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Review: Blue Planet II

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Netflix | Our Planet

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review | Blue Planet II

This David Attenborough series has been available on many platforms but truly shines on Kaleidescape

by Dennis Burger
December 12, 2018

My wife and I watch a lot of documentaries. No, seriously, a lot of documentaries. Air a special about dinosaur dung, the restoration of a 1967 barn-find VW Beetle, or how a famous actress invented frequency-hopping encryption during World War II, and we’re pretty much guaranteed to boost your Nielsen numbers for the night. Here’s the thing, though: We watch a lot of documentaries exactly once. That seems pretty normal to me. After all, do I really need to re-learn how Lego bricks are made?

The one exception to this rule is David Attenborough’s captivating nature docs because there’s nothing normal about the treasures this wonderful man has bestowed upon the world. If you’ve never seen one of his series, I’m envious that you have the opportunity to discover him for the first time. His infectious, childlike sense of wonder about nature, combined with the wisdom you’d expect of a natural historian with 92 years under his belt, makes each of his series seem like a sci-fi/fantasy exploration of a planet in a galaxy far away. There’s a weird and wonderful sense of cognitive dissonance that comes from realizing, somewhere in the middle of one of his shows, that we actually live on this weird and wonderful world.

A scant 11 months after the incredible Blue Planet II first aired here in the Colonies, my wife and I have already devoured the series from start to finish three times. And as we were sitting down for our fourth feast this weekend, we finally decided to retire the 4K broadcast recordings clogging our DVR and move on to a proper home video release.

Netflix seemed the logical place to turn to, since the series just made its way to the service this month. And it took no more than a few seconds of viewing to note that their version was a huge step up from the original 4K satellite broadcast. Kudos to their engineers for compressing such a visually complex image as well as they have. Simply put, Blue Planet II looks brilliant streaming in 4K, as long as you’ve got a good ‘net connection.

But shows come and go on Netflix. I can’t count the number of times that utterly re-watchable favorites have been yanked at pretty much exactly the same time I had a hankering to watch them. So, when I noticed that Blue Planet II is also now available on Kaleidescape—along with a whole host of other programming from BBC America—downloading it was a no-brainer. At a hefty 193 GB, the seven-episode mini-series is not an impulse download, but as I said above, this is a show that’s already in heavy rotation in the Burger casa. I knew it was worth the wait.

I just didn’t realize how wait-worthy it would turn out to be. As lovely as these alien undersea vistas are via Netflix, they’re positively stupefying in Kaleidescape’s full-bandwidth presentation. The tiniest of details simply fly off the screen. And thanks to the HDR presentation—something Blue Planet II lacks via Netflix, for whatever reason—you can’t help but be sucked right into the image, eyelids peeled, jaw agape, breath bated, mind blown. If the Broca area of your brain can crank out much more than the occasional “whoa” while watching a technicolor cuttlefish hypnotizing its cancrine prey in Episode Three, you’re made of sterner stuff than I. Switch over to the Netflix stream, and that scene almost seems monochromatic by comparison.

Even if you’re not a biology nerd or a connoisseur of great documentaries, Blue Planet II is an absolute must-own on Kaleidescape (or on UHD Blu-ray, if you haven’t made the leap into the discless future just yet). It’s perhaps the most torturous AV demo material I’ve lain eyes on in ages. It’s the title you’ll pull up when skeptical guests ask, “Do I really need this HDR business?” because Blue Planet II’s answer to that isn’t a mere “yes.” It’s a yes with an exclamation point, delivered in a charming British accent, with a wink and an unforgettable lesson about the kooky unexplored corners of our own globe.

Dennis Burger is an avid Star Wars scholar, Tolkien fanatic, and Corvette enthusiast who somehow also manages to find time for technological passions including high-end audio, home automation, and video gaming. He lives in the armpit of Alabama with his wife Bethany and their four-legged child Bruno, a 75-pound American Staffordshire Terrier who thinks he’s a Pomeranian.

PICTURE | As lovely as the alien undersea vistas are via Netflix, they’re positively stupefying in Kaleidescape’s full-bandwidth presentation

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Review: The Snoopy Show

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review | The Snoopy Show

This Apple TV+ series manages to capture the spirit of the best of the early Peanuts special while giving the material a spin of its own

by Dennis Burger
February 16, 2021

One of the things I love about Roku is the ability to quickly and easily customize its home screen. Find yourself watching content from one app more than any other? Just click the asterisk and move it closer to the top of the screen. Left cold by the offerings of another streaming service? Bump it down in the list, perhaps to Page Two or three. It seems a little trivial, but I use the arrangement of apps as a metric for deciding whether or not to cancel streaming subscriptions. If I have to scroll down past the topmost three and a half rows of icons to get to an app, that app is no longer worth paying for.

I only mention that because, after having watched The Snoopy Show, Apple TV+ has moved up from the precarious ninth position (right near the bottom of the screen at bootup) and is now resting more comfortably on the second row of icons, just below YouTube, Netflix, and Disney+.

Not to put too fine a point on it but The Snoopy Show is better than it has any right to be. And if that seems a little harsh, think back to when you first heard that Apple would be producing new Peanuts animated specials. Was your initial reaction even slightly hopeful? If so, I wish I could bottle your optimism.

But maybe I’m just jaded. Thanks to Ronald Reagan’s reign of deregulation, I grew up in the era of cartoons as commercials, when every 22-minute animated romp—whether it aired on Saturday mornings or after school—was trying to sell me all manner of things I immediately begged my parents to buy. Robots in Disguise. Real American Heroes. Whatever M.A.S.K. was about. And, in the case of The Peanuts, Dolly Madison snacks, Coke, and Mickey D’s. (Although, to be fair, that last one wasn’t Reagan’s fault—that was true from the giddy-up.)

