DC Universe Animated Original Movies

Features, Shorts, Live-Action and Direct-To-Video
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Post by Megagents » December 2nd, 2007, 12:11 am

Great news.
Last edited by Megagents on December 12th, 2007, 1:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by Randall » December 10th, 2007, 12:39 am

HD box art:
http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Justic ... x-Art/8578

Hm, unless it changes, it looks like the HD DVD will be a combo (SD/HD) release.

As someone who will soon be HD format neutral, with dual format HD releases I've been ordering according to either selection of special features, or how the box art looks with the red or blue cases. The features here will be the same (except for the HD DVD adding a standard DVD side), and each package looks pretty good to me. Not sure which way to go here.

Regardless, this looks to be an excellent release!!

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Post by GeorgeC » December 10th, 2007, 1:35 am

The problem with those combo discs (HD-DVD/DVD format) is that they have a higher-than-normal bonding failure rate. In plain English, the discs are made by gluing a regular DVD side to an HD-DVD side and the bonding fails to seal properly at an alarming rate.

Many, many people and review sites have reported these combo discs not working properly in players. They should be avoided if at all possible...

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Post by Ben » December 10th, 2007, 7:15 am

Yeah, watch your combo buying Rand...The Digital Bits is always bringing up new titles that viewers are having trouble with. :)

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Post by Randall » December 10th, 2007, 7:58 am

I've not personally had any problems playing the combos, even notorious titles like Children of Men. Oddly, the first generation HD DVD player, which I have, seems to do better with them than the newer ones. Still, it is something to consider.

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Post by Randall » December 10th, 2007, 8:03 am

I've not personally had any problems playing the combos, even notorious titles like Children of Men. Oddly, the first generation HD DVD player, which I have, seems to do better with them than the newer ones. Still, it is something to consider.

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Post by Daniel » December 20th, 2007, 4:08 am

IGN has posted a new trailer for Justice League: The New Frontier! Looking very good. Love the animation and how it resembles the comics.

And here you can get a better look at four pictures. Notice the 'S' on Superman? Great homage to the Fleischer original.

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Post by Ben » December 20th, 2007, 5:13 am

I'm loving the retro, muted colors on this.

Not a lot to get your teeth into here, but the animation doesn't look half bad for the budget and market.

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Post by Randall » December 21st, 2007, 8:14 am

New trailer, including links to other YouTube vids on this project:
http://blog.newsarama.com/2007/12/20/ne ... d-trailer/

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Batman Anime release date...

Post by GeorgeC » February 26th, 2008, 1:06 pm

From AnimeonDVD.com --

"Warner Home Video New Title Solicitations (08:17 AM EST): The first round of solicitaiton information has come down for this release that is supposed to bridge the two Batman movies with an appeal to anime fans in the same vein as Animatrix:
Batman: Gotham Knight (also w/special edition) - N/A minutes - $24.98/29.98 - 07/08/2008 Single DVD/2-disc special edition
Batman: Gotham Knight (also w/special edition) - N/A minutes - $34.98 - 07/08/2008 BLU-RAY Edition
The single disc edition will include a documentary on Batman villains as well as commentaries from the filmmakers and a preview of the Wonder Woman direct-to-DVD animated feature. The two-disc edition also includes a documentary on the life and works of Batman creator Bob Kane and a selection of director Bruce Timm's favorite episodes from Batman: The Animated Series. All of the extras will be available on the single Blu-ray edition."


This is gonna a big, big release.

Possibly the best-selling superhero AND anime title of the year.

Regardless of how good it really is...

I still don't like the prices on Blu-Ray. (Same goes for the average PS3 and X360 game. The prices are at least $10 too high.)

I passed on the Blu-Ray release of JL: The New Frontier because Best Buy was selling it for $29.99 versus $19.99 for the DOUBLE DISC DVD release (which also had a Best Buy exclusive Green Lantern/Hal Jordan figurine)!

Really, they're (WB is) shooting themselves in the foot with that kind of pricing.

If it had only been $5 more, I probably would have gotten the Blu-Ray instead of the 2-disc DVD set. As it stands, only the main feature was in 1080p resolution on the BR disc. The special features were ALL 480i/p on the BR.

Make no mistake about it, I'll probably get the BR edition on sale later in the year OR when I get a coupon for it. I'm just not willing to pay $30 a head per disc. It's ridiculous, new technology or not...

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Post by eddievalient » February 26th, 2008, 1:33 pm

I'm not concerned about whether it'll be any good or not. The writers they lined up are good and we know that Bruce Timm is a good director, so I'm sure it'll be at least halfway decent. My concern is whether or not I'll be able to find the 2-disc edition without either driving 60 miles to the mall or ordering it online (I hate hate HATE living in the mountains!).
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Post by Ben » February 26th, 2008, 4:19 pm

The big thing - not to send this off into our HD thread - is that I don't like how the standard def released get the goodies.

SURELY they realise that the guys that like all the extra extras (like the Bonnie And Clyde UE coming out) are the guys that want to go to Blu-Ray.

But going to Blu-Ray forfeits the groovy packaging, etc. They should make SE DVD and BD to the same package specs.

