You’ve read about my interview with head of fan relations at Lucasfilm Steve Sansweet about Star Wars, and there’s a story in the interview that has been overlooked a little bit and that was about Indiana Jones 5 and the Blu-ray of the existing 4 Indiana Jones movies.

Here’s a transcript of the pertinent bits:

Q: As head of [fan relations] at Lucasfilm, you talk about Indiana Jones, although it seems a lot more overshadowed under the fandom of Star Wars, and I’ve got two questions about that, one, the same thing about the high definition of that, and then there’s been talk, obviously, well there’s been talk of the Internet of there being talk of a fifth movie and… And even just a no comment on that.

A: All I know is what I’ve seen on the Internet. I personally would be surprised to see a fifth Indy movie because of all the well known stories about how long it took to get a fourth Indy movie done and everybody in agreement. Who knows.

As far as future DVD releases, Indy is a little different. Star Wars is completely controlled by one man. George. Indy is controlled by George and Steven and to a certain extent Harrison and Paramount. So you have a lot more parties that have to be in agreement when it comes to anything when it comes to Indy. So, that’s something we hear about after some decisions have been made. At least at my level.

Q: So a Blu-ray, maybe, after everybody all sits down and talks about it?

A: I would think that at some point, yeah. But I know absolutely nothing about any Indy plans.

We weren’t really involved very much in the marketing of Indy as far as I’m concerned because there really isn’t a fan community like there is for Star Wars. Indy was never a very toy-etic movie and I really think that got a lot of kids into Star Wars or revived their interest years later and so that whole, the books and the comics, there’s so much more with Star Wars, it’s such a huge galaxy. Whereas Indy is not supernatural, although he goes after the supernatural stuff. He’s a man. And he ages and you know. There’s still more to fill in his story, but it’s not the same depth of fandom interest as it is in Star Wars.

That’s a pretty bleak outlook for the Indiana Jones franchise, both as far as a new movie is concerned and as far as the Blu-ray.

Anything is possible, but it sounds like it will take a lot longer than the Blu-ray of Star Wars to see Indy in hi-definition.

The Geek Show Podcast was kind enough to host the full interview on their iTunes feed, for the full 15 minute interview, click this link.

During the San-Diego Comic-Con, I was able to snag an interview with Steve Sansweet, the head of Fan Relations at Lucasfilm.

You can read my article about the interview here.

But we got to talking about the Blu-ray and he got more specific about when we would be seeing it hit shelves.

Q: Is there any talk whatsoever, and I’m not even going to ask for a date because I know that’s ridiculous, but is there any talk about the Star Wars movies on a high definition format?

A: Yeah.  I mean obviously we’ve been looking at that for a couple of years and I think one of the questions is when is the market penetration there and these days, will there be a market penetration before everything goes streaming? But we’ve been looking at an ultimate box set of the Star Wars movies, all six of the movies.  And what special features would be.  And clearly these days, if you did an ultimate box set and didn’t do it in HD, Blu-ray, it just wouldn’t make any sense.  So now it’s a matter of thinking okay, we’ve been thinking about this for a while, we know what kind of assets we want to use, we’ve done some work in cleaning up things, it’s really a matter of making that decision of when’s the best time to release it.

Do you wait and have an event because you’re working off of the fact that there’s going to be a new live action TV series?

Click over and read the original article to read about what special features and extras we might be seeing.

The Geek Show Podcast was kind enough to host the full interview on their iTunes feed, for the full 15 minute interview, click this link. (In the full interview, there’s also talk about Indiana Jones on Blu-ray and the oft rumoured fifth Indiana Jones movie.)

During Marvel’s Animation Panel on Friday at the San Diego Comic Con the trailer for Plant Hulk debuted. Based on a few of Greg Pak’s issues of “Incredible Hulk.” The story follows the intergalactic exile of Hulk by Iron Man and the rest of the Illuminati as he crash lands on the war planet, Sakaar, and is forced to participate in gladiator-esque combat. You can check out the trailer below!

I came across some Disney Animated short DVD’s recently and I thought I would share my thoughts about them.

