DVDs At Their Peak in the 2000s

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Today I'm just gonna do a quick little post on DVDs and how they were at the height of their popularity in the 2000s, before the introduction of Blu-rays. I'll be looking at three studios that did so much with the format, as well as the franchises that got the most out of DVDs during the 2000s. So let's get into it.

The 2000s. I was in high school from 2001 until 2006, the internet was starting to become even more prominent than it had been in the '90s, and studios had started putting their movies out on DVD rather than on VHS. While DVDs had been around since 1996 in Japan and 1997 in North America, it wasn't until the early 2000s that movie studios began doing something with the format beyond just slapping the movie onto it and it's trailer as a bonus feature. And even though VHS was still around in the 2000s, the format was basically dead by the time studios discontinued using them in 2006. Most studios anyway. Disney kept putting movies out on VHS through 2007 though they were exclusives to the Disney Movie Club and not released to retail stores. I'll be looking at Batman and Superman for Warner Bros., Star Wars for Fox, Star Trek, the movies and TV shows, for Paramount, and the Walt Disney Platinum Editions, as well as the two-disc special editions Disney put out for certain movies in the mid-2000s.

We started renting and buying DVDs in 2003 at the earliest, because I remember renting Star Trek Nemesis on DVD before I ever got it on VHS. We also had a bunch of Disney movies on DVD, like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Lilo & Stitch, the Herbie the Love Bug movies, Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles. I personally wouldn't get a DVD player until about 2005 or 2006, when I got a portable DVD player. Since we're already on the topic of Disney, let's talk about Disney first.

While Disney had been releasing movies on DVD since 1998, when they released Mary Poppins on the format, and had only been releasing the animated movies on DVD since late 1999, it wasn't until 2001 when they began releasing two-disc editions with the Walt Disney Platinum Editions, beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Even outside of that movies like Alice in Wonderland and Mulan got 2-disc special editions in 2004, as did some of their then most recent films such as The Emperor's New Groove and Atlantis: The Lost Empire. On the TV side of things things weren't great. Disney was wildly inconsistent with releasing TV shows on DVD. Some shows never got complete seasons only three or four volumes, while others got a season and a half and then didn't get finished until the 2010s. There were some shows that didn't get DVD releases at all. Regardless, TV shows produced by Disney didn't get anywhere near the amount of bonus features that the 2-disc DVD releases of the movies had. I have most of the Walt Disney Platinum Edition line, and am only missing four releases. I don't have the 2-disc DVD releases that Disney put out of some of the animated movies.

Warner Bros. on the other hand, did so much with their catalogue on DVD. They released complete season boxsets for even their older TV shows like Adventures of Superman, Wonder Woman, and The Dukes of Hazzard, as well as newer shows like Smallville, The O.C., and One Tree Hill. Their animated series library on DVD was extensive too with the entire DC Animated Universe getting released throughout the 2000s. Including the movies like Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. In terms of the movies, they would release giant boxsets of their more popular titles such as Batman: The Motion Picture Anthology: 1989-1997  which contains Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, and Batman & Robin, and Superman: The Ultimate Collection which contained all four movies in the Christopher Reeve Superman series, Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, and Superman Returns, with each movie having multiple discs, and both sets having a continuing documentary that chronicles the production of each movie from development to release. The four Batman movies were released individually, while the each of the movies in the Superman set were released individually but without the documentary. I don't have the Superman set but I do have the Blu-ray version of the Batman set and all of the bonus features are the same on both. In fact, even to this day Warner Bros. still releases 2-disc DVD editions of their movies even though Blu-ray and 4K have essentially replaced DVD as the primary home media format.

While Paramount didn't do this with all of it's TV shows and movies, Star Trek was an example of the movies getting the 2-disc special edition treatment and the TV shows getting individual season boxsets as well as a complete series set. TOS and the movies were the only ones to have DVD releases prior to 2002, and TOS had a forty volume DVD set similar to the old Star Trek: The Collector's Edition VHS line from Columbia Home Video Library. All ten movies got the 2-disc treatment starting with Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which never had a single disc release in the '90s the way the other movies did. All the sets had tons of bonus features. I've had all ten of the 2-disc edition releases of the movies, and I have all but two of the seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation on DVD, only missing seasons 6 and 7. I also have the first season of Deep Space Nine and the first two seasons of Voyager and they're all pretty cool sets. I don't have the original season sets for TOS though, but I do have a more recent DVD boxset for season 1 which is the late 2000s Remastered version of the season, rather than the original.

Star Wars was weird because while the TV shows (all two of them) and the TV movies (all two of them) had DVD releases, they were never complete season runs and didn't have any bonus features. Also George Lucas hadn't intended on releasing any of the movies on DVD until the Prequel Trilogy was completed in 2005. Which is why when Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace on home video in 2000, it had only a VHS release. And even when the movie had a DVD release in 2001 and then Episode II had a VHS and DVD release in late 2002, George insisted that the Original Trilogy would not be released on DVD until 2006 at the latest since Episode III was coming out in 2005, wrapping up the Prequel Trilogy. But then in 2004 the Original Trilogy was released on DVD in a giant boxset which included all three movies (Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi) as well as a bonus disc full of special features including the 2 hour documentary Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy. I love the DVD boxset for the Original Trilogy because the bonus features are amazing as are those on the DVDs for the Prequel Trilogy.