We’re in the midst of something of a cartoon renaissance, though. Kids today (and yes, it hurts my soul to type those words) have an embarrassment of legitimately good, kid-friendly, non-propagandist episodic animation to devour, from Steven Universe to Craig of the Creek to Hilda and Infinity Train, and it’s only been a couple of years since Adventure Time ended its run as one of the hands-down best TV series of the past 50 years.

Given that this is the environment The Snoopy Show is parachuting into, perhaps my expectations should have been a little higher. But I’m still honestly shocked that the creative talents behind this new Apple-exclusive series have put so much effort into making it so darned good.

Its virtues begin with its animation, which is both an homage to the classic Peanuts animated specials and a loving upgrade of their style. The characters themselves seem pulled straight from Sparky Schulz’s pen, and although the foreground animation has been giving a big boost (both in draftsmanship and resolution), there’s still something incredibly comfortable about the way Charlie Brown and Snoopy and the gang are animated. The herky-jerky, overly dramatic body language for which everyone’s favorite cartoon beagle is known translates beautifully into this new world of cartoons.

The background art, meanwhile, is a whole new ballgame. The canvas upon which these little animated adventures take place is of a quality quite unlike anything we saw in Peanuts specials of yore. There’s some Looney Tunes influence, for sure, especially in the way the background artists play with abstractions and intentional registration errors. There’s also some obvious homage to the earliest Peanuts Sunday strips, before everything got simplified down to flat secondary colors. The Dolby Vision presentation of The Snoopy Show, while not expansive in its luminance, gives the gradience and shading of the backgrounds plenty of room to breathe without banding.

But what impresses me most about the imagery is that the background artists have cobbled their influences and inspiration into something unique, with a character of its own, and of a quality you just don’t expect to see outside of feature-length animation.

It’s a shame that the same can’t be said of the music. Composer Jeff Morrow seems content to play a poor-man’s Vince Guaraldi here, aping the musical style of the old animated specials without taking any risks. Classics like “Linus and Lucy” may seem in hindsight to be an essential element of the Peanuts, but it’s important to remember that laying down a jazz soundtrack for A Charlie Brown Christmas was a creative risk at the time. The studio suits thought it would never fly. So while Morrow’s soundtrack feels comfortable, and is incredibly well-recorded and mixed, it’s not really true to the spirit of what Guaraldi and producer Lee Mendelson were aiming for with the music of that original special and its increasingly less-interesting followups.

That’s really the only bummer of note here. I could also grumble about the fact that some of the Peanuts gang have been voiced by actors who fail to capture the old-soul timbre I associate with the characters, but that’s more of an observation than a criticism, and the humans are really the secondary characters here. As its name implies, The Snoopy Show is about Charlie Brown’s canine companion, not Charlie Brown himself. And the focus on Snoopy (and Woodstock) results in a genuinely chaotic vibe I just love to pieces.

Yes, the show still captures the existentialism inherent to The Peanuts (and in that respect, it hews closer to the comic strip than previous animated efforts), but given the rich imagination for which Snoopy is known, and the fantasy worlds he famously inhabits, the shift in focus away from the human gang and toward the pup results in a commensurate shift toward the whimsical and downright weird.

As such, there isn’t always a clearly defined narrative arc to the three eight-minute vignettes that make up each episode, nor is there any continuity between them. Each is its own little universe. One entire short is dedicated to Snoopy trying to cool off on a hot day. Another is entirely about his spastic and unselfconscious dancing. The latter, by the way, is one of the few vignettes to have any sort of overt moral, but it echoes the more covert ideology that permeates the series so far: Life may suck sometimes, but it’s a lot more bearable if we choose to actively rebel against the darkness and embrace the goodness and joy and goofiness in the world.

That may not be profound but it’s true to Schulz’s creation, and it gives The Snoopy Show a timeless quality that’s rare, even in this new golden age of children’s animated programming. It also means that the series isn’t insufferable when viewed through adult eyes. This is one of those rare shows parents might actually enjoy just as much as their little ones.

And that’s not purely a function of nostalgia. Part of it is the fact that the show never panders to anyone. There’s some stuff here that will fly straight over the heads of anyone under 10, but that’s okay. There’s certainly nothing inappropriate for such young eyes and ears. I just can’t imagine our young niece laughing at the same things that made my wife and me chortle.

Will you enjoy it as much as we did? I can’t say for sure. The missus and I are both overgrown kids and weirdos to boot. But I hope you do. Because as fanciful (and mischievous!) as it is, the world needs more cartoons like The Snoopy Show.

Dennis Burger is an avid Star Wars scholar, Tolkien fanatic, and Corvette enthusiast who somehow also manages to find time for technological passions including high-end audio, home automation, and video gaming. He lives in the armpit of Alabama with his wife Bethany and their four-legged child Bruno, a 75-pound American Staffordshire Terrier who thinks he’s a Pomeranian.

PICTURE | The Dolby Vision presentation, while not expansive in its luminance, gives the gradience and shading of the backgrounds plenty of room to breathe without banding

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Review: Space Force

Space Force

review | Space Force

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Netflix’ blatant and desperate attempt to try to salvage some of its Office audience results in a sitcom that manages to fire on no cylinders

by Michael Gaughn
June 6, 2020

It’s not hard to figure out how this all began. Netflix had an unexpected boon when Millennials didn’t discover The Office until after it had migrated over to the subscription service, but then seized on and devoured it as if they’d just summoned up manna. But then, as part of the seemingly endless proliferation of streaming providers, NBC decided to launch Peacock and bring The Office back under its wing, depriving Netflix of what is probably its steadiest flow of viewers.

While they would never publicly admit it, Netflix suddenly found itself desperate for a new series that looked, walked, and smelled enough like The Office to retain a sizable portion of that show’s audience.