The first one I watched was volume 5 of the collection, the headliner was “Wind and the Willows”

As a kid, I always had a particular fondness of The Wind in the Willows, but watching it as an adult I had a completely different opinion about it. It was as funny as I remember it being, but the story is so loosely assembled it was a little distracting. I really like the Horse and Mister Toad, they are certainly hilarious. Overall I still really like it, but there is something about watching it as a kid that was slightly more magical about it.

The other shorts on this DVD were various Silly Symphony’s, all telling moral stories. I remember them all from my childhood, and I enjoyed them even more watching them again. The other shorts on the disc were “The Ugly Duckling” “The Grasshopper and the Ants” “The Robber Kitten” “The Wise Little Hen”, and “The Golden Touch” They are all about 7 minutes long, which I think is great. I watched this DVD with a 3 year old, and it really fit his attention span wonderfully. I think my favorite short on this disc other than The Wind and The Willows was, “The Golden Touch”, telling the story of King Midas, mostly because it was hilarious to me how many times they killed a cat by turning it to gold.

I watched the 4th volume next, with the headliner on this one being, The Tortoise and the Hare.

The Tortoise and the Hare was really short in itself, but I liked this DVD plenty. It contains two Tortoise and the Hare shorts, one with the traditional story of the foot race, and the other with a boxing match. Both are really funny, and worth watching with your kids. It pains me to see how you can’t find cartoons like this anymore.

The other shorts on the DVD were, “Babes in the Woods”, “The Saga of Windwagon Smith”, “The Goddess of Spring” and “Paul Bunyan” My favorite of which was Paul Bunyan, telling the story of the triumph of machine over man. Being a Robot this always seems to hit the soft spot in my main compartment. This disc also contains my least favorite/ultimate favorite, which is “The Goddess of Spring” In which the bass singing Hades kidnaps Spring, and takes her to hell. It makes me laugh every time to see how cheesy it is.

The last collection I watched was volume 3, with the headliner being The Prince and the Pauper.

I remember liking The Prince and the Pauper a lot as a kid, but watching it again I didn’t enjoy it at all. It seems to me it was made just for kids, to be honest I haven’t really liked Mickey Mouse since he started talking an excessive amount.

The other shorts on the DVD were “The Pied Piper”, “Old King Cole”, “A Knight for a Day”, “Ye Olden Days” Other than “Old King Cole”, and The Prince and the Pauper, the shorts on this DVD were solid. “The Pied Piper” is really cool but I think it is tied for second place on this DVD with “A Knight for a Day”, which is a Goofy short. I am a big fan of the Goofy shorts, and this was a good one, where a squire takes over for a passed out knight in a jousting tournament with a corny announcer, competing for the affections of a Goofy princess.

My favorite on the DVD was “Ye Olden Days” though, which was a black and white short where Mickey saves Minnie from being betrothed to Dippy dog. Those old shorts where most of the gags are visual just hit the spot.

Overall, all of these DVD’s are worth watching with your kids but my favorite was The Wind and the Willows disk. Watching them makes me miss my robot adolescence when they would play shorts like these, Looney Tunes, and Tom and Jerry all the time. Something is missing from today’s cartoons that these all captured that I think are really worth sharing with your kids.

This review originally appeared on Arse-bot’s DVD Examiner site.

In the late 1990’s Japanese Animation flooded the American airwaves. From more toned down shows geared towards kids -Hamtaro comes to mind- to more adult oriented anime such as Gundam and Big O, these Japanese shows were incredibly popular and if you were a kid watching cartoons during this time chances are you were exposed to the genre in one form or another. Perhaps one of the most popular of these anime shows was Dragonball (or more specifically, Dragonball Z), the beloved show created by Akira Toriyama, which follows Goku and his friends going on countless adventures, most of which pertaining to the fabled seven Dragon Balls in one way or another. Personally, I was one of those sucked in by this “new” Dragonball show -which aired during Cartoon Network’s “Toonami” and “Adult Swim” blocks- and eventually found myself making my way through most of the 300 episodes and movies. While at this point in my life I have lost most interest in anime, Dragonball has always held a special place in my childhood as the cartoon that bridged that gap of being too old to thoroughly enjoy current Saturday morning cartoons, but still longing for some epic animated adventure. I always figured it would be a matter of time before Hollywood got its grubby hands on this beloved show.

