Films 1-3
BOX-ART
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Honestly, I've never cared much for any of Viz Media's Pokemon artwork. It's always so bland. The cover sports the three main legