听 The DVD release of "The Phantom Menace" is set to join the elite against which all other DVDs are judged. Even if you're not a fan, it's impossible not to get sucked into the movie's five-year production process that this DVD spans.
DVD does some films no favours by sharpening up the CGI effects thereby reducing them to glaring faults in the movie. The quality of the Industrial Light & Magic effects are so good that, despite the sharpness of the image on this disc, the realism of the CGI is maintained while offering incredible amounts of detail.
"The Phantom Menace" DVD will undoubtedly become the disc that all hi-fi and electrical shops will use to demonstrate home cinema kit. It's hard to recall any 5.1 mix quite so busy and so epic in terms of design. The real standout scene is the podrace. The craft swoop between the speakers with incredible ferocity that's backed up by the busiest two hours your subwoofer will possibly ever encounter.
The Special Features:
Over 600 hours of footage shot over five years have gone into making the special features. The result is a wealth of DVD extras that are both very informative and often highly entertaining.
Disc One:
- Audio commentary with George Lucas, Rick McCallum, Ben Burtt, Rob Coleman, John Knoll, Dennis Muren, and Scott Squires. Perhaps George Lucas might consider a throat lozenge for his next commentary? Croaky tones aside, he's joined by the lead members of the design team (from visual to sound) who all have their own favourite anecdotes to chip in. Lucas explains that his aim is to create 'silent movies' with the script only fleshing out a story that works primarily on a visual level.
Disc Two:
- Trailers and TV spots - One teaser, the theatrical trailer, and seven TV spots. They sure aren't as exciting to see now as they were before the film came out.
- 'The Beginning - Making "Episode I" ' - An hour long documentary that follows the five-year development timeline, from the initial concept drawings, right though to the completed movie. Lots of meetings litter this feature, as everything from the podrace to the length of Ewan McGregor's hair is debated.
- Deleted Scenes Documentary - A curious little seven-minute featurette where directors including Lucas, Coppola, and Phillip Kaufman discuss why some scenes in a movie end up deleted. Eh, don't expect any earth-shattering revelations here.
- Deleted Scenes. Seven deleted scenes including two extended versions of the podrace. All are presented in 5.1.
- Web Documentaries - Here are the 12 documentaries that George Lucas put on his so that fans could keep up with the development of the film. A lot of basic development is covered here, from George physically sitting down to start the script (after doing the school run), to the 3000 auditionees for the part of Anakin.
- Featurettes - Five mini-documentaries that cover: Visual Effects, Costumes, Design, Fights, and Story. All include relevant interviews and behind-the-scenes footage and they all tie together with Lucas explaining the look that he was after.
- Introduction to Animatics - Short featurette on combining the movements of animated objects and/or characters with camera pans.
- Podrace Lap One Animatics - A multi-angle breakdown of the scene: angle one-'original storyboard', angle two-'animatics and live action shots', angle three-'completed shots from the film', angle four-'splitscreen of the three previous angles'.
- Submarine Sequence - A scene with multi-angle breakdown as above. Angle two is the best, with the amusing sight of watching actors trying to lip-synch in a plywood submarine.
- Exclusive Production Photos - A wealth of never-before-seen production stills, all with captions.
- Print Campaign - Media advertising stills
- Posters - Disappointing gallery full of stills of the same poster design, but with slightly altered contrast levels and the film title in different languages for relevant territories.
- 'Star Wars Starfighter'- Making of a Game - A real bargain bin featurette about the making of the computer game. Features lot of well fed, badly dressed people doing meetings.
THE END! You've made it. Well done, may the tiredness be with you. Meesa think this good DVD package, although sad that there is no option to remove Jar Jar Binks from the film...
Region: 2 and 4
Ratio: 2.35:1 (anamorphic)
Sound: Dolby Digital 5:1 EX and 2.0 Dolby Surround
Technical Features:
Scene selection, animated menus, multiple language subtitles, and English for the hearing impaired.
More great "Star Wars" stuff.