I must admit, I was one of those fans. One of the people that -as optimistic as I honestly tried to be- was less than impressed with any screen cap, leaked photo, and trailer that hit the internet. As my hope diminished so did my ability to hold back my disdain for all material released, I finally got to the point I just eventually gave up even following what was going on with regards to the development of the film. I skipped seeing Dragonball: Evolution in theaters, I haven’t been watching for it to come out on DVD; but when a review copy came across my desk, I couldn’t resist, I had to know, “Is it that bad?”

Yes.

And then some. What happened here with Dragonball: Evolution is an unfortunate scenario that we see all to often in Hollywood. A bunch of execs get their hands on some potentially high quality source material then proceed to strip it of everything that was loved about it and produce a product that barely even resembles what it once was. Before I get carried away as to why this movie was just so bad, allow me to try to sum up the “plot” for you:

2000 years ago an alien names Piccolo and a giant monkey named Oozaru destroyed much of the earth, but were then captured in a Urn by some monks. Flash forward to “present day” and we have Goku who is training with his grandfather Gohan. Goku is “special” and is picked on by classic movie bullies at school because apparently he is a geek (despite the fact that he looks like he could fit right in with said assailants). Eventually, while at Chi-Chi’s sweet high school house party, the bullies are disposed of. But while Goku is away getting frisky with Chi-Chi, Gohan is attacked by Piccolo and dies in Goku’s arms once he gets there. What then proceeds to happen in this train-wreck of a movie is characters such as Bulma, Yamcha, and Master Roshi are introduced, given really bad lines, thrown into some really bad CG environments, and forced to participate in less than spectacular fight scenes… all on the way to collecting the seven Dragonballs before Piccolo does which will bring about the end of the world. The movie culminates in Goku turning into Oozaru (which shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the anime series) via some sub-par animation, then turning back through sheer will to throw a laughable Kamehameha at Piccolo, putting an end to his threat. Though, before the credits roll, they set it up for a sequel -that probably won’t happen- and have a “flirty” fight between Goku and Chi-Chi.

There is a lot wrong with this movie, but where they really went wrong with Dragonball: Evolution is with the script and the scale of the film. There were a lot of elements of the original Dragonball series and the follow up series, Dragonball Z, mixed together and what happened is the writers seemed to cram in hundreds of episodes worth of material into a 90 minute “action comedy” with hopes of pandering to a young crowd. Neither those familiar with Dragonball or those with no former knowledge of the series were acknowledged in the making of this film. Those walking off the streets not know a thing about Goku or the source material will probably just be absolutely baffled at the movie playing before them; nothing is explained clearly, -or in some cases, at all– there is next to no motivation for the actions of the characters, all in all, nothing to familiarize the beginner with Dragonball lore. As far as fans of the original manga and anime are concerned, it should only take about 5-10 minutes before they begin to become increasingly irate at how far off the path from the source material Dragonball: Evolution actually goes. It’s almost as if 20th Century Fox wanted to see just how far away from the original manga and anime they could take a live-action version of Dragonball without having to actually no longer call it “Dragonball”. If that were the case, they walked right up to the line and planted their feet firmly on top of it.

The script is full of plot holes and inexcuseable inconsistencies. For instance, at one point Master Roshi reveals that he can fly, but a short time later in the film he can’t figure out how to cross a lava pond. Fly maybe? The scale of Dragonball: Evolution is embarrassing; the locations and sets all just felt crammed, a far cry from the vast landscapes that are so dominant in the original anime series. The fight scenes were also toned down and boring, not even close to scale as they should have been. They were brief, uninspired, and hardly resembled the epic showdowns that Dragonball is known for.

Justin Chatwin and Emily Rossum seem to try to do what they can with the dialogue, but executing 90% of the lines in this movie with quality would prove to be nearly impossible. All the other actors involved with the film suffer from the same, which is too bad being that several of these actors have all been in movies that I enjoyed and put up decent performances. As I stated before, the special effects leave something to be desired and how they portrayed Goku’s infamous Kamehameha was insulting.

