the script for the fourth episode in the series, "Transport to Oblivion". This is the only script included on any of the DVD sets. Being able to read the scripts for other episodes would have been nice, especially episodes where the script differed from the actual episode.
In the interview with writer David Wise, he mentions that some changes were made to his scripts. He says that the original script for "War Dawn" was more violent, and most of the plot for "The Rebirth" was removed when it was cut from a five-part to a three-part episode. We'll just have to take his word for it, since these scripts were not included on any of the DVD sets.
Discs 1 and 2 each contain seven episodes, while disc 3 contains three episodes, a pointless re-editing of the same three episodes, and an interview. There are much better ways to use the extra space on the third disc than putting "The Rebirth" on the disc twice! There are the potential extra features I listed earlier. Even if for some reason it was impossible for them to include any of those potential extras I listed, there still are better ways to use that extra space on the last disc.
The first two discs in this set have about two hours and 39 minutes of matierial, with seven episodes per disc. The third disc (without the duplicate "The Rebirth") has only three episodes and one interview, which is about one hour and 27 minutes worth of material.
A better use of disc space would be to put six episodes per disc on the first two disc, and the last five episodes and the interview on the third disc. This way the first two discs would have about two hours, 16 minutes of material, and the third would have two hours, 12 minutes. With less material on the first two discs, the video would not need to be as compressed and would look better. (And even less compression would be needed if they would include only the original audio track and ditch the other two audio tracks.)
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total (without duplicate material): 1:26:46 |
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