Enter Office creator Greg Daniels and star Steve Carell with the idea for a service comedy—an idea as old as the hills (or at least as old as Aristophanes)—and as current as today’s headlines. Or at least that’s how they would have presented it at the pitch meeting—assuming they even had to do a pitch before Netflix handed them a blank check.

To cut right to the chase, Space Force is nothing but a mess, way overinflated in every possible way, the most hackneyed of sitcom premises puffed up with a stupidly large budget and a random mob of a cast. If this had been made for a fraction of the money and with a little less latitude, the constraints might have brought some badly needed discipline to the exercise, yielding something tighter, funnier, and more watchable. Maybe.

What we have instead is the Netflix equivalent of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World—a too-big-to-fail comedy that puts a gun to your head and tells you to laugh because it’s desperate to justify its existence. There are some laughs, occasionally (I have to admit to falling for the space chimp bit), but far too rarely. Space Force is the sitcom equivalent of spending an evening watching a room full of monkeys perched at typewriters and waiting for one of them to randomly tap out a joke.

To go with another animal analogy, it’s a great, big slobbering Labrador of a show, utterly superficial, with no ideas or convictions of its own, desperately trying to please everybody and willing to do anything to get a little attention. If you’ve heard that it’s a spoof or satire, you heard wrong. Space Force doesn’t bite—it licks your face instead. It doesn’t have the creative courage to skewer a damn thing.

But enough generalities; let’s talk specifics. You get the sense Carell loves The Great Santini and decided, for some reason, to drag it into the present. But it would be hard to name another actor more different from Carell, with his extremely limited acting range, than Robert Duvall. That cognitive dissonance might help explain why Carrel can’t get a bead on his character but constantly shifts between playing a pint-sized general, Michael Scott, and an ambiguous third being who might actually be Carell himself.

The cast is big and, almost without exception, unexceptional, the most offensive member being Ben Schwartz as Carell’s media manager. His every moment on screen is the comedy equivalent of waterboarding. Carell’s character fires him in the first episode, which seemed logical and felt definitive, and led to the hope we were rid of him forever. But this is a cliché-laden sitcom after all, so he keeps arbitrarily popping back up throughout the series, like a horror-movie villain or a rodent, even though his shtick is predictable, his actions implausible, and he fails to generate any laughs.

The biggest offense—although you can’t really blame the completely bland, inoffensive actress saddled with playing her—is the pilot who starts out as Carrel’s whirlybird chauffeur and somehow ends up commanding a lunar mission. She’s not a character or the product of a legitimate creative act but a fashionable amalgam, born of checking off a bunch of boxes meant to suck up to contemporary sensibilities. As far as you can get from three-dimensional, she’s a direct descendant of the personified virtues in a medieval morality play.

More specifically, she’s only there to be the token tough-but-caring black girl who rises to a level of great responsibility because she has a massive father complex.

If there’s any glimmer of light in this black hole of a series, it’s John Malkovich as the lead scientist. He’s ultimately nothing but a stereotypically affected straw man, Alice to Carell’s Ralph, Felix to his Oscar. It’s only Malkovich’s ability to make something out of nothing that causes his screen time to add up to anything resembling creative redemption.

Pardon a little inside baseball, but I watched Space Force straight through when it debuted and planned to publish this review then. But my reaction was so strong, I felt the need to buy some distance before going public with my thoughts. Unfortunately, the weeks that have lapsed since have only reinforced my original impressions.

If you’re big on Anointed vs. Underclass fictions that come down firmly for the Anointed, this show is for you. If you find succor in a day-care center view of the world, then you’ll probably actually enjoy the image of a military mission jubilantly jumping around the lunar surface like a bunch of infants. I didn’t. Space Force shows how far we’ve devolved since Metropolis, and suggests the Fredersens of the world have irrevocably won.

Michael Gaughn—The Absolute Sound, The Perfect Vision, Wideband, Stereo Review, Sound & Vision, The Rayva Roundtablemarketing, product design, some theater designs, a couple TV shows, some commercials, and now this.

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Review: The Bad Batch

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review | The Bad Batch

These animated series is not only a successful Star Wars spinoff but an audiovisual treat as well

by Dennis Burger
May 11, 2021

Beginnings definitely aren’t Dave Filoni’s strong suit. As much as I’ve raved about his efforts on Star Wars: The Clone Wars, that show took at least a season to find its footing. The followup, Rebels, also went through an awkward adolescence before developing into another incredible series—seriously some of the best Star Wars storytelling in the Disney era.

As the architect of the galaxy far, far away in the animated domain, Filoni puts a lot of faith in his audience’s ability to invest in a long game, but the flipside is that we in the audience have to put a lot of faith in him, to trust that things will pay off in the end. And they always do, at least so far. What, then, to make of the fact that The Bad Batch, the latest Star Wars series to spin from Filoni’s mind, starts off pretty darned good?

Before we dig too deeply into the execution of this new Disney+ series, let’s get some horse-race stuff out of the way for those of you who are interested. The Bad Batch is a direct sequel to The Clone Wars. In fact, the first four episodes of the seventh season of TCW served as a transparent back-door pilot for this show, which follows the trials and tribulations of a squad of rogue clones in the earliest days of the Galactic Empire.

The first episode overlaps with the final four episodes of The Clone Wars and the third act of Episode III—Revenge of the Sith, which is starting to become pretty well-worn territory in the new Star Wars canon. But rather than use the fall of the Republic, destruction of the Jedi, and rise of the Empire as a denouement or conclusion, the new show uses them as a jumping-off point, which quickly leads into territory that hasn’t been explored in live-action or animation.

Not to drop too much geekiness on your screen here but what makes Clone Force 99 (aka the Bad Batch) special is that they’re defective (or “deviant,” in their own words), and as such immune to the programming that causes the Clone Army to become proto-Stormtroopers in the new Empire. Each has a mutation that gives him a special skill but also makes him less controllable. And you don’t have to be a rocket surgeon to guess that their uniqueness will eventually put them at odds with the new totalitarian regime.

