Girls'
Last Tour (2017*)/Space
Runaway Ideon (1980 -
1981/*both Sentai Complete
Collection
Blu-rays)/Tarzan Goes To
India (1962**)/Tarzan's
Three Challenges
(1963/MGM/**both Warner Archive Blu-rays)/Waterworld
(1995/Universal/MVD Arrow Blu-ray)
Picture:
B+/C+/B/B/B+ Sound: B+/C+/C+/C+/B+ Extras: C***/D/D/C-/B
Main Programs: A-/B+/C+/C+/B
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Tarzan
Blu-rays are now only available from Warner Bros. through their
Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.
Now
for three different worlds of adventure...
It's
the end of the world ...but this is where our story begins. After
some great war, it seems like almost all life is gone and all that
remains are vast ruins that they once called cities. All except two
girls Chito and Yuu, as they travel together they search for food,
supplies and other survivors they try and make sense of what was life
like before the war. But even in a ruined wasteland they find and
discover unexpected beauty and wonder ...and somehow find the hope to
journey on.
In
Girls' Last Tour
(2017), Chito and Yuu are two young girls and they have been
traveling together since they could remember. They were born after a
great war and now seem to be last humans alive. They survive each
day by searching the ruins of human cities for anything that will
help them survive or fuel their tank. Day by day they journey
through an endless city searching for their purpose and hoping they
may find other survivors and signs of life.
This
was a sci-fi surreal anime, it is more about the journey than the
story itself... 2 girls traveling through a strange world with
beautiful and vast vistas with ethereal music.
Extras
include Japanese commercial and promos, clean opening and closing
animations and trailers, but a more elaborate box set has been
issued.
Episodes
are...
Starry
Sky / War - Chito and Yuu travel through a vast underground
factory searching for a way out. After finding a way out they
discover a crashed plan with food and ammo inside.
Bath
/ Journal / Laundry - Chito and Yuu takes shelter in a snowstorm
and discover a working power plant with hot water and have a bath.
Yuu burns Chito's book in a fire. After the storm the girls take the
chance to wash their clothes with the melting snow and discover a
fish.
Encounter
/ City / Streetlights - Chito and Yuu meet another survivor
Kanazawa who is trying to make map of the city ruins and helps them
find a way to the upper levels. Chito and Yuu follow the streetlights
deeper into the city.
Photograph
/ Temple - Chito and Yuu learn on how to take photographs and
take pictures of strange stone statues in the city. Chito and Yuu
discover a temple and a room filled with light.
House
/ Nap / The Sound of Rain - Chito and Yuu spend a night in an
apartment and wonder what the city was like when it was full of
people. Chito has a nightmare where Yuu turns into a giant and eats
her. During a rainfall Chito and Yuu listen to sounds the rain makes
on objects and they make 'music'.
Accident
/ Technology / Takeoff - Chito and Yuu encounter another survivor
Ishii and helps her build an airplane and she helps them repair their
tank.
Labyrinth
/ Cooking - Chito struggles to overcome her fear of heights.
Chito and Yuu discover a factory where they make rations and they
make their own food.
Memory
/ Spiral / Moonlight - Chito and Yuu discover a graveyard and
find things that people once valued. The girls discover another
tower to a higher level and are forced to take a dangerous path. The
girls discover beer and get drunk.
Technology
/ Aquarium / Life - The girls discover an aquarium/fish factory
with a single fish and a robot guarding it and decide to help protect
it from a malfunctioning larger construction robot.
Train
/ Wavelength / Capture - Chito and Yuu rides a train and explores
various machine inside it. The girls encounter a strange lifeform
that communicates through the radio and decides to keep it as their
pet.
Culture
/ Destruction / The Past - Chito discovers a book in English and
a war robot and discover it's weapons are still active.
Connection
/ Friends - Chito and Yuu learns of what happen in the past that
destroyed the world and discover their 'pet' is actually an alien and
they are eating the technologies that caused the destruction of the
world. The aliens tell them however they have not search everywhere
and there maybe other survivors on higher levels of the city.