There are so many other examples of amazing DVD releases but these are the ones I wanted to focus on because all of these came out between 2001 and 2006, during the height of DVD's lifespan as, once Blu-ray was introduced in 2006, DVDs started getting less and less bonus features to the point where by 2014 Disney had next to none bonus features on their DVD releases, saving the majority of them, including recycled DVD bonus features, for their Blu-ray releases.

Anyways folks that's gonna be it for me for today. I'll be back soon with more reviews and posts. Until then have a great evening and I will talk to you later. Take care. 

Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi (2022) TV Show Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Last night I watched the animated mini-series, Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi on Disney+ and I'm gonna review it today. There will be some spoilers simply because there are story points and character stuff that I need to talk about, so if you haven't watched the series yet, and plan on doing so, please be aware that there WILL be spoilers in this review. Also, before I get into the review, I did start to watch Power Rangers Turbo on Monday night, but the first five episodes were rough to get through, so I'm taking a break from Power Rangers until the New Year so I can focus on other reviews, such as this one, and so I can watch some other shows like Andor (2022-) and season 1 of Stargirl (2020-2023). And yes, some more comic book reviews will be thrown into the mix as well. So without further ado, let's get into Tales of the Jedi!

Tales of the Jedi is a six episode anthology mini-series produced by Lucasfilm Animation and created by Dave Filoni, who also created Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008-2020), Star Wars Rebels (2014-2018), and The Bad Batch (2021-). Like those shows it's an animated series, and it focuses on two key characters from the movies and the other shows, Count Dooku and Ahsoka Tano, who was created by Filoni back in 2008 to be Anakin's Padawan in The Clone Wars. Ahsoka's stories happen in episodes 1, 5, and 6, and Dooku's take place in episodes 2, 3, and 4. And I have to be honest, I enjoyed the Dooku episodes more than I did the Ahsoka episodes. Simply because there's so much with Ahsoka right now since she's been on The Mandalorian (2019-), and The Book of Boba Fett (2022), as well as her own series, Ahsoka, which is set to debut sometime in 2023. And because I haven't seen The Clone Wars past the second season and I haven't seen Rebels beyond the first season, the character just doesn't interest me as much as she might've had I seen both shows all the way through. Plus, there was so much about Dooku that we didn't get in Attack of the Clones when that came out twenty years ago, and even at the time the novels being published around the release of Episode II didn't delve too much into Dooku's past.

I know there's an audiobook called Dooku: Jedi Lost that gives details on his past, as well as his time as Yoda's apprentice, but it doesn't show Dooku's final turn to the Dark Side, or instances where his faith in the Jedi Order and the Republic are shaken. Which is where his three episodes come in. I also appreciate that it actually shows the corruption in the Senate as well as in the Jedi Council with characters like Mace Windu, the senator of the planet that Dooku goes to in Episode 2 with his Padawan, Qui-Gon Jinn, and the senator of Raxus Secundus, the planet he goes to with Mace Windu in Episode 3. Throughout the Prequel Trilogy we'd heard about how corrupt the Republic was, but, aside from Palpatine and his minions, we never got to see it on a smaller planetary level. Even in the Expanded Universe/Legends novels coming out in the 2000s.

The Ahsoka episodes are fine. I don't hate them. I just found the Dooku episodes to have something more to them. The Ahsoka episodes feel like a combination of material that couldn't be used in The Clone Wars and Rebels, and stuff Filoni's setting up for Ahsoka. Which is fine, I mean Lucasfilm has been trying to make Star Wars a much more cohesive franchise since The New Jedi Order started publication back in 1999, especially because the prequels were coming out around that time. So I'm okay with Star Wars being more interconnected than it was before.

I was talking to a friend of mine last night after I finished the show, and he was telling me how Ahsoka feels like the Batman of the Star Wars Universe these days. I'm not sure I would go that far, but I do agree that Lucasfilm is marketing her much harder than they did back when the character first appeared in The Clone Wars back in 2008. 

My favourite episode was episode 4, "The Sith Lord". It takes place during the end of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999), and not only was it a good companion to the end of the movie, but it was a great progression from episodes 2 and 3. In the previous two episodes we'd seen Dooku go through things that really made him re-evaluate his opinion about the Jedi Order and it's role in the Republic. But the Council not taking Qui-Gon's Sith theory and then his subsequent death was the breaking point for Dooku. By the way that was basically how it was in Legends too, but this show not only made that element canon again, but it also made things a bit clearer than it had been previously. Plus the Lightsaber duel between Yaddle and Dooku was pretty great. Speaking of Yaddle, I don't know anything about the character, because, aside from being in the council chamber in The Phantom Menace, she didn't appear much in Legends, and never showed up in the movies again. So I liked that she got a little bit of a spotlight in this episode. 

I will say that one thing I appreciated about Ahsoka's episodes is that it finally filled in the blanks as to how she survived Order 66 in terms of the whole getting killed by Clone Troopers versus not getting killed by Clone Troopers thing. Because, don't forget The Clone Wars originally went off the air in 2013, only returning for a sixth season on Netflix in 2014 before Rebels started that same year. So Ahsoka shows up in Rebels without much info about how she survived Order 66. It wasn't until season 7 of The Clone Wars, which came out in 2020, that we saw Ahsoka escaping Order 66. Here, we just see her practicing a Lightsaber technique that Anakin taught her and that she practiced throughout her training with him. 

