Sonic_Fan
Member since: 4/17/2007 | | Sonic Underground Volume 1 - Review | Hey all, just got SU-V1, and wrote a review of it for my site, you can check it out here:
http://www.findthecomputerroom.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=102
or for you lazy types just read it here, enjoy!
Here it is the full review.......
Sonic Underground : Volume 1
Programme
Oh Christ.....
Well I think everyone on the boards knows my own personal feelings about this show, so I'll try to be as non biased as I can be. Here goes.
Sonic Underground takes the classic Sonic story and puts a......shall we say unique twist on it. In this universe Sonic is actually a prince and one third of a set of triplets. His brother: Manic, and his sister: Sonia, and he are all seperated at birth after their mother: Queen Aleena, is told by the Oracle, that something bad will happen to them. Exactly what will happen is never explained in the show.....
Eventually the siblings meet up and, if you will forgive the pun, band together to stop the evil Dr. Robotnik (who has taken over the planet and userped the Queen, which again isn't explain how or why).
The name Sonic Underground is really a double meaning title, as it's the name of their band, but also the fact that Sonic and his crew are literally underground, trying to avoid being detected by Robotnik. In every episode you will see SU trying to find their mother and take down Robotnik.
And of course being as they are a band, in every episode there is a song. A song. There is a song in every episode of the series. Now the less said about the actual songs the better, I can see there where trying to do something, but the songs just aren't very good.
In terms of animation, Sonic's character design has been changed from his AoStH and SatAM design, he is now shorter, fatter with smaller spikes, but he now has more, and his face is always in a circle. Personally I think he's character design is worse than is older design. Likewise Robotnik. Again he has been based on SatAM but he really looks a mess, not scary like in SatAM, he just looks like a fat man.
Now the voice cast. Ahhh. Jaleel White, Gary Chalk, Mauriche LaMarche, all classic. However they aren't on their best work. Mainly Gary Chalk. He's Robotnik is hands down the worst Robotnik voice in all the Sonic cartoons, which is a real shame cos I love his voice work, his Optimus Primal on Beast Wars and of course his Grounder on AoStH. Jaleel White is back to voice Sonic and Manic and Sonia. His Sonic voice is a lot deeper than his SatAM voice, and while his voice acting is genius, his actual Sonic voice isn't as classic as SatAM, but then again what could be?
The plots are generally cliche, and just don't live up to what is expected since the grand daddy that is SatAM.
All in all, a tarnish on the Sonic name, and while it has not killed anyone yet, just give it time...............just give it time.
Audio and Visual
Now this is good! The picture is a lot more vivid and colourful than the Anchor Bay DVD, and that picture was perfect, so this set is actually beyond perfection in terms of picture, colours are bright and vivid, theres no grain or anything to show signs of a bad mastering, all in all picture is perfect.
Likewise audio comes in the form of a very powerful 2.0 stereo mix. Dialouge and music are in perfect balance, with neither one out shadowing the other. All in all Shout! has done an amazing job in the transfer!
Menu and Box
Holy Hell, Shout! has out done themselves! The art design very nearly beats SatAM in terms of best looking Sonic DVD, very nearly. The front cover is beautiful with DiC artists really giving amazing pictures of the three siblings, and the black and white "emo" look actually works really well. The front cover looks WAY better than the AB box with that crappy picture of Sonic where he has 4 fingers on one hand and three on his other hand, one of the worst pictures ever!
The first thing you will notice when you open the boxset is a booklet. The cover has been made to look like a Wanted poster for the hedgehogs and it just looks amazing! In side is part of the series Bible. It's written from Sonic's point of view and basically explains the set up of the cartoon, this was a really good touch. I tip my hat to you Brian Ward!
The menu's are genius. Set up to look like Sonic Underground are actually preforming on stage is another brilliant move, and the moving menu transistions work like a beaut!
The only down side I have is the fact that this set, for an inferior cartoon, has such an amazing box design and menu set up, whereas the far superior AoStH had a, if I'm honest, not that amazing design plan overall.......but oh well, no use crying over spilt milk.
Special Features
Ahhhhhh, now we're talking!
This set as the level of features I expect from a Shout! release!
Developing The Undegroundis a roughly 9 min. retrospective interview with the executive producer of Underground Robby London. The many things we learn from it is that SU was modeled on another famous DiC show, you may have heard of it, Alvin and the Chipmunks which was a very successful cartoon about a band that had a song in every episode, so he thought it be a good idea for a show. Now I do actually kinda see the logic in that, but the me adding Sonic into the mix was a bad idea, because Sonic has never been about music. Personally, if the show had been about Sonic, Tails and Knuckles in a band the show would have been 100% better, that being said I do love the character of Manic, he is a legend and has all the best lines in the show! London does go on to say more things but I won't spoil them all here.
Songs from the Underground is roughly 7 mins long and talks about the music of the show. London is back again as is original songwriter Micheal "Pic" Piccirillo. They talk about how they wanted to include every type of music in the songs, something that upon reflection is actually quite a good thing they did. "Pic" talks about how he would write the songs over the course of one night, and not to be too rude, sometimes it does show.........
Storyboard-to-Screen: The Opening Title Sequence is exactly what it says on the tin. However it does show us an alternate seqence that is quite sweet, I won't say what it is, go buy the DVD.
Original Concept Art are 8 1 min videos showing concept art for all the main characters, these are really well made and something that you will watch again and again.
Music Videos Jukebox is simply the music videos from each episode made able to watch without the episode. Now while the songs are quite bad, the music videos themselves are actually very interesting to watch visually.
The CD A very mixed bag. While the CD is a great addition in terms of an extra feature, with the exception of the Main Theme which rocks, the remaining 7 songs just arn't very good.
Over All
Show - 1/5
Picture - 5/5
Audio - 4/5
Box - 5/5
Menu - 4/5
Extras - 4/5
Overall - 3.8/5
Now the low grade is really just due to the bad show. Shout! Factory has put out an amazing box set, far more worthy than the show deserved, I hate to beat a dead horse, but if only AoStH had this level of love and attention put into it, by no means am I saying that Adventures had no effort put into it, I just think that set isn't on the same level as this or the best boxset of 2007: SatAM!
Here's hoping to more Shout! Factory Sonic based DVD's!
Thank you Shout! for taking such love and care with the Sonic franchise, you guys are the best thing to happen to Sonic in a long, long time!!!!
"That's a look that could kill!" - Scratch
"It's NOT the look that will kill you, IT'S THIS!!!" - Robotnik |
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