To sum it all up, Dragonball: Evolution was as bad as all the fanboys knew it was going to be and the cautiously optimistic fans feared it would be. The only things resembling the source material were the names of characters and places, most everything else seemed to just be thrown out the window when 20th Century Fox purchased the rights to make Dragonball into a film. Young kids who are just wanting to be entertained by a short, fast paced movie with lots of “action” may be the ones most entertained by this movie, but my guess is that anyone that has more than one digit in their age will likely not enjoy Dragonball: Evolution. Overall, it seems this film apeals to nobody, and yet, there are “talks” of actually making the sequel that the first film sets up, which absolutely blows me away. I went into watching this film with the lowest expectations I could possibly find, and yet, I was still appauled at just how bad this was.

Pass on this film, in every format.

If you feel that I have been over critical or unfair at just how awful this film was, please, feel free to check out Dragonball: Evolution for yourself.

My first major recommendation of the week comes in the form of Green Lantern: First Flight. This looks to be like another great addition to the DC Animated film library, though you can read an opposing view here. The animation looks great and DC hasn’t let me down yet on the animated film front.

Next on my list is The Middleman: The Complete Series. I had heard vague rumblings about this show around the internet a couple of years back and never got a chance to see it on television. I got this Complete Series set to watch and I have to say I was quite pleasantly surprised. The humour is very tongue-in-cheek, the dialogue is fast, witty, and snappy, the acting is above-average for TV, and the concept is fun. It was made by ABC family, so it’s safe to watch with everyone in the family from 2-80, so this will be a treat to watch for everyone. Add to all of that the fact that Natalie Morales, the lead in the show, is terribly attractive and you’ve got a DVD box set worth owning for a number of different reasons.

I’m quite keen to see The 10th Victim which comes out today. It stars Marcello Mastroianni and Ursella Andress in a film that sounds quite exciting. It’s one of those sci-fi sorts of movies where entertainment has turned into hunting people like the Running Man or something. Mastroianni and Andress are pitted against each other, despite a romance and the audience is left wondering who is going to end up dead. Sounds like a hoot.

Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series comes out on Blu-ray today. I’m sure a lot of you will want to know all about that. I don’t know, personally. I haven’t watched any of it yet. Let me emphasize yet. I will watch it, I just don’t know when.

Next on the list, for obvious reasons, is Spectacular Spider-Man: Complete First Season.

Rob Reiner’s classic film This Is Spinal Tap is coming out on Blu-ray today. This is one worth owning. If you don’t already own it, this is the perfect time to jump on board since this edition goes to 11.

The last thing I’m going to mention today is Dragonball: Evolution. I tried watching this with the kids and I did not enjoy it all that much. But they put it in again. And again. And again. It’s made their heavy rotation list. Trust me, I don’t understand what it is, but they get something about it, we don’t. They’ll like it.

That’s it for this week.  I’ll be back next time with more cool DVD’s and Blu-ray’s to check out.

Be sure to visit Arse-bot over at his Examiner page to check out his highlights for this week’s DVD releases!

About a week ago, Paramount announced the release details of JJ Abrams’ Star Trek DVD/Blu-ray. Well, now they have released the artwork that is going to go along with it, pictured above.

Also, the luke-warm to negatively geek-reviewed X-Men outting of X-Men Origins: Wolverine will be seeing DVD/Blu-ray release on September 15. You can check out all the specs on all three editions of the film over at Arse-bot’s Examiner site.

Tomorrow will see the release of DC/WB’s latest foray into the direct-to-DVD animated movie market with Green Lantern: First Flight. In recent years DC has put out some pretty damn good animated movies including, Batman: Gotham Knight, Justice League: New Frontier, Superman: Doomsday, and Wonder Woman. All of these have been solid entries geared to a slightly more mature audience than cartoons airing on TV. So it’s no wonder that most people will probably pick up Green Lantern: First Flight when it hits DVD/Blu-ray tomorrow with some pretty high expectations.