Overall this was a great series. I have no interest in the other animated Star Wars anthology series, Star Wars: Visions, but this was great. I do wish that more characters could've been the focus of the show, because if you're not a fan of either Count Dooku or Ahsoka Tano, this series isn't going to be for you. Not to mention there are plenty of Jedi from the Prequel/Clone Wars era that could be followed, so maybe it'll end up getting a second season? Doubtful, but anything is possible. I do think Ahsoka was chosen because not only did Filoni create her and he created this show, but the live action series is coming out next year so this was kind of a last opportunity to do anything with Ahsoka before that series starts coming out. And Dooku was just a very pleasant surprise. I recommend watching this show if you're a Star Wars fan and haven't seen it yet.

Alright my friends that's gonna be it for me for today. I'll be back soon, probably tomorrow, with another review. Not sure of what yet, but it'll be something. Until then have a great rest of your day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Thunderbolts (2022) #1 Comic Book Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? Did you all have a good weekend? I had a quiet weekend. Today I'm back with a comic book review. It's not anything crazy and involved. I haven't done a simple single issue review in a while, so I thought today would be the perfect day for it. I'm also reviewing something relatively recent. As you probably saw in the title of this review, I'm taking a look at Thunderbolts #1 by Jim Zub with art by Sean Izaakse and colors by Java Tartaglia. I'm going to try and make this review as spoiler free as possible as it is a current issue that just came out at the end of August. So let's get into it.

This issue was purely an impulse buy. I was at the comic book store with my best friend, Brad, and we were just looking around, unsure of what I wanted to pick up, aside from the final issue of Power Rangers Universe being that I haven't kept up, both in buying and in knowledge of what's coming out, with current comics much, aside from a few DC titles and the Power Rangers titles that Boom! Studios has been publishing. I was looking at the month old Marvel section of the store, where books go before they become back issues. I don't know if it's because the Thunderbolts movie is coming out in about a year and a half (mid-2024) or because Brad had just been telling me about this book in the car on our way to the comic book store, but I picked up this issue along with issue #2 and She-Hulk #6. So keep an eye out for reviews of those issues in the near future. 

Thunderbolts #1 takes place following the events of the six issue mini-series, Devil's Reign and its one shot epilogue, Devil's Reign: Omega #1 where Luke Cage replaced Wilson Fisk, a.k.a. the Kingpin, as the mayor of New York City. Because the last incarnation of the Thunderbolts had consisted of villains hired by Kingpin to be the only legitimate superhero team in New York City, after he banned the Avengers and other superheroes from the city, Cage, who had led the Thunderbolts in the past, wanted to fix the name's tarnished reputation. He asks Clint Barton, a.k.a. Hawkeye, to lead the team, and uses the new team partially as a marketing stint for his tenure as mayor. 

In addition to Clint, the new Thunderbolts are America Chavez, Gutsen Glory, who is a brand new character making his debut in this issue, Persuasion/Kara Killgrave, the daughter of Jessica Jones's number one villain, Zebediah Killgrave, a.k.a. the Purple Man, and Victor Alvarez, who took Luke Cage's place as Power Man, with Monica Rambeau/Spectrum helping them out. I'm not overly familiar with any of these characters though I know Clint and Monica the most since I've seen the MCU films that Hawkeye is in, and I watched Hawkeye, and I saw some of WandaVision, which Monica is in, as well as Captain Marvel. I only know who Luke Cage is because of how much people talked about the Netflix series back when it was coming out. Of course I also know who U.S. Agent is thanks to The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

The team is called to take out the former Thunderbolts team, which consisted of Electro/Francine Frye, Whiplash/Anton Vanko, Agony/the Agony Symbiote/Gemma Shin, Taskmaster/Tony Masters, and Abomination/Emil Blonsky. Of these villains, I know Whiplash from Iron Man 2 (2010), and Abomination from She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. I know he was in The Incredible Hulk (2008), but I never finished watching the movie, and it's so detached from the rest of the MCU, despite characters from the movie popping up from time to time, that I didn't even see Abomination in the movie, and completely forgot that he was even part of the MCU until it was announced that Tim Roth was reprising his role from the movie on She-Hulk. 

Anyways the mission doesn't go well. They catch the bad guys, but the new Thunderbolts also cause some major property damage, and Clint punches out U.S. Agent who was there as a representative of the F.B.I. to return the bad guys to prison. But, as usual, Walker acts like a supervillain instead of the hero he's supposed to be, hence why Clint knocks him out. Mayor Cage isn't happy, and neither is the marketing advisors he hired to head the team's public relations department.

After the mission something weird starts happening, but rather than trying to explain it here, I'll let you read the issue yourselves to find out what it is. If you've already read this issue though, you know what that thing is.

I enjoyed this issue. I wasn't lost as Zub did a good enough job at catching readers who hadn't read Devil's Reign up on what had happened before, such as myself. I also enjoyed the team dynamics in this issue. For once it wasn't full of bickering and petty infighting due to baggage from the previous incarnation of the team or full of a character's history with a member of the team. Which is nice. Though I get the feeling that Cage only asked Clint to lead the new Thunderbolts because his first pick said no. Again, I won't say who it is in case you want to read this issue, but it's not really a surprise as to who it is.

