:: theLogBook.com DVD Reviews ::

It might surprise you to learn that some of the most cutting edge graphics, sound and programming created on computers doesn’t appear in off-the-shelf videogames, but rather in the form of computer demos – non-interactive programs coded by gifted artists, who do so for no other reason than to show the world what they (and the machines they love) are capable of.

Computer demos actually got their start in the form of cracking/intro loader screens. In the early days of computing, when programs were “cracked” (had their copy protection removed), crackers would often add an intro (a multimedia page of credits) that displayed each time the program was run. Many early intros were simply comprised of plain text and no graphics; later, intros became more technically advanced, adding graphical logos, music, and scrolling text in which cracking groups boasted about their skills and greeted (and/or taunted) their friends and fellow groups. (more…)

I was in fourth or fifth grade when I first discovered the role playing game Dungeons and Dragons. I’d heard bits and pieces about this supposedly “dangerous” game from some of the older kids in the neighborhood, and told my parents I wanted to check it out. Instead of freaking out and writing the game off as violent or Satanic (like a lot of parents did back then), my parents ended up buying the basic edition for us to play together as a family. Dad served as Dungeon Master while mom, sis and I bumbled our way through our first adventure together. While my folks decided it wasn’t for them, they saw no problem with me playing D&D and gave it their blessing. Did I mention I have super cool parents? And just as I began getting really into Dungeons and Dragons (the game), Dungeons and Dragons (the cartoon) made its debut as a Saturday morning cartoon. (more…)

The legendary 1968 film Planet of the Apes struck a chord with filmgoers everywhere by mixing science fiction with social commentary. The film became so popular that several sequels were quickly released, including Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971), Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) and Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973). This set the stage for the 1974 television series Planet of the Apes, and ultimately, a cartoon series titled Return to the Planet of the Apes. Man, that’s a lot of apes.

The animated series Return to the Planet of the Apes consisted of thirteen episodes and ran for a single season in 1975. The series was originally included in the Planet of the Apes “ape head” 14 DVD box set, but for the new two disc release set the episodes have been restored, appearing (most likely) cleaner here than they did even when they originally aired. (more…)

Whether media is electronic, print, or online it’s a window to a different era. Even that post on a blog is a miniature time machine, tapping into a past perhaps just a few minutes ago. Maybe more than most, works in the public domain capture the zeitgeist of their times more than works in which copyright has been kept up to date.

The classic Superman cartoons produced by Max and Dave Fleischer in the 1940s are a prime example. The brothers are most well known for dozens of Popeye cartoons and for creating Betty Boop. They pioneered rotoscoping, which was used to animate live action, a process that is still in wide use.

The Superman cartoons are much like any of the other Fleischer cartoons, but at an even higher level. (more…)

From the demented minds of the Chapman Brothers at HomestarRunner.com, this DVD complements the previously-released 3-DVD Strongbad E-mail box set with an additional 31 responses from Strong Bad and crew to actual fan-written e-mails (one of these never before seen on the web), along with commentaries and other extras. Why so soon after that box set? It’s simple: because this single volume contains some of the very best of the bunch. (more…)

“For the people of this planet, it was a time when the sea and the sky and the very land on which they lived had been polluted by their own cultural waste. They came from as yet unknown outer space. They landed on the planet and sucked up air, water, and even living creatures into their womb, stealing away the very roots of the planet’s culture. And so began, with the few remaining inhabitants, and later with the one called Rodo, the creation of a new world.”

Let’s activate the way-back machine and go back to March 31st, 1998. A year has elapsed since DVD players were first introduced to the market. DVD players still cost a few hundred dollars each, and titles were few and far between. Some major studios were still sitting on the sidelines. The studios that were releasing titles were still learning how to utilize the format. (more…)

Okay, here’s a confession that will probably shock absolutely no one: your webmaster is a big fan of the surreal, mondo bizarro online cartoon Homestar Runner. Sure, it seldom obeys anything other than its own twisted internal logic, and to the average non-twisted mind, it probably doesn’t make a lot of sense. But I love it. And the “gateway drug” that got me hooked on the Homestar universe once and for all was a Strong Bad e-mail about the local news. (more…)

Of all the spinoffs that make up the Star Wars Expanded Universe, I don’t think any project reflects the vision of a single creator who isn’t George Lucas more than Cartoon Network’s animated Clone Wars shorts. While executive producer Genndy Tartakovsky worked with Lucasfilm to incorporate the film series’ sound design, music, and certain familiar vehicles and characters, the look, pacing, and style are very reminiscent of Tartakovsky’s work on Samurai Jack. If you like that aesthetic style and want to see it explored in the Star Wars universe, this series is for you. If not, you’re probably going to want to pass on the DVD. (more…)

This is one of those cases where the differences between Battle Of The Planets and Gatchaman, the early animè series on which it was based, stand out in sharp, sharp relief. In the original Japanese version of the first episode on this disc, a meteor storm causes destruction on a massive scale - skyscrapers topple, and lots of people die. In the American translation of the same show…very little of the above is allowed to come through. It’s more of a major nuisance than a global disaster. (more…)

The fourth of the six original individual volumes of Battle Of The Planets on DVD offers some more interesting studies in contrast. As with previous volumes in the series, the DVD contains two episodes of Battle Of The Planets, along with the two corresponding episodes of the Japanese animè series Gatchaman, from which Battle Of The Planets was created. The long-standing common knowledge that Battle’s cutesy 7-Zark-7 robot sequences were necessitated by the surgical removal of violent Gatchaman scenes, to the tune of several minutes per episode, gets quite a boost here - in both episodes of the original Japanese show, the bad guys get to wreak a lot more carnage before our heroes arrive on the scene. (more…)