I posted this today over at the Oddball Comics Forum, but I think you people might enjoy it too:
Now THIS is a DVD I’ve eagerly waited for, from the very moment I saw the movie at the theaters. I just couldn’t wait to see the secrets behind its making, listen to the voice actors recall their experiences, slow down those blinding-speed action shots, watch the movie in Spanish, etc. So I finally rented it, and now I’d like to share my impressions (without spoilers, I hope.)
The first surprise I got was when I tried to load the disks and I got the message, “your parental settings won’t allow the playing of this title”. WTH?? (I was using my Playstation 2, which plays DVDs fine and had NEVER given me that reaction. I guess somehow I must’ve lowered the safety settings, because, far as I remember, Incredibles is a PG rated movie, and I’ve watched PG movies with the PS2 before.) Anyway I used the PS2 password code and was allowed to see it with no problem afterwards.
The DVD set consists of two discs. The first contains the movie itself (which you can watch in English, Spanish or French, with or without subtitles; or in English with commentary from the Director and the Producer (or from the animators) added. (Is it me, or is this DVD Extra Feature becoming more common these days? Looks like the movie makers finally realized that they can use a movie’s DVD release to talk about their creations (and themselves) a LOT! But at least in this case I welcomed this, since Mr. Bird’s commentaries are a large part of the reason I wanted to see this DVD. After both THE IRON GIANT and THE INCREDIBLES, he has become one of my artistic heroes. ^^
Also included is a short introduction by Writer/Director Brad Bird, an Index of the contents of each disc, a Scene Selection choice, and sneak peaks of several coming Disney and Pixar movies or DVD releases (including (FINALLY!) several Miyazaki movies!! If anyone in the World has managed to showcase the same Sense of Wonder that Disney has (or had) besides Pixar, it’s Hayao Miyazaki.) Oh, there’s also something called a “THX Optimizer” whose purpose is to help you check which of your TV set’s settings are best to watch the movie with. I didn’t bother, because it looked fine to me the way it was, but the gesture is appreciated- and THIS movie certainly deserves it.
Disk 2 includes: Another intro by Bird;The animated short, “Jack Jack Attack!” (which debuts here), a “Special” about the scenes “deleted” from the movie, A look Behind The Scenes, A ‘Making of the Incredibles’ section, an essay (?) by Sarah Vowell (Violet’s voice actress), the Incredi-blunders (Production goofs), an episode of the ‘animated series’ “Mr. Incredible & Pals” (again, making its ‘debut’ here), a “Top Secret Files” (revealing information about the various heroes in the Incredibles Universe, most of which we barely glimpsed in the movie), the animated short “Bounding” than ran in theaters with the movie (the one with the Jackalope) and also the trailers and other publicity animation for the movie.The index and optimizer are also present in this disc.
All of these are excellent features, but something seems missing… Hey! Where are the Voice Actor interviews?? Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, etc?? They ALWAYS include those on animated movie DVDs, no?? Ok, so we got to see a lot about them on tv show interviews back when the movie was out, but I hoped to hear more from each voice actor. I guess they decided to leave them out to focus on the rest of the stuff… To be fair, we DO get to hear a LOT from Ms. Vowell in her section- not all of it having to do with The Incredibles- and we get to see the FULL “Interview” segments that Pixar did (with Live Action interviewers speaking to animated characters from the movie) in Disc 2, which ARE voiced by the same actors.
The theme for the DVD menu’s interface are the screen images from Syndrome’s Computer, which makes a lot of sense- and is quite fun in and of itself, as you see animated details on the characters, vehicles, etc. running in the background as the disc waits for your choices. (Darnit, I want an Incredicar!! ^^)
The “Jack Jack” short is a side story to the main movie: it shows what happened when JJ’s powers finally awakened- while he was being baby sat by a teenage girl who had NO idea he was a super baby! This was hinted at but not shown in the movie, and it was great to finally watch it happen. Definitely the BEST new feature of the DVD. Only one problem: at under 5 minutes, it was TOO DARN SHORT!! It felt kinda rushed to me; there were things in there that would’ve been funnier if they had taken their time to develop. Couldn’t they have at least afforded ten minutes to it?
The “deleted” scenes are not only discussed in Disc 2, they actually included semi-animated versions of the storyboards, with actual voice acting, which is the next best thing to seeing them animated. Some of them I WISH they had included, as they were a lot of fun and/or expanded the movie even more. The main reason to exclude them was simply lack of room; The Incredibles, even with all the cuts, still turned out to be the longest movie Pixar has ever done.
The “making of” parts will probably be a bore to many people, who probably don’t care about such things, but I enjoyed them; not only do they show how freakin’ HARD making this movie was, but you get to know Brad and the rest of the staff, and they also happen to be very likeable people.
The “Vowellet” Essay was… odd. It seems to be there just to tell us about Vowell, who I know is some sort of Radio Talk Show celebrity (this was her first voice acting job ever, and she was actually invited to do the part because she just SOUNDED the way they wanted Violet to sound.) Maybe Ms. Vowell agreed to do the movie in the condition they gave her some air time on the DVD? Whatever. It didn’t impress me much. Your opinion may vary.
“Mr. Incredible and Pals” is real laugh-riot. It’s supposed to be an episode of a series done with permission from Incredible and Frozone, but it was done in the primitive (and politically slanted) style that the early Saturday Morning Cartoons of the 50’s (from which The Incredibles borrows a lot of elements) had and it’s (intentionally) TERRIBLE! There are two versions, one with and one without commentary added from the two heroes. Watch both. The second time is even FUNNIER.
The “Top Secret” section is supposed to represent the government’s secret files on the Super Heroes. This serves mainly to expand on the background of the Incredibles’ world. You get things like the EXACT power ratings of each hero (including Incredible, Elasti-Girl and Frozone) which RPG geeks like me just LOVE; and they actually added bits of dialogue for EVERY hero! Great work here.
“Bounding” never impressed me much. It’s not that it’s BAD, but compared to other Pixar shorts, it doesn’t seem as innovative or charming (remember the Snow Globe Snowman? Awww!)
One final comment: as a Spanish-speaker (not to mention a translator) I couldn’t help but notice that they CUT CORNERS on the dubbing!! For example, some voices in the movie that came out of machines (like the loudspeakers in Bob’s working place) were LEFT OUT! Probably since there was no visible person speaking, maybe they felt the public wouldn’t notice. I’m VERY disappointed at this attitude, thought otherwise, the Spanish Voice Acting is excellent (they even nailed Edna’s accent!!)
So, in general, I have to say that THE INCREDIBLES DVD is a highly enjoyable product, full of stuff to watch for hours. If it were up to ME, I would’ve excluded some of it (like the Vowell Essay, or the Bounding short) and instead expanded Jack-Jack Attack and included the Voice Actor Interviews (even if only the original ones) but that’s just my personal opinion. I still recommend it to everyone. And after watching all that Incredibles stuff, I can only ask:
WHEN ARE THE SEQUELS/SPIN-OFFS COMING OUT??
Yeah, I know Pixar usually doesn’t do sequels, but when they DO them, they’re usually of GREAT quality (remember TOY STORY 2?) There’s just too much potential in this little fictional universe to abandon… an animated series could be just the place to explore it (and Disney -who I think owns the characters- has a habit of making TV sequels to ther hit movies. Now let’s HOPE they can keep PIXAR’S level of quality… )