Neither do you have to be too observant—although perhaps you do need to be of a certain age—to recognize that this Bad Batch shares a lot of similarities with another group of small-screen anti-heroes, The A-Team, as well as big-screen misfits like The Dirty Dozen.

In the two episodes that have aired thus far—the 75-minute “Aftermath” and the 30-minute “Cut and Run”—we don’t really get a sense of what if any role this unruly team will serve in the impending rebellion. In fact, we don’t really get much of a sense of what the show’s formula will be, aside from the “formed family on the run from the Man” trope already explored in Rebels.

But in a way, that sort of doesn’t matter—at least not yet—The Bad Batch doesn’t stand or fall on a unique premise. What makes the show work already is that it has, established a consistent tone and style in just two episodes, something that Clone Wars and Rebels fumbled around with for a bit too long. It also seems to already know what it’s about—mainly, the internal tug-of-war that arises from being an iconoclast searching for a purpose and a meaningful role in a society that seems to be falling apart.

In terms of its look, the series definitely builds on the foundation of Clone Wars, relying on similar character models and generally following the trend of taking a sort of Gerry Anderson-esque “Supermarionation” vibe and injecting a healthy dose of articulation and fluidity into the animation.

Computing power has, of course, come a long way since Clone Wars first hit screens in 2008, though, and Filoni and his team don’t seem compelled to stick to the style of that series slavishly. The animation in The Bad Batch is much more detailed, and the backgrounds in particular benefit from much more richness, depth, and sophistication.

Perhaps the most striking thing about the visuals, though, is the way  the imagery benefits from high dynamic range. The Bad Batch was created from the ground up for exhibition on Disney+, not broadcast TV, and as such has much more freedom to use shadows and light in interesting and effective ways. It remains to be seen if it maintains this Botticellian chiaroscuro aesthetic as it moves into new and unexplored environments—and it seems it will—but it already represents among the best application of Dolby Vision I’ve seen in animation to date.

Big props are also owed to composer Kevin Kiner, who returns to deliver a very different musical landscape from those he developed for Clone Wars and Rebels. With the former series,  his music skewed heavily toward a Star Wars prequel-era style, and with the latter he had to at least evoke the music of the original trilogy. With The Bad Batch, though, the he has managed to create a new and different musical language that nonetheless feels perfect for the franchise. There’s a mix of traditional and experimental, of orchestral and electronic, that feels like Star Wars without aping John Williams or Ludwig Goransson or even Kiner’s own previous work in this universe.

The sound mixers seem to realize that they have something special to work with in Kiner’s score, because they give it oodles of room to breathe, both spatially and proportionally. At its most intimate, the sound mix is a center-speaker-heavy affair. At its most bombastic, it uses the entire Dolby Atmos soundscape to drop you right into the conflict. For the most part, though, it’s a three-channel, front-heavy mix, with dialogue following the characters from left to right across the screen and Kiner’s music filling the front soundstage, leaking onto into the surrounds to give it some ambience and an additional sense of space.

In short, The Bad Batch is an audiovisual treat of the best kind. And while the series itself hasn’t quite risen to the narrative or thematic heights of its predecessors, it’s off to a consistently entertaining start, which is something that couldn’t be said of Filoni’s previous animated Star Wars adventures. It also seems to be playing things a little safe at the moment, trying too hard at times to recreate the magic of its predecessors. If it can break out of that rut (and knowing Filoni’s past work, I have every reason to suspect that it will), The Bad Batch has the potential to be something truly great.

Dennis Burger is an avid Star Wars scholar, Tolkien fanatic, and Corvette enthusiast who somehow also manages to find time for technological passions including high-end audio, home automation, and video gaming. He lives in the armpit of Alabama with his wife Bethany and their four-legged child Bruno, a 75-pound American Staffordshire Terrier who thinks he’s a Pomeranian.

PICTURE | Perhaps the most striking thing about the visuals is the way  the imagery benefits from high dynamic range

SOUND | At its most bombastic, the soundtrack uses the entire Atmos soundscape to drop you right into the conflict, but for the most part it’s a three-channel, front-heavy mix

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Review: Star Wars Visions

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review | Star Wars: Visions

The quality of some of these Star Wars-themed animated shorts can vary, but the series as a whole is well worth checking out

by Dennis Burger
September 27, 2021

I honestly can’t decide if Star Wars: Visions represents a huge risk for Lucasfilm and Disney+ or a sure bet. So let’s just agree that it’s off the beaten track but following a path that seems obvious in retrospect, and leave it at that. The new anthology series comprises nine disconnected shorts built on a single premise: Give the Star Wars mythos to nine different anime directors spread across seven anime studios and let their imaginations run wild, with no imposed ties to the existing Star Wars timeline or canon.

Given that the shorts range from 14 to 23 minutes long, with the average running length coming in at right around 17 minutes, it’s understandable that none of the concepts are fully developed, and there’s not a lot by way of story in some of them. But that really sort of misses the point. I think the intent here was to riff on the themes and iconic visuals for the Galaxy Far, Far Away from a different perspective. And in that respect, it’s a stunning success. Every single film in this collection is a wonder to behold in terms of color, design, detail, and motion (the latter despite the fact that a lot of it seems to be animated on threes or fours).

Does that mean you’ll like it? Well, of course not. Even as a self-described Star Wars scholar, there were episode of Visions I simply hated. And there were a couple (“Lop and Ochō” and “Tatooine Rhapsody”) that had potential but turned me off with their hyperbolic, uber-kinetic cutesiness and sensory overload.

But there are five shorts in particular that deserve your attention, even if you’re not a fan of Japanese animation in all its diverse and disparate forms, nor a dedicated consumer of every ancillary Star Wars program to roll out on Disney+.