Jim Zub is not a writer I'm overly familiar with. I know he's done a few things for Marvel since 2016, one of them being the previous, pre-Devil's Reign, Thunderbolts book where Bucky was on the team as it's leader. He also did a few books for Image and some Dungeons & Dragons comic book mini-series for IDW, along with a Samurai Jack comic and a Rick and Morty vs. Dungeons & Dragons mini-series.

The only thing I didn't like about this book is that the villains's names aren't mentioned anywhere in the issue, and aren't even captioned above their first appearance in the issue so that new readers know who they are. The only reason I recognized Abomination is because he was on She-Hulk and that had just dropped it's first two episodes when this book came out, and was just finishing the season when I bought this issue a few weeks ago. I had to look up the rest of the villains on the Marvel Wiki because I had no clue who any of them were. Like, the last time I saw Electro in anything, it was the Max Dillon version as played by Jamie Foxx in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), and I've never encountered the character in the comics, so I had no idea that Electro was currently a woman. Which is fine, I have no problem with that, but she wasn't even in costume in this issue so all I saw was a character with electricity powers, which could've been anyone. I also had no idea who Agony was since I don't keep up with the various Venom/Carnage symbiotes that seem to populate the Marvel Comics Universe.

Izaakse's artwork is pretty good. He's also someone I'm not familiar with. Though according to the Marvel Wiki, he's done alot with the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and worked on both Civil War II and Secret Empire. All books I've never read. He's good though. I like his artstyle.

Overall this was a pretty good read. I have issue #2 so I'll be reviewing that at some point down the line, though I'm not sure when yet. I felt the story stood on it's own pretty well given that it came off an event book, AND has the history of the older Thunderbolts series behind it both in the Marvel Universe and in the real world. The artwork is also pretty good. I'm not sure how much of this series I'll be able to keep up with, but I would definitely recommend this issue to those of you who read comics and haven't picked up an issue of Thunderbolts before. It's also not required to have read Devil's Reign before picking up this issue. Which is good.

Alright my friends, that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back later in the week with more posts, and possibly even my review of Power Rangers Turbo. But we'll see. Until then have a great rest of your day, evening or whenever you're reading this, and I'll talk to you all later. Take care.

Pokemon: Let's Go Pikachu! (2018) Thoughts and Discussion

 Hey everyone! I'm back. As promised I'll be talking about Pokemon: Let's Go, Pikachu! for the Nintendo Switch. Like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate this game, along with it's counterpart, Let's Go, Eevee!, came out in 2018, and I got it less than a year after its release. Like with my last post on Super Smash Bro. Ultimate, this isn't a review of the game, as I haven't completed it yet. It's just my thoughts on the game so far and some observations on what I've accomplished on the game up to the point I'm currently at. So, let's get back into it.

Pokemon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and it's counterpart, Let's Go, Eevee!, is a remake of the 1998/1999 Game Boy game, Pokemon Yellow Version and once again incorporates elements from the first season of the TV series. It was also the last game to come out in Generation VII following Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon in 2016 and Pokemon Ultra Sun and Pokemon Ultra Moon in 2017, both for the Nintendo 3DS. The last Pokemon games I played brand new was Pokemon Gold and Pokemon Silver, which came out in Japan in 1999 and came out in North America in 2000. So I was a little behind on things. 

As I said in my Pokemon TV show and movie reviews, my siblings were bigger Pokemon fans than I was in the late '90s and early 2000s. I watched the TV show up to the end of the second season, Adventures in the Orange Islands, while peeking in on season 3, The Johto Journeys, and I played the first five games, but I didn't really do much with the franchise after that aside from playing Pokemon Stadium and Pokemon Snap on the N64 and Pokemon Pinball on the Game Boy Color. But when Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! were announced and saw that it was basically a 3D remake of Pokemon Yellow I decided I was going to get one or the other of the games. With my sister being a huge Pokemon fan she also wanted the game. So we got together and decided that I would get Let's Go, Pikachu! and she would get Let's Go, Eevee! so that between the two of us we'd have the complete Pokedex. It took me awhile to get the game of course, but I got it finally in 2019. 

Since then I've gotten the first three badges and gotten a ton of Pokemon. Mostly because they altered the game's mechanics so that rather than getting random Pokemon battles, you can see the Pokemon in the overworld so that if it's one you've already caught or you just don't feel like catching a wild Pokemon, you can avoid them. But on the flipside of that, if there's a specific Pokemon you need, or want, and it appears on the screen in the grassy area, then you can go right to them instead of having to walk back and forth until a wild Pokemon sighting happens, hoping it's one you need. 

And because the way you catch Pokemon in this game is how it was in the Safari Zone in the first three games, you can't fight the wild Pokemon to weaken them before catching them. So it makes it harder to catch them because you're catching them at full strength. It's also annoying because you can't just fight the wild Pokemon to level up your own team, and you can't run, so you have to catch the Pokemon every single time you engage with the wild ones. Luckily your entire team gains experience points everytime you catch a Pokemon so there are upsides and downsides to the new mechanic for catching Pokemon.

As for the gym badges, the first two were the easiest to get. Particularly the Water Badge in Cerulean City. I have Pikachu as my Electric type, and it easily beat Misty's Water type Pokemon. The Thunder Badge in Vermillion City was the more difficult one of the three. Mostly because I don't have any high level Ground type. I did have Sandshrew though, so I taught it Dig and used that together with Pikachu's Normal type attacks, a few potions and a revive. And that was my main goal when I played the game last night. to beat Lt. Surge and win the Thunder Badge. And with this being my first time playing the game, I discovered that when you get the Thunder Badge, Misty shows up, heals your Pokemon and then takes you to Diglett's Cave. Which is interesting.