When
Earth colonists set on the planet Solo they had no idea that they
would discover the legendary mecha Ideon, but on it's discovery they
are discovered by a second human race known as the Buff clan who is
seeking to claim Ideon as their own and to takeover the universe
...by any means necessary. The colonists only hope lies in Ideon to
help protect from the vast space armada of the Buff clan in Space
Runaway Ideon (1980 -
1981).
The
humans of Earth have began settling on other planets and they
discover large strange vehicles (and an even larger starship) buried
on a remote planet call Solo. Together, the vehicles come together
and form Ideon, the legendary invincible robot. Ideon is discovered
by Cosmo a young boy and his friends and they end up being the pilots
for Ideon (somehow they are the only one able to activate Ideon) and
they are forced to fight the Buff Clan to protect their colony. But
the Buff clan's military might is far more vast and out number them.
Cosmo's people are forced to use the ancient starship to flee with
Ideon protecting them from the attacks Buff clan. Each time Ideon is
able to repel the attackers, as the Buff clan returns each time with
more firepower, Cosmo and his friends unlock more of Ideon's secrets
and become more powerful too. But wherever they run, Cosmo and his
people can find no sanctuary and each time they try to make peace
with the Buff clan it fails because of human ego and greed. In the
end, can Ideon grows so powerful enough to make a difference?
Before
Gundam, before giant Sentai Robots and Power Rangers there was Ideon.
This is another blast from the past series with giant mechas and
space operas. Like most early Japanese sci-fi anime they are very
symbolic, the abuse of technology, robots, war and weapons of mass
destruction symbolizes the death and destruction of mankind. As
usual, the giant mecha falls into the hands of young kids who then
are expected to become the 'hero/heroines' in the series. In the end
what good is technology and war if it doesn't bring peace?
Next
we have the last two of three films with Jock Mahoney as literature's
famed 'Lord of the Jungle' in John Guillerman's Tarzan
Goes To India
(1962) and Robert Day;'s Tarzan's
Three Challenges
(1963), both British productions that went out of their way to be big
entries in what was a profitable series that kept changing actors and
was finally in the widescreen and color era. Still, the films landed
up being in the shadow of the Johnny Weissmuller black and white MGM
films and Mahoney (who had appeared in a prior entry as a different
character) had a body type more like Weissmuller's so they made a few
with him with passable results.
In
the first, shot partly on location, Tarzan has to protect his
elephant friends while battling evil in the raw parts of India, while
the second film has him back in Africa (shot in Thailand) fighting an
evil warlord and a plot to overthrow a very young royal. Woody
Strode shows up here somewhat repeating what he did a few years
earlier in Kubrick's Spartacus
(1960) and the scripts are not awful, the action being just enough to
get the audience through the films, but they are not highly memorable
and really just upscale B-movies that have their ambitions and two
directors who were more capable than they ever get credit for.
As
noted Guillerman later made the 1976 King
Kong
and Towering
Inferno,
so he can handle a big production, while Day is at least as talented,
with a decent set of big screen movies to his name, then turning to a
very long TV career including launching the TV version of Logan's
Run
in the 1977 via its pilot among his many Hollywood credits and
directing some of the best episodes of the British spy classic The
Avengers
during 1967, the full color Diana Rigg era.
As
limited and simple as the films and stories can be (some might
consider some of the moments here questionable and borderline racist,
but that was typical of all such films of the time, especially
dealing with imperialism, et al), there is still a certain amount of
intelligence both films have and expect the audience to be smart as
well, so that is a big plus for both films in an era of so many bad
franchise junkers. Warner Archive has issued both on Blu-ray and may
continue to issue the many Tarzan films they own in the format,
something fans will consider way overdue. India
has a theatrical trailer, but Challenges
has no extras.
Finally,
an infamous film. One of the most expensive films made in the '90s
(second only to James Cameron's Titanic), Waterworld
(1995) gets a beautiful new restoration in this three disc
collector's edition from Arrow. The film was previously released on
Blu-ray from Universal in a more bare bones edition that just
featured the Theatrical Cut, so this is a welcome edition for
Waterworld fans. The film is interesting to look back on now
that the hype has worn off around it and especially in this newly
remastered edition with new color correction makes it worth
revisiting. While it's pretty much Mad Max on the water,
Waterworld has some very impressive set pieces and action
sequences that still make it impressive to watch, especially from a
filmmaking standpoint despite negative reviews of the time.