“The Duel,” directed by Takanobu Mizuno and animated by Kamikaze Douga, the studio behind JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, is such a perfect but unusual blending of Kurosawa, Leone, and Lucas that it feels essentially Star Wars despite breaking so many rules of the universe.

“The Village Bride,” directed by Hitoshi Haga and animated by Kinema Citrus (Tokyo Magnitude 8.0) is a hauntingly beautiful little fable that resonates despite its predictability.

“The Elder,” directed by Masahiko Otsuka and animated by Studio Trigger (Little Witch Academia) is delightfully creepy and, in its English dub, features a great performance by David Harbor of Stranger Things and Black Widow fame.

“Akakiri,” directed by Eunyoung Choi and animated by Science SARU (probably best known in America for their work on the trippy Adventure Time episode “Food Chain”), is an absolute audiovisual masterpiece and a deliciously ambiguous morality tale at that.

But the best of the bunch, for my money, is “The Ninth Jedi,” directed by Kenji Kamiyama and animated by the legendary studio Production I.G, best known for Ghost in the Shell. Of all the shorts here, this one really felt like it should have been developed into a feature-length film, even if most of its substance comes from its style.

Check out those five shorts first if you’re unsure about whether or not you want to dip your toes into this weird experiment. If I may, though, I’d like to recommend watching each of them twice: Once in the original Japanese and once in the dub of your choice. As for the latter, I can only speak to the quality of the English dubs, but they’re incredibly well done throughout, with great voice acting and none of the awkward fumbling that normally comes from trying to match vocals to lip movements animated for a different language.

Furthermore, turning off the subtitles gives you the opportunity to soak in the Dolby Vision presentation of the animation, which looks a bit different from short to short, but always impresses with gorgeous contrasts, sumptuous color, and oodles of detail. (I did notice a brief moment of aliasing in one shot of one short, but I think that was a consequence of production, not the online delivery.)

In either the original Japanese or in dubbed English, the Dolby Digital+ 5.1 soundtracks vary a bit in terms of intensity and expansiveness but always deliver the goods on dialogue intelligibility and musical fidelity. By far the best of the bunch in terms of sound is “Akakiri,” which benefits from a decidedly Eastern percussion soundtrack almost entirely devoid of musical notes, but which nonetheless feels right at home in the Star Wars universe, or at least this version of it.

Also worth noting is the fact that Visions is accompanied by a pretty healthy collection of bonus features: 5 to 8 documentaries for each short that give some background on the filmmakers, their love of Star Wars, and their unique approaches to each episode.

All in all, Star Wars: Visions isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of blue milk, but it’s nonetheless exciting to see Lucasfilm exploring, taking risks, and expanding the scope of what Star Wars can look like. It may not have been entirely successful for me, given that I really only enjoyed five of the nine shorts, but still—I want to see more of this sort of thing going forward.

Dennis Burger is an avid Star Wars scholar, Tolkien fanatic, and Corvette enthusiast who somehow also manages to find time for technological passions including high-end audio, home automation, and video gaming. He lives in the armpit of Alabama with his wife Bethany and their four-legged child Bruno, a 75-pound American Staffordshire Terrier who thinks he’s a Pomeranian.

PICTURE | The Dolby Vision presentation of the animation, which looks a bit different from short to short, always impresses with gorgeous contrasts, sumptuous color, and oodles of detail

SOUND | The Dolby Digital+ 5.1 soundtracks vary a bit in terms of intensity and expansiveness but always deliver the goods on dialogue intelligibility and musical fidelity

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Review: Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian

Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian

review | Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian

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Disney’s behind-the-scenes look at The Mandalorian harkens back to the glory days of DVD extras

by Dennis Burger
June 3, 2021

One of the biggest concerns I’ve had about about the home video marketplace in the years since we started to transition from discs to online distribution is the decline in well-made behind-the-scenes supplemental material. We’ve seen some exceptions, like Beyond Stranger Things on Netflix, but bonus goodies of this sort almost seem like a vestige and little more, and they’re far too rare even at that.

I’m not sure if Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian is a full-blown reversal of this trend but it’s certainly a welcome addition to the ever-growing library of content available on Disney+. You know what? Strike that. To call Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian a return to the glory days of behind-the-scenes documentaries that flourished during the DVD era would be to sell it short. Unlike far too many of those bonus features, this eight-episode exploration of the making of the first live-action Star Wars TV series doesn’t have a promotional or congratulatory bone in its body. Nor does it lean on all of the tropes that practically defined the making-of doc in decades past.

Few and far between are the stereotypical shots of creatives or performers answering questions in front of a green screen. In fact, one almost gets the sense that director Brad Baruh has never seen a behind-the-scenes documentary and is making up his own formula as he goes along.

That’s actually not the case. Baruh has been involved in the making of a few Marvel Cinematic Universe docs and even had a hand in a couple of the best “one shot” short films set in the MCU. But with Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian, he breaks the mold, structuring the series around a series of roundtable discussions, each focusing on a different aspect of the series or its legacy, rather than following the making of the series in chronological order.

The first episode takes a deep dive into the directors who worked on the show, and subsequent episodes explore its place in the Star Wars universe from a storytelling perspective, as well as a pop-culture phenomenon perspective, along with the actual grunt work of production and post production.

But what really makes Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian such a joy is that it’s wildly unpredictable. Rambling discussions that would have been left on the cutting-room floor in the hands of a more seasoned pro instead become the centerpiece of an episode. Actors, directors, producers, and effects artists are allowed to take the conversations in directions that interest them, rather than simply pandering to the voyeuristic tendencies of the viewer.

(Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of the trailer for this series, which seems intent upon cherry-picking the few shots and discussions in which it does gravitate toward tried-and-true territory, but oh well. Marketing people are gonna market. Don’t let that turn you off.)