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Post by Foxtale » February 26th, 2008, 6:06 pm

I'm excited about seeing this... hm July eh? Guess I have some time to wait. I probaly won't see it until Sept. then.
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Post by GeorgeC » February 26th, 2008, 10:58 pm

Ben wrote:The big thing - not to send this off into our HD thread - is that I don't like how the standard def released get the goodies.
Oh, I agree with you Ben. I mentioned the fact in the BR thread about how disappointing the RoboCop, Superman: The Movie, and Terminator (I & II) BR releases are. Sparse, and what special features they have are often Standard Def.

It's sad to see that the 2-disc DVD release of The New Frontier gets the Green Lantern figure (Best Buy only, though) while the BR disc gets just an extra "$10" exclusive added to the purchase price! :lol:

Sometimes that kind of marketing makes you wonder if they really want to sell the BR product. :roll:

It's just stupid.



P.S. -- Although I only went to two stores, it appears that only Best Buy was carrying the BR of The New Frontier. Wal-Mart didn't have it in BR. If I have time and the inclination, I might check the other places that sell BR nearby but I wouldn't hold my breath...


P.S. P.S. -- Despite our mild b******g about BR's lack of exclusives and decent presentations this side of The Blade Runner suitcase, it's an even worse time to be an HD-DVD owner.

They got very bad Valentine's Day gifts courtesy of Toshiba and Micro$oft.

Ouch. More like a St. Valentine's Day Massacre! :shock:

GeorgeC

Justice League Triumphant -- New Frontier A-

Post by GeorgeC » February 27th, 2008, 3:59 am

DC should have begun its original video animation program with Justice League: The New Frontier instead of Superman: Doomsday. The latter video was very much a stumbling block for what could be a series of potentially excellent animated action-adventures OVAs.

I predict that if enough people see this video, it'll be much harder to find in a short while than Superman: Doomsday which will eventually end up within 6 months in the $5.50 bin at Wal-Mart. The New Frontier is that much better than Doomsday.

Yes, it's animation done on a bargain budget and it's nowhere near as nicely animated as a Disney feature or the Fleischer Superman shorts. The character designs are serviceable and suit the story but don't expect to be blown away by something new -- there's more than a little bit of a Bruce Timm influence in the look of the film even though he didn't design the characters. This story's original writer/artist, Darwyn Cooke, was a storyboard artist on several of the DCAU series in the 1990s and shows heavy Timm influence.

Its questionable and somewhat naive political biases aside (1950s America ALL bad, 1960s USA and JFK ALL good! sums it up), the film actually has a decent story about the next generation of heroes overcoming personal insecurities and finding their identities . The Flash is the fastest man alive yet feels inferior next to the demigods of yesteryear, Superman and Wonder Woman. Green Lantern feels he's not brave enough to step out of the crowd since he refused to fire guns during the Korean War. (Yeah, that part of GL never made sense in the original New Frontier comic, either...) Martian Manhunter is stuck in a world that's totally foreign to him but sees the spark of possibility and hope in humanity.

If anything, the 72-minute running time of the film (I don't count three minutes of B & W end credits as film!) works in the story's favor. So much of the needless exposition and nice-but-unnecessary cameos from the original comics are cut to focus on the three previously mentioned characters. This is NOT a Superman, Wonder Woman, and/or Batman story. And thank goodness for that -- because NOT ALL the stories have to be about those three characters. The original story has improved for the better. The narrative flows much more smoothly and the whole point of the story becomes obvious unlike the original mini-series which seemed to get lost and rudderless for an issue or two.

The casting choices are for the most part excellent. David Boreanaz grows as Hal Jordan and matures into the great icon of DC's Silver Age, the space age Green Lantern, by the end of the film. Brooke Shields also does one of her best performances as Carol Ferris, the boss and girlfriend of Hal Jordan. Frankly, her vocal and diction is so good that I feel she might have actually made a better Wonder Woman than Lucy Lawless who is surprisingly one of the weaker links in the film.

Yes, the producers made the most obvious casting choice. The live-action Wonder Woman project fell apart but Lawless never wanted to do it in the first place since she basically played another Greek character for five years. For whatever reasons, Lawless just doesn't seem to click as well as Wonder Woman and it's something of a disappointment. Her performance is not awful but she's definitely not the definitive Wonder Woman in my book. So far, nobody has captured the ultimate animated Amazon thus far as far as I'm concerned.

Neil Patrick Harris is also surprisingly good as The Flash. Although I felt he sounded a bit young to play Barry Allen he'd won me over well before The Flash's legend-making race for humanity towards the film's end. It's easy to buy him as a decent person who loves his fiancee but yet is conflicted by feelings of inferiority and awe in the presence of the legends who didn't fade away in McCarthyism (Wonder Woman and Superman).

Kyle McLachlan nails Superman as the 50s hero and Jeremy Sisto is also excellent as a Batman in transition from obsessed predator of the night to a more civil and responsible detective. Sisto was one casting choice a bunch of fans were nervous about since just about everybody agrees Kevin Conroy was THE voice of the animated Batman. They shouldn't have worried. Sisto was pretty darn good. A lot better than the other casting choices made for Batman since the end of the classic 1990s series.

Ultimately, The New Frontier is a faithful adaptation of a good comic book story that evolved into an even better film. It follows the basic lessons carried through the previous DCAU series Batman, Superman, and Justice League/Unlimited -- what's good and has worked for over 40 years really doesn't need to be changed because some egotistical Hollywood writer or artist wants to make his mark. Respect the past and don't become a slave to it, but don't lose the "hero" in "superhero," either. Those are lessons that the makers of Marvel's competing animated video series have yet to fully learn.

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