Last Battlestar
December 5th, 2003, 05:42 AM
At last! The DVD set was released here in Oz last Wednesday, but I had to wait until today to get the cool limited edition Cylon box. It looks great skating along the top of my subwoofer!:D
Overall, I'm very happy with the way the episodes are presented, although the limited chapter stops within each episode make it a little hard to get to a particular scene. The picture looks very nice with a crisp, clean, filmic-looking transfer (apparently, BG was one of the last TV shows to be actually shot on film) adding to the movie-look of the show we all love.
I was a little disappointed with the sound mix. It sounds a lot like one of those useless pseudo-surround effect functions found on most home theatre receivers these days than a proper 5.1 mix and a little light on the bass for my liking. But it's nice and clear; it is very difficult to get full discrete 5.1 from an original analogue mono track anyway. The opening score sounds HUGE! I was choking back the lump in my throat and pretending I had something in my eye when it came on. Then again, I think the GF was too.....(what a gal!)
Somehow I think that we get less extra features than you guys. A shock was finding the 7th extra disc in a paper cover slipped into one of the DVD cases! YUCK! It has the full load of deleted scenes (most of which I have already seen on our cable episodes), but only the GL 'Creation', Cylon, Daggit and 'Remembering' docos, the photo gallery and the mini series trailer. Did we miss out on some stuff?
On seeing the mini series trailer, I have to admit to being very impressed, for the first 30 seconds. That big score, sweeping views of space, short glimpses of the characters and heroic speech by Adama certainly had me sitting up and taking notice. But as soon as it was all replaced by electronic music and sex scenes, my hopes crashed. For an instant there I thought that they may have come up with something grand, but not for long. Nikki and I looked at each other and shook our heads. She commented at how the total spirit of the original had been totally ignored, replaced by another B5/SAAB clone. Oh dear.
Still, we now have our favourite show preserved forever in digital format to show our grandchildren what true sci fi was all about.
My ratings:
Picture transfer: 10/10
Audio: 7/10 (more bass while the G flies past would give it a 9!)
Extras: 8/10
Packaging: 10/10 Cylon box, 0/10 extra features disc.
Value: priceless to a die hard like me :cool: :cool: :cool:
Mike
Overall, I'm very happy with the way the episodes are presented, although the limited chapter stops within each episode make it a little hard to get to a particular scene. The picture looks very nice with a crisp, clean, filmic-looking transfer (apparently, BG was one of the last TV shows to be actually shot on film) adding to the movie-look of the show we all love.
I was a little disappointed with the sound mix. It sounds a lot like one of those useless pseudo-surround effect functions found on most home theatre receivers these days than a proper 5.1 mix and a little light on the bass for my liking. But it's nice and clear; it is very difficult to get full discrete 5.1 from an original analogue mono track anyway. The opening score sounds HUGE! I was choking back the lump in my throat and pretending I had something in my eye when it came on. Then again, I think the GF was too.....(what a gal!)
Somehow I think that we get less extra features than you guys. A shock was finding the 7th extra disc in a paper cover slipped into one of the DVD cases! YUCK! It has the full load of deleted scenes (most of which I have already seen on our cable episodes), but only the GL 'Creation', Cylon, Daggit and 'Remembering' docos, the photo gallery and the mini series trailer. Did we miss out on some stuff?
On seeing the mini series trailer, I have to admit to being very impressed, for the first 30 seconds. That big score, sweeping views of space, short glimpses of the characters and heroic speech by Adama certainly had me sitting up and taking notice. But as soon as it was all replaced by electronic music and sex scenes, my hopes crashed. For an instant there I thought that they may have come up with something grand, but not for long. Nikki and I looked at each other and shook our heads. She commented at how the total spirit of the original had been totally ignored, replaced by another B5/SAAB clone. Oh dear.
Still, we now have our favourite show preserved forever in digital format to show our grandchildren what true sci fi was all about.
My ratings:
Picture transfer: 10/10
Audio: 7/10 (more bass while the G flies past would give it a 9!)
Extras: 8/10
Packaging: 10/10 Cylon box, 0/10 extra features disc.
Value: priceless to a die hard like me :cool: :cool: :cool:
Mike