The series even treats some of the controversies behind the making of The Mandalorian—like the fact that star Pedro Pascal wasn’t really behind the mask of the titular Mandalorian all that much, and was instead played primarily by stuntmen Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder depending on the needs of the scene—with unapologetic honesty.

The best episodes of the series so far are those that focus on the technical wizardry that made The Mandalorian possible, like the advances in virtual set technology and the reliance on video-game engines for real-time rendering of backdrops that responded to camera movement. But at its heart, what makes Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian such a pleasure to watch is that every story it tells is ultimately a human story. While watching the series, my mind has been blown on several occasions to discover that things I thought were special effects actually weren’t, and things I never would have suspected to be special effects actually were. But instead of treating these technological wonders as the subject of interest in and of themselves, Baruh treats them as the efforts of creative humans solving problems in a way that no one ever solved them before.

And in a way, that’s a bit of a metaphor for Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian as a behind-the-scenes documentary. You’ve certainly seen bonus features that aim for the same end goals. But you’ve rarely seen ones that approach those goals quite like this.

Even if you’ve never been a fan of supplemental material, this one is so original in its approach to deconstructing the creative process that you owe it to yourself to give it a shot. And if nothing else, the title of the series—not The Making of the Mandalorian, or Behind the Mask, or anything of the sort, but rather Disney Gallery—gives me hope that this series isn’t a one-off, that indeed Disney+ will be home to future series of this nature, which maintain the spirit of old DVD making-of supplements by documentarians like Charles de Lauzirika, Van Ling, David Prior, and Laurent Bouzereau, but in a fresh new way that embraces the streaming era of home cinema.

Dennis Burger is an avid Star Wars scholar, Tolkien fanatic, and Corvette enthusiast who somehow also manages to find time for technological passions including high-end audio, home automation, and video gaming. He lives in the armpit of Alabama with his wife Bethany and their four-legged child Bruno, a 75-pound American Staffordshire Terrier who thinks he’s a Pomeranian.

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Review: Zenimation

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review | Zenimation

Disney mines its archives yet one more time, this time to provides its take on mindfulness

by John Sciacca

We’re big fans of sound design here at Cineluxe, as a good audio mix reproduced on a well-designed home theater draws you into the fantasy world and helps you appreciate films on a deeper level. But the work that goes into crafting the many layers of a rich, detailed, and organic sound mix—especially the often intricate and minute sounds created by the Foley artists—are often buried beneath the score, dialogue, or other effects in a scene.

The new short series Zenimation is such a master class in audio appreciation that it was worth highlighting. Currently available only on Disney+, the show description says, “Unplug, relax, and refresh your senses for a moment of mindfulness with Walt Disney Animation Studio’s Zenimation—an animated soundscape experience. These iconic scenes become an aural experience like no other with the sounds of ocean waves, an icy forest and soaring flight. Zenimation pays tribute to both the visual and sound artists who have created Walt Disney Animation Studios’ legacy of films.” Zenimation requires an incredibly minimal time commitment, with the entire series taking less than an hour to watch.

Zenimation is presented in HD with a 5.1-channel Dolby Digital audio and is broken into 10 parts: Water, Cityscapes, Discovery, Flight, Explore, Night, Nature, Serenity, Water Realms, and Levity. The shortest episodes last just four minutes and the longest only seven.

All episodes feature beloved Disney characters such as Moana, Ariel, Elsa, Aladdin, and Judy Hopps, focusing on scenes and moments germane to that episode’s subject. My only real complaint is that they chose to show everything with letterbox bars, retaining a 2.35:1 aspect ratio throughout. That would be fine if all the content were native 2.35:1, but a fair bit of it is 16:9 (or less) which means pillar-boxing (black bars on all four sides) the image. Perhaps keeping the constant vertical height is a better way of staying in the mindfulness zone, but I would have preferred the 16:9 content filled the screen. 

Also, since much of this content already exists on Disney+ in 4K HDR with Dolby Atmos audio, it would have been nice if they would have just pulled scenes from these titles for a higher overall presentation. Instead, we are limited to the audio and video resolutions of The Rescuers Down Under, Tarzan, Lilo and Stitch, and some of the other older titles.

Those nits aside, these scenes stripped of music, other effects, and dialogue with the Foley effects amplified allow you to focus on the specific sound elements that help bring each scene alive, and the scenes flow nicely from one to the next. Remember, unlike a live-action movie, in animation, no sound is captured “on set,” and every bit of audio is created to bring the scene and the animated world to life.

Clearly hear the rippling sounds paddles make as they pull through in the water, the drips of splashing wave droplets, or bubbles drifting up past characters underwater. Some of my favorite audio moments are from Moana, such as the scene on her boat. Note the sounds of her stitching and pulling the thread through the sail, pulling ropes on the boat, and the wind billowing and creaking all around. 

Outdoor scenes let you appreciate sounds of birds chirping off in the distance well outside your main left/right speakers, the rustle of leaves as you pass through a forest, the sounds of birds flapping overhead, along with the sounds of rain and crashing thunder.

Not all of the sonic moments are about bombast, but many allow you to appreciate the subtleties and nuance of the mix. Notice the echoing of Anna’s footsteps inside Elsa’s immense ice castle, the delicate rustle of grass beneath Rapunzel’s feet, the tonal change of the fire crackling on Moana’s torch as she walks from a cramped cave into a large cavern, or the spark of fire and smoke trailing from an incense stick Mulan lights. Or discern the distinctly different sounds used for shooting stars, all of which convey the same sense of motion but with a  different feeling.

While Zenimation doesn’t employ an immersive object-audio mix, the upmixer in a modern surround processor does a capable job of positioning appropriate sounds overhead. You’ll hear the screams of eagles, fireworks exploding, wind whistling and rushing past, birds chirping, the ringing of bells from Quasimodo’s tower, as well as rain droplets and water splashes. There is also a nice amount of deep bass courtesy of things like the deep cascade of waterfalls, the stampede of animals, or the crackling of stones and boulders.