Waterworld
stars Kevin Costner, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Tina Majorino, Jack Black,
Kim Coates, and Dennis Hopper. The film was directed by Kevin
Reynolds (The Postman, Tristan and Isolde) and Kevin
Costner (uncredited) and was written by David Twohy (Pitch Black)
and Peter Rader.
The
polar ice-caps have melted and the Earth is now mainly water. What's
left of humanity struggles to survive by any means they can with even
the most mundane things now holding value and live on boats. In this
world controlled by pirates who call themselves Smokers that are led
by the tyrannical Deacon (Hopper), it's up to the mysterious man
known as the Mariner (Costner) who helps a woman (Tripplehorn) and a
little girl (Majorino) in the search for dry land.
The
Waterworld limited edition has three cuts of the film which
includes the previously released
Theatrical
Version (2:15:06). On the second disc is The TV Cut (2:56:01) which
was created for U.S. broadcast television and contains over 40
minutes of additional material that includes alternate scenes and the
third disc contains the "Ulysses" Cut (2:57:13), which was
made for European broadcast markets and restores some material that
was cut from the U.S. broadcast version. One of the film's strongest
aspects is its score by James Newton Howard, which is front and
center in the mix.
Special
Features include...
Maelstrom:
The Odyssey of Waterworld - Feature Length BTS doc
Dances
With Waves featurette
Global
Warnings featurette
Image
Galleries
Production
Image Gallery
Concept
Art
Production
Stills
Behind
the Scenes: Hawaii
Behind
the Scenes: Los Angeles
Miniatures
and Visual Effects
Promotional
Image Gallery
Original
Trailers and TV Spots
and
Reversible Cover Art with new art by Paul Shipper.
The
Blu-ray is presented in a nice chipboard box that contains six eye
popping collector's postcards, a double sided fold out poster, and a
limited edition 60-page booklet featuring essays by David J. Moore
and Daniel Griffith.
There's
no doubt that this is the ultimate edition of Waterworld that
is a must have for fans.
The
1080p
1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image on Last
Tour
looks fine in color, warmth and definition, if not one of the very
best Sentai releases in this respect, it is still up there, but the
1080p 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer in a 1.78 X 1
frame on Ideon
can show the age of the materials used and is an upscale because
either the original masters are lost or the final post-production
used so much low def analog video, they had no choice, so it is the
poorest performer by default on the list.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on both Tarzan
films can also can show the age of the materials used, but this is
far superior a transfer to all previous releases of the films. Both
were processed in MetroColor,
but used different scope lens formats. Older CinemaScope was used on
India
and the distortion is apparent, while the French Dyaliscope lenses
were used on Challenges
and it has less distortion, if not as great as the better Panavision
squeeze lenses of the time.
Both
Sentai releases are in Japanese DTS-HD
MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Stereo lossless mixes, but Last
Tour
has much more warmth (also in a lesser English dub) while Ideon
sounds smaller and a generation down or so, or is that just the age
of the recording? Hard to tell. Both Tarzan
films were theatrical monophonic films and are here in DTS-HD
MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mixes that are as good as they
will likely ever sound. However, they do show their age and are not
surprising in any way, but they sound fine for their time and
budgets.
Waterworld
has been remastered in 4K resolution and presented on 1080p Blu-ray
disc with a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and audio tracks in
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit) and DTS-HD Master Audio
2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit) lossless mixes. The film has been newly color
corrected and looks much better than the previous Universal Blu-ray
release, including the old DVD and obsolete HD-DVD that had its
transfer recycled for Blu-ray. Note that this was a for DTS in its
time and that is still a highlight of this reissue/upgrade.
To
order either of the Warner Archive Tarzan
Blu-rays, go to this link for them and many more great web-exclusive
releases at:
http://www.wbshop.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo (Tarzan),
Ricky Chiang (Sentai) and James
Lockhart
https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/