Unfortunately though, I think Green Lantern is going to end up being the weakest link in the DCAU thus far. It was by no means a bad movie, it just wasn’t as good as what DC has put out in the very recent past. The biggest problem with this film is the lack of character development, in that there just isn’t much at all. Hal Jordan’s origin is blown through in the first 5 minutes (which, in all fairness, culminates in an absolutely awesome transformation into the Green Lantern) and then it’s off, without question, to battle intergalactic evil and unravel Sinestro’s treasonous plot. With a character like Hal Jordan who hasn’t seen a whole lot of screen time in regards to the DCAU, I thought it would be imperative to focus a little more on who Hal is as a human, not just show him as a 100% confident, doesn’t question his new power, super hero.

Though, it’s not all bad news for Green Lantern: First Flight, solid animation, good voice acting, and lots of good action take up most of the 75 min. run time for Hal’s first outing as a Green Lantern! You can check out Arse-bot’s full review over at Examiner to check out what I had to say about what was good about First Flight and what you can expect in regards to special features!

The battles are pretty brutal and mature; people get bones broken, aliens get impaled, it’s all quality action movie stuff. The tracking down of Kanjar Ro and Sinestro’s eventual turn to the “yellow side” take up most of the 75 minute runtime, and the action and drama throughout is fun as hell to watch -especially during Hal and Sinestro’s final showown.

Arse-bot reviewed the straight-to-DVD release of Echelon Conspiracy, starring Shane West, Ed Burns, and Ving Rhames over at his alter-ego’s Examiner site. The overall verdict on the movie is that it’s just not quite up to par with what’s being released theatrically these days and there are a lot of similarities to 2008’s Eagle Eye, which is why I think Paramount decided to pull the plug on the theatrical release of this one and send it straight to DVD/Blu-ray. That said though, it’s not bad for a straight-to-DVD movie; the action is decent, the production value’s are high, and it’s actually very well paced through the whole film. It’s not without the “roll your eyes” B-movie moments, but, it’s to be expected. You can check out the full, more detailed review of Echelon Conspiracy over at Examiner.

Echelon Conspiracy starts off with computer technician, Max Peterson (Shane West) receives an anonymous package while on a business trip on Moscow. In the package is a high-tech cell phone which soon receives an anonymous text message with a promotional offer from the hotel to stay an extra night for a discount. Max takes up the offer, and the plane he was supposed to be on crashes. After this incident, Max isn’t very reluctant to take advice from his new gadget, which then directs him to a casino where he cleans up; getting the attention of the casino’s head of security (Ed Burns) and an FBI agent (Ving Rhames). Thus begins a global cat and mouse game of the government trying to track down Max Peterson and exactly who is sending text messages to his phone, guiding him.

Obviously, the first catch of the day is Watchmen

This movie was pretty good, extremely entertaining, and faithful to the source material to a fault. Now, the director’s cut is on Blu-ray and we can watch in living breathing color all of the moments from the comic that were excised to make the film more accessible in theatres. Everyone is going to get this disc, it will do gangbusters.

Next up is Coraline. This version of the film is pretty definitive. For $20 you get both the 2D and 3D versions of the film, and Blu-ray, DVD, and digital copies. You’ll be able to watch the hell out of this movie on every platform you own. And the film is so exceedingly excellent that you will, indeed, want to watch it repeatedly any way it may be available. Seriously, don’t pass this one up. It’s a fantastic fantasy/horror film for the kids. Like Gremlins, only good.

After that is Robot Chicken: Star Wars – Episode II. This is quite a great special, though not as good as the first one, it’s still quite hilarious and I plan on picking a copy up.

Next we have Jean-Luc Godard’s Made in U.S.A. from the Criterion Collection. Perhaps I’m a bad film person when I say I’ve never seen any Godard and this will be my first. Expect a review of it to appear at my Examiner site.

Next on the list is The Mighty Boosh: The Complete Season 1, Season 2, and Season 3. I’ve heard so many good things about this show that it’s at critical mass.

Ira Glass’ This American Life: Season Two is coming out. I love the radio show and am quite intrigued to see the video version.

The last thing I’ll put on the list is the Blu-ray release of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. I think this movie is a lot of fun. It’s fun to look at, fun to watch, fun to experience.