Zenimation gives movie lovers a fun and creative way to understand the audio elements and sound design work that goes into crafting a film’s sonic world, helping you appreciate the art of filmmaking. And with the whole series taking less than an hour to watch, there’s no excuse not to check it out. 

Probably the most experienced writer on custom installation in the industry, John Sciacca is co-owner of Custom Theater & Audio in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, & is known for his writing for such publications as Residential Systems and Sound & Vision. Follow him on Twitter at @SciaccaTweets and at johnsciacca.com.

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Star Wars Reviews

Star Wars

REVIEWS

The Bad Batch

The Bad Batch is an audiovisual treat of the best kind. And while the series hasn’t quite risen to the narrative or thematic heights of its predecessors, it’s off to a consistently entertaining start. It also seems to be playing things a little safe, trying too hard at times to recreate the magic of its predecessors. If it can break out of that rut (and knowing Filoni’s past work, I have every reason to suspect that it will), The Bad Batch has the potential to be something truly great.      read more

THE BOOK OF BOBA FETT

Here’s what you need to know before dipping into The Book of Boba Fett. First off, go back and watch the first two seasons of The Mandalorian if you haven’t already. Narratively, this new series by Jon Favreau follows pretty much straight on from that show and represents something of a fork in its narrative. But don’t confuse this with The Mandalorian Season 2.5. Favreau and team seem to be hellbent on keeping things from getting too stale, from falling into traps of the sort that snared fan-servicing but thematically hollow Star Wars offshoots like Rogue One.      read more

The Empire Strikes Back

I can’t say enough about this 4K HDR transfer of The Empire Strikes Back; it is truly reference quality in every way. And having purchased the Star Wars films in so many formats and versions over the years, I was seriously planning on sitting this round of Star Wars releases out. But after watching Empire, I’m starting to question that decision. If you’re a Star Wars fan, you’ve never seen the movies look like this, especially in a fine home theater. In many ways, it feels like seeing them for the very first time—and that is a priceless experience.      read more

To call Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian a return to the glory days of behind-the-scenes documentaries that flourished during the DVD era would be to sell it short. Unlike far too many of those bonus features, this eight-episode exploration of the making of the first live-action Star Wars TV series doesn’t have a promotional or congratulatory bone in its body. Nor does it lean on all of the tropes that practically defined the making-of doc in decades past.      read more

The Rise of Skywalker

Even if Rise of Skywalker isn’t your favorite film in the Star Wars saga, it’s worth purchasing just for the extras, including the feature-length documentary The Skywalker Legacy, along with five other featurettes. Included with the Kaleidescape release as a digital exclusive is “The Maestro’s Finale,” which has John Williams looking back on his 40-plus-year career working with Star Wars.       read more

Second Thoughts: The Book of Boba Fett

Rarely have I seen a series launch with so much potential and squander it so spectacularly as did The Book of Boba Fett. Reflecting on the show now that it has run its course, I still stand by my review of the first episode. It was a great slow-burn setup for what promised to be a fascinating character study and a rumination on how cultural forces shape the individual.        read more

Star Wars

You can bemoan that this isn’t the original theatrical cut we grew up with and that Lucas has tinkered yet again with the infamous “Who shot first?” Cantina scene. Or that the added CGI creatures outside Mos Eisley bring nothing to the film—rather, now appearing jarringly out of place—and that the added Jabba scene just steals the greatness of his reveal later in Return of the Jedi. But I’m still going all in with this: This 4K HDR version of A New Hope is hands-down the definitive, best the movie has ever looked and sounded, and if you don’t watch it you are punishing only yourself.read more

Stars Wars: Andor

I went into Andor feeling almost obliged to watch it, given how little interest I have in the film that inspired it and the character at its heart but how much devotion I have to this franchise nonetheless. Now I find myself eagerly awaiting the next episode in a way that exceeds my anticipation for the next season of The Mandalorian. But with this one, I’m not watching it because it’s Star Wars. I’m watching it because, at least so far, it’s simply damned good cinema in an episodic-TV package.    read more

Star Wars: Visions

All in all, Star Wars: Visions isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of blue milk, but it’s nonetheless exciting to see Lucasfilm exploring, taking risks, and expanding the scope of what Star Wars can look like. It may not have been entirely successful for me, given that I really only enjoyed five of the nine shorts, but still—I want to see more of this sort of thing going forward.   read more

Tales of the Jedi

Whether you’re seven or 77, whether you’ve seen every Star Wars cartoon ever made or you just barely know the difference between a lightsaber and landspeeder, there’s something here for you. And if this is what it takes to convince you to get off your butt and finally watch The Clone Wars, all the better.     read more

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MCU Reviews

Marvel Cinematic Universe

REVIEWS

The Disney/Marvel team really has the formula dialed in when it comes to creating successful and enjoyable superhero movies. Through a deft mix of writing, casting, humor, big action pieces, and a 10-year storyline that both lives on its own and weaves between all films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Marvel films are entertaining and re-watchable, making them fantastic for viewing at home. And while many carry a PG-13 rating, as does this film, they are very family friendly in nature.      read more

The 4K HDR transfer looks fantastic, with tons of detail and with HDR used effectively throughout, bringing pop and detail to images. The terrific detail in the costume design is revealed, letting you see the weave in Cap’s suit, and all the scrapes and damage to Iron Man. During one scene between Romanoff and Barton, you see the wear and pores in Barton’s face starkly contrasted with the smooth foundation makeup that makes Romanoff’s skin glow. The added resolution really does a wonderful job revealing those micro-details and textures throughout.      read more