Anyways, that's all I have to say for now since I didn't go into Diglett's Cave last night. I'm saving that for tomorrow since I have Star Trek: Prodigy on tonight. So that's gonna be it for me for today. I'll be back at some point with a comic book review. Until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (2018) Thoughts and Discussion

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Today I'm gonna be talking video games. Specifically Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Pokemon: Let's Go Pikachu! for the Nintendo Switch. I'm doing separate posts on each game with this one, as you could tell from the title, will be on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and my next post will be on Let's Go Pikachu! just so I can give each game it's due. So let's get into it.

As someone who spent numerous hours playing Super Smash Bros. on the Nintendo 64 in the late '90s, all through the 2000s and into the early 2010s, I've continued to have an interest in the series through the GameCube and into the Nintendo Wii U. Though the only games in the series I haven't played are Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Nintendo Wii and Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS for the Nintendo 3DS. I've only played the two most recent games, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the Nintendo Switch, once each at a friend's place in the mid to late 2010s. I did better on Ultimate though because the controls were more standard for it than the Wii U game's controls were. And that's just because the Wii U is weird in terms of the controls. But that's not what I'm here to talk about today.

So because I had already played Ultimate at a friend's house a few years ago on New Year's Eve, when I was at the drugstore, getting my Covid booster, I happened to see the game on the rack behind the cashier and I grabbed it because I haven't personally owned a Super Smash Bros. game since the original on the N64, which I ended up having to get rid of almost a decade ago, and we haven't had a Super Smash Bros. game in the house since Super Smash Bros.: Melee on the GameCube and that was just since my younger brother moved out since the GameCube was his. I don't remember if he owned the game or just rented it. Anyways I didn't start playing Ultimate as soon as I got home like I would normally do because, well, I had a sore arm since I'd just gotten my booster shot. I finally got to it last night and I felt like I was back in the summer of 1999, playing it up at the cottage with friends and my siblings.

Because the game was brand new, it just had your basic starter characters, Mario, Link, Kirby, Donkey Kong, Yoshi, Samus, Fox, and Pikachu, which I'm fine with because I'm used to those characters and played as them for years on the N64. For my first round I picked the classic Donkey Kong Country stage from the first Super Smash Bros. game. And then I went and played as Kirby and fought against Mario. Why? Because even after all these years I still find it funny to suck my opponent up and use their own abilities against them. I won though it was a close match since I was playing against a computer opponent and get used to the controls again after having not played it since 2018. And while the item drops look slightly different, playing on that level, with those characters was awesome.

Immediately after that round I had to fight Ness in order to unlock him. I did, I won, and I unlocked him. Now, because I've never played Earthbound for the Super Nintendo before, I only know Ness from the Smash Bros. games, so I got really excited when I was able to unlock him almost immediately. And then I became adventurous and played as Ness against Link on a stage I wasn't familiar with as a stage in a Smash Bros. game, but was VERY familiar with from my childhood. That map was the Duck Hunt stage, complete with 2D, 8-bit graphics, both ducks, and the laughing dog.

Yes my friends, I played a round of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on the stage based on the classic 1984/1985 NES game, Duck Hunt. And just like in the original NES game, if you miss the ducks, even if you're busy beating the crap out of your opponent, the blue sky in the background turns pink for a moment as the ducks fly away and then the dog pops up and laughs at you. Oh and the stage is laid out like the actual screen if you were playing the NES game on a modern TV, with the black bars on either side, and in order to knock your opponent off the stage, you have to knock them into the black bars on other side. Which I thought was a cool function of the level.

Obviously I have tons more characters to unlock and lots more rounds to play, but last night was basically me testing myself to see if I still had the touch when playing a Super Smash Bros. game in 2022. And yeah, I still do. Which means playing against my friends is gonna be so much fun. I just had alot of fun playing Super Smash Bros. again since it had been awhile. And that was with the added bonus of having the dog from Duck Hunt laughing at me again. Anyways, I'll probably do a bigger review of the game once I've unlocked more stuff. I just wanted to give my thoughts on the rounds I played last night because both were nostalgic and lots of fun.

Alright my friends, that's gonna be it for me for now. I'll be back later with some thoughts about Pokemon: Let's Go Pikachu!, also for the Nintendo Switch. Right now though I'm going to have some lunch and then go outside for a bit before I come back for my next post. Later.

Pokemon: The Movie 2000 (1999/2000) Movie Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I haven't started watching Power Rangers Turbo yet, but I'm gonna get to that this weekend I think. I have other things to do like play my Nintendo Switch, and get some comic books read so I can review them, so we shall see. Today though I'm here to do a movie review that I've been wanting to do since September, but haven't gotten to it. Today I'm gonna be talking about Pokemon: The Movie 2000, which came out in Japan in 1999 and came out here in North America in 2000. I'm only talking about the English dub as that's what I have on VHS. There will be potential spoilers for this movie, so if you haven't seen it before, just be aware of that. Without further ado, let's get into it.

