The Lone Ranger – The Legend Begins (Mill Creek Entertainment)
Picture: C- Sound: C Extras: D Episodes: C+
With
Clayton Moore still an impossible act to follow, The Lone Ranger has been dead
since the early 1980s Legend Of The Lone
Ranger did poorly at the box office, the then-owners took Moore’s mask away
and even the animated Filmation series did not lead to the revival some thought
it might. Oddly, the earliest Moore
episodes have not been available much and a few have issued some of them on
DVD, with Mill Creek Entertainment following the market with The Lone Ranger – The Legend Begins
consisting of mostly black and white episodes of the show.
The
series began in 1949 and is one of the first big dramatic hit TV Series of any
kind the medium ever saw. The impact is
still with the character to this day, even extending to Moore and Jay “Tonto”
Silverheels doing a Jeno’s Pizza Roll ad in the later 1960s! With most of the Ranger DVD sets out of
print, this will be among those that do for the curious until someone does
Blu-ray versions.
The 1.33
X 1 image on the majority black and white episodes is not very good, are form
rough prints and down a couple of generations.
The one color show on DVD 2 (form the show’s last season, its only color
season) is the best on both sets, making one wonder where the original camera
materials are. That was even a question
when the feature films came out on DVD a few years ago. Maybe it will take HD to get these right, but
the sound will need help too as the Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is as rough as the
picture, sometimes too low to the point that you have to be careful how loud
you play certain shows back.
Though it
could be considered an extra, very bad, rough, digititis-filled copies of the
1938 Republic serial (with Robert Livingston) are also included, but they are
unwatchable and rate Ds in both sound and picture categories. Still, it is here for reference sake until a
better version is issued. For more on
The Lone Ranger & Tonto, try this link:
Filmation Animated Series (Early
1980s)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6505/The+New+Adventures+Of+The+Lone
- Nicholas Sheffo