Visually, Ultron is a treat, with tons of detail in every scene. As with Avengers, HDR is used effectively to enhance bright objects like lightning blasts, explosions, and the glowing blue trim on Black Widow’s suit. Perhaps one of the best examples of how HDR improves the image is when you see the visualization of Jarvis as an orange glowing sphere of light along with Ultron as a blue light sphere inside the Avenger Tower. This scene just glows off the screen in this version, and has far better color depth.      read more

If you’re just in this for the eye candy, Kaleidescape’s presentation works on that front, even if the vivid and detailed presentation does at times make some of the special effects slightly too obvious. Audio enthusiasts who’ve grumbled at Disney for their lackluster audio mixes will also be delighted by the richness of the soundtrack and its effective use of bowel-loosening bass and the aggressiveness of the Dolby TrueHD Atmos track’s height channels.      read more

Fortunately for home theater owners, Black Adam looks and sounds great. The transfer is taken from a 4K digital intermediate, and images look clean, polished, and terrific. Closeups have incredibly sharp detail and clarity, showing single strands of hair, whiskers, and all the pores in actors’ faces, the bulging veins in The Rock’s head, cracks and texture in rocks, stones, and buildings, or the finest details in clothing. Though this ultra-clarity and detail comes at the expense of some of the effects and environments, revealing their CGI roots.        read more

Can I just say that this is yet another blockbuster I’m so glad I didn’t have to suffer through in a packed cinema? Disney+’s presentation far surpasses the quality of any commercial cinema I could reach in a half-day’s drive, and I also got to enjoy it without suffering the distractions of an auditorium full of chatty extroverts and their rowdy kids. At home, I could give it my full attention and even take a tinkle break halfway through without being forced to choose between skipping an action sequence or a bit of character development.       read more

Visually, Captain Marvel is a treat. The movie has gobs of detail in every scene. Closeups abound with texture, letting you see the pebbling and grain in Fury’s shoulder holster or an alien’s skin or the metallic surfaces of the various spaceships. There’s a scene  where they visit a planet that’s covered in a smoky, hazy mist. This is a total video torture test for noise and banding, especially as the smoke is illuminated in a variety of ways from lights, fire, and streaking laser bolts, but the image is always stable, clean, and noise-free.
read more

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness isn’t the best nor is it the worst of the MCU entries. While the story is a bit thin, the movie is certainly entertaining, filled with engaging visuals and packing a dynamic surround mix that will show off your system. Sam Raimi’s style might also appeal to viewers not traditionally fans of superhero films. Plus, there are some really interesting character crossovers that could point the way to future installments in the franchise.      read more

Disney has often been slagged for producing anemic, bass-less soundtracks but I didn’t find that to be the case here. There are lots of moments where your subs will pressurize the room, and impacts and collisions have authoritative weight. An earthquake early on has tons of rumble and rattle with the sounds of objects shaking and falling all around the room. The Deviants also have a really throaty low-bassy growl to their sounds.     read more

Shang-Chi was just OK. It was fun to watch, looked great, the fight scenes were dynamic and visually interesting, and the actors did a fine job, but the story itself felt a little thin. And, ultimately, it just didn’t feel like a Marvel movie. But with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 92% and an Audience Score of 98%—the highest combined score of any film in the MCU—it seems like I’m in the minority, and perhaps my opinion will change on future viewings.       read more

Far from Home looks fantastic, never wanting for pop or detail. This is a marquee title and it absolutely looks it. Both closeups and long shots have great detail and texture and razor-sharp edge detail with incredible depth and dimension—things like the metallic texture of Spidey’s Iron Spider suit or the fine detail in Ned’s hat.       read more

I didn’t really have a lot of desire to see Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse when it was in movie theaters. Nothing about the trailer really grabbed me, but when it started getting rave reviews both from critics (97% on Rotten Tomatoes, with comments like “It is a game changer”) and audiences (94% positive), I figured maybe the trailer didn’t resonate with me but the film would. Then, when it took home the Academy Award this year for Animated Feature Film, that clinched it.       read more

At 148 minutes, No Way Home is long, but it’s so filled with action, characters, humor, and heart-filled moments that it zips by. By the time you get to the finale—which is huge, cinematic, and full of heart, risk, and payoff, and crammed with effects and sonic bombast—you’ll have that endorphin rush that almost feels like you’ve completed a workout. This movie is reference-quality throughout, and is easy to recommend!       read more

If you go into Thor: Love and Thunder predisposed to hating it and wanting to pick apart all the jokes and humor, you’ll probably find plenty of fodder. But go in expecting to have a good time, to be wowed by some beautiful and stunning visuals, and to enjoy some dynamically deep bass, then you probably will.       read more

Venom belongs to that increasing group of films that sees a real divide between critics and fans. While scoring a meager 28% on Rotten Tomatoes, it managed an 85% audience score. In short, I’d say Venom is a classic big summer, popcorn action film where it pays to check your brain at the door and just sit back and marvel (no pun intended) at the terrific visual effects and pummeling Atmos audio track. If you’re looking for some home theater eye and ear candy, Venom won’t disappoint.      read more

Venom: Let There Be Carnage isn’t a great film, but it is an entertaining one that looks and sounds great. It’s one of those where you just sit back, don’t think too hard, and enjoy. But it’s most promising moment is actually its mid-credits scene, and it is perhaps in Venom’s third act where we’ll really get to see the story shine!       read more

Ever since Captain America: Winter Soldier, Marvel Studios has built up a stockpile of trust with superhero-movie fans by consistently cranking out entertaining action romps that span the genre spectrum from intense ’70s-style espionage thrillers to intergalactic comedies to dramatic epics. With WandaVision, it’s spending that trust on an offbeat experiment that will, in retrospect, be seen as either a massive success or an embarrassing failure. And two episodes into its nine-episode run, it’s nearly impossible to tell which of those outcomes is more likely.    read more

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