Pokemon: The Movie 2000 is another movie I completely missed when it came out. I remember seeing commercials for it on TV, but I never saw it. Not on TV, not on home video, and not in theatres. I don't think my siblings saw it either, unlike Pokemon: The First Movie. By the time this movie came out, I had pretty much stopped watching the Anime regularly and while new Game Boy games had been announced, I wasn't sure if my siblings and I would be getting them. I also wasn't as big of a Pokemon fan as my siblings were either. Not at that time anyway.

I honestly think this movie is better than Pokemon: The First Movie is, and as you know from my review, I really like that movie. The stakes feel much much higher in this movie than they ever really did in the TV show and in the first movie. In the TV show it's much more about Ash's journey as a Pokemon trainer, as well as stopping Team Rocket's small scale plans to steal Pokemon. And the first movie was stopping the very disturbing plans of Mewtwo, which didn't really seem to affect the human characters. Here though the disruption of the balance between the Legendary Pokemon, Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres, by Lawrence III (I'll get to him later) not only had impact on Ash, his friends, Team Rocket, and the Pokemon, but on the entire world, which is very unusual to see in the Pokemon franchise as a whole. Before I go more in depth on the movie, I want to talk about where Pokemon was as a franchise when the movie came out in North America.

When the movie came out in Japan on July 17th, 1999, Nintendo and GameFreak were preparing to release the Generation II games, Pokemon Gold and Silver Versions, which were due to be released on November 21st, 1999, as well as gearing up to begin airing the third season, The Johto Journeys, which was due to begin airing on October 14th, 1999 in Japan. In North America however, things were a bit different.

In 1998, Pokemon exploded into popularity with the Anime's first season/series, Pokemon: Indigo League, as well as the Generation I games, Pokemon Red and Blue Versions for the Nintendo Game Boy, and Pokemon: The Trading Card Game. Indigo League ended in North America on November 27th, 1999, and was about to make a transition.

Three major events happened for Pokemon in 1999, besides the end of the first season. The first is that Pokemon Yellow Version, which took Red and Blue and incorporated more elements from the Anime, with Pikachu being your starter Pokemon which follows you around, the characters's clothing in the artwork for the game resembling what they wear in the Anime, and Jessie and James being the members of Team Rocket that you interact with throughout the game, on October 18th, 1999. The second is that Pokemon: The First Movie was released in theatres on November 12th, 1999, and introduced the audience to Snubbell and Marill, two Pokemon that would appear in the Generation II games. And the final thing is that season 2 of the Anime, Adventures in the Orange Islands began airing on Kids' WB in the United States and on YTV here in Canada, on December 4th, 1999. Aside from the location the only real difference between season 1 and season 2 is that Brock stayed behind on Valencia Island to study Pokemon with Professor Ivy in the third episode of season 2, and is replaced in the trio with Tracey, who only appeared in the second season of the Anime and the second movie.

When Pokemon: The Movie 2000 came out in North America on July 21st, 2000, Gold and Silver had already come out and The Johto Journeys was about to finish airing in Japan.

But here in North America, Gold and Silver weren't due to come out until October 15th, 2000, and The Johto Journeys wasn't due to start airing until the day before the games were due to release. But this movie and the short it was released with, Pikachu's Rescue Adventure, debuted a bunch of Gen II Pokemon, that Japanese audiences were already familiar with as the movie had already come out in Japan, The Johto Journeys was almost over, and Gold and Silver were already released. The Gen II debuts in this movie, and it's short, are Ledyba, Elekid, Bellossom, Hoothoot, and Lugia. And of course, Marill, which I think appeared in Adventures in the Orange Islands after it debuted in Pikachu's Vacation in 1998 in Japan and 1999 in North America, alongside Snubbell. 

While Tracey doesn't have a whole lot to do in this movie, Misty has this English dub subplot of Melody, the girl they meet on Shamouti Island, teasing Misty about her relationship with Ash, due to the fact that in North America there had been some speculation that Ash and Misty were actually in love with each other. It's not intrusive, but being that the English dialogue isn't just a translation of the Japanese dialogue, moments that were focused on Ash and Misty's relationship probably focused on other things in the original Japanese version. 

Team Rocket has a very interesting role in this movie. Jessie, James, and Meowth are heroes in this movie. Aside from the very beginning of the movie, they help Ash the entire time against Lawrence III, and in trying to stop the Legendary Pokemon from destroying the world after Lawrence III disrupted the balance between the three Legendarys. Which is a huge switch for them. But I love how they're afraid of what Giovanni will do to them for actually doing good instead of being the bad guys. It's funny because when they showed up to help Ash and Pikachu get to the final shrine to get the orb of ice, I actually thought to myself, "Wow, Giovanni is gonna be pissed when he finds out that instead of taking advantage of the situation and stealing Pikachu, and other Pokemon, Jessie, James, and Meowth helped Ash and his friends!". And sure enough, Meowth expresses the same sentiment at the end of the movie.

Speaking of Lawrence III, he's lame antagonist. Once Ash and the others escape his flying fortress, which looks like the base of operations for a group of villains from a season of Super Sentai and/or Power Rangers, you only see him two or three more times in the entire movie, and two of those times he tries to capture Lugia, which was his entire goal in the first place. It didn't work obviously, but still. And he was doing it because he wanted to complete his collection that started with an Ancient Mew card. So in a way, he wasn't actually a villain, just a misguided collector, who didn't do his research into what he wanted to collect. Which sounds like it's trying to teach the fans something about collecting, which I'm pretty sure that's exactly what it was trying to do. And because of certain things happening in the world today, Lawrence III's behaviour felt more timely to today than it does to 22 years ago. 

3D animation is used in a scene or two, and honestly it's much better blended into the 2D animation that is the dominant art style of the movie. With Pokemon: The First Movie you could tell when CG was being used because it stood out among the 2D animation much how it did in other animated movies in the late '90s like Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas (1997) and Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero (1998). But here, you can tell what's 3D animation, but it's not as in your face about it like the last movie was.

While the soundtrack for Pokemon: The First Movie was filled with Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears and other Pop icons of the late '90s and early 2000s, the soundtrack for Pokemon: The Movie 2000 is filled with more indie Pop artists from the early 2000s, as well as artists and bands from the '80s and early '90s. For example O-Town, a group I only know of through their song, "All or Nothing" from their 2001 debut album, O-Town, has two songs on this album, while Donna Summer had been a singer that was active from 1968 until her death in 2012, while the B-52's did "Love Shack" in 1989, began in 1976, and continued to perform until this year, as according to Wikipedia, they're currently on a final farewell tour that's ending on November 11th, 2022. Also, how did I not know that Weird Al Yankovic has a track on this soundtrack, which plays during the credits at the end of the movie, AND is a song about Pokemon, called "Polkamon"? Like really? I mean, I know this was my first time watching this movie, but it's Weird Al doing a Pokemon song, the year after he'd done "The Saga Begins", his second Star Wars parody song after 1985's "Yoda". Of course they didn't exactly play Weird Al's songs on the radio station I was listening to in 2000, so that's probably why I didn't know "Polkamon" exists. 

 

Pokemon: The Movie 2000 was released on VHS and DVD on November 14th, 2000. I have the VHS in my collection and it opens with a preview for the third Pokemon movie, Pokemon 3: The Movie - Spell of the Unown: Entei, which was due to be released in North American theatres on April 6th, 2001 and would be the final Pokemon to be released theatrically in North America until 2018 when Detective Pikachu came out. After the sneak preview, there's a commercial for Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, which was due to come out on VHS and DVD on December 12th, 2000, Hey You Pikachu! which was due to come out for the Nintendo 64, the Pokemon Trading Card Game League, and DVD and VHS releases for Powerpuff Girls and Dexter's Laboratory, and the home video release (VHS and DVD) for My Dog Skip (2000), which had come out theatrically earlier in the year.

Overall Pokemon: The Movie 2000 is a great movie. While Pokemon: The First Movie is more nostalgic because I saw bits and pieces of it on TV when I was a teenager and it covers the original run of the Anime, which I watched all the time with my siblings, Pokemon: The Movie 2000 is a better made movie. With alot more suspense to it than the first movie had. It also has greater character moments, where Ash is wondering if he's the right person to save the world. Which is different from his usual self, who is arrogant in the way he takes on challenges as a Pokemon trainer and that attitude often gets Ash and his friends into trouble. I definitely recommend watching this movie if you're a fan of Pokemon.

That's gonna be it for me for today my friends. I plan on playing my Nintendo Switch tonight for a little while because I have Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Pokemon: Let's Go Pikachu! to play, so I might do a blog post on one of those games tomorrow. We'll see. In the meantime have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

DC Comics's Star Trek Overview Part 11: Mini-series and One-Shots (1987-1996) (Finale)

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm pretty good. It's Wednesday, which means it's the final time I'll be writing about Star Trek comics published by DC Comics. When I began this series back in August I didn't know how often I would write these posts, how in depth they would be or if I would just stick to the four main series and their annuals and specials given that's what I'm most familiar with. But now, 11 weeks later, I'm wrapping it up because I've talked about the entire line except for these last few series that cover both Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation. So, one last time, let's get into it.

First up is Who's Who in Star Trek, which was a two issue mini-series that was published in 1987. It's basically an encyclopedia of every character in TOS, including the first DC comic book series that started in 1984. DC had done a series like this for the DC Universe, which celebrated the publisher's 50th anniversary in 1987. The first issue goes from A to Mc. I never had this issue.

I did have the second issue though. I got it as a birthday or Christmas present from my sister one year. This is the issue where I began to really understand just how big the early series was. At this point I'd only read Star Trek: The Mirror Universe Saga which collected issues 9-16 of the 1984 series and then issue #4, so I hadn't read any of the crew's missions on the Excelsior or the Enterprise-A from that series yet. This was in like 2005 or 2006, sometime either as I was still in high school or had already finished high school. 

Next up is Star Trek: The Modala Imperative, a four issue mini-series that DC published in July 1991. I've never read this mini-series, but according to Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki, the story has the Enterprise visiting a planet that Kirk visited when he was a younger officer, around the time that Captain Pike was in command of the Enterprise. It also tells how this mission was Chekov's first landing party, though according to Memory Alpha, the story's stardate places it concurrent with "The Menagerie Part I", which is before "Space Seed". But again, this is a comic book series so it's not canon with what we know of TOS lore, with Chekov having not joined the crew yet, or at the very least not having any association with the senior officers of the ship. 

Two months later, DC began publishing the sequel series, Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Modala Imperative, which has Spock and McCoy returning to Modala on the Enterprise-D at a time when Modala was fighting for independence. That's all I know from the short blurb on the Memory Alpha page for the first issue. For some reason I never got either of these mini-series, and I've never actually seen them out in the wild. At least, not the trade paperback or all of the single issues together. I think I found the first issue of the TOS series at a comic book sale once, but I didn't grab it.

Next up is Star Trek: Debt of Honor, which was published in 1992. It was a trade paperback sized one-shot graphic novel that took place between Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989). I already did a Comic Book Longbox post on this book months ago, so I won't go too indepth on this book here. I had two copies growing up. The first my dad bought for me, and the second I got as a gift from the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation when my parents and I visited the set in January 1993. This book was my introduction to the work of legendary comic book writer, Chris Claremont as I wouldn't read any X-Men comics until I was an adult, and Claremont didn't work on any of the Batman comics I had when I was a kid. 

Next was a four issue crossover mini-series between Star Trek: The Next Generation published by DC Comics, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, a comic book series based on the third live action Star Trek TV series and published by Malibu Comics. Each publisher put out two issues with parts 1 and 4 published by DC and parts 2 and 3 published by Malibu.

I actually had part 4, which was the second issue published by DC when I was a kid. Despite it being the final part of a four issue mini-series I wasn't lost with what was going on. Being that, up to this point, the crossover mini-series was published from 1994 to 1995, I'd only been allowed to watch "Emissary", the pilot episode of DS9, I wasn't familiar with the characters, aside from Chief O'Brien since he'd been a character on TNG for the first five and a half seasons. It was a decent story though. While I'd gotten rid of my original copy before we moved in 2016, I picked up another copy at a comic book store that Brad and I went to the weekend right before we first into lockdown back in 2020.

Next was another four issue mini-series called Star Trek: The Next Generation: Shadowheart. I vaguely remember my dad having the first issue when I was eight or nine, but I never saw it again after the day he brought it home so I don't even know if he actually kept it or not. I just remember seeing the cover and holding the issue in my hands, as well as seeing the ad for it in one of my issues of the TNG ongoing monthly series. This was a Worf centered story that had to do with Klingons, Worf's adoptive brother, Nikolai Rozhenko, and his biological brother, Kurn. Because this mini-series started around the time that Star Trek Generations (1994) had come out in theatres, we'd already met Nikolai in the season 7 episode, "Homeward", which this mini-series takes place before. It wasn't like with the Star Trek: The Next Generation: Starfleet Academy YA series, where Worf's adoptive brother was named Simon.

And finally we have Star Trek: The Next Generation: Ill Wind, the last TNG four issue mini-series. Unlike the crossover with the DS9 comic and Shadowheart, I don't remember seeing Ill Wind advertised in my Star Trek comics. I think that's just because by the time it was coming out, I wasn't getting either series anymore. I also wasn't going to comic book stores yet so I never saw the issues on the racks. In fact, I haven't even seen this mini-series in back issue bins of the comic book stores that I have been to. So I'd be interested to find the mini-series as there's no collected edition for it as DC was just starting to do collected editions for their mainline story arcs, such as Batman: Contagion and Superman and Lois Lane's wedding by the time this mini-series ended in 1996. 

Not long after this mini-series ended, both the TOS and TNG monthlies ended and the comic book license for Star Trek transferred from DC and Malibu back to Marvel Comics, where it had gone when Star Trek: The Motion Picture came out in 1979. It would only be there until 1998 due to dwindling sales with the overflow of Star Trek comics coming out from the company. At least, according to Memory Alpha, that's the story everyone believes. 

Personally I think it's because by the late '90s Star Trek just wasn't as popular as it had been in the '80s and into the mid-'90s when TNG ended. The ratings for Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001) had been in a slow decline on UPN since the first season, hence why Seven of Nine, played by the wonderful Jeri Ryan, was introduced in season 4, and box office numbers were down for Star Trek: Insurrection (1998), despite that movie being directed by Jonathan Frakes, who had also directed Star Trek: First Contact (1996), and had been written by Michael Piller, the man who was responsible for TNG's success in the early '90s. Plus Playmates Toys's line of Star Trek toys had dropped as well, with them not even being sold in Canada. Aside from a couple of issues of Star Trek: Voyager, I didn't know much about the Marvel Comics line of Star Trek comics since I wasn't getting Star Trek: Communicator magazine yet, and I never saw them at the hospital gift shop the way I had the DC comics line. I also didn't have friends who were comic book readers in the late '90s the way I did in high school, college, and now, as an adult. Plus Marvel wasn't exactly everywhere the way it has been in the 2000s and the 2010s with the MCU and the Fox, Sony, and Universal Marvel movies.

And that is it my friends, the end of our journey through the DC Comics Star Trek comic book line that ran from 1984 until 1996. While 12 years is a long time, it's now been surpassed by IDW's comic book line which started in 2007, eleven years after DC's line ended.

I hope you all enjoyed this lengthy, indepth series. I had so much fun writing these posts. These are the comics that got me into comics when I was a kid and even now, thirty years after my dad first picked up Star Trek #31 and Star Trek: The Next Generation #31 at the local hobby store that he still goes to today, though it's in a different location than it was thirty years ago, the DC Comics Star Trek comics line is still my favourite comic book line of all time, even above the regular DC Universe series that I've read over the years. And I wanted to share that love with you in the hopes that you have as fond memories of this run as I do. I also wanted to share it with you in the hopes that if you haven't read these comics before you have been inspired to do so. 

That's gonna be it for me for now. But I'll be back soon with more blog stuff. Until then have a great night and I will talk to you all later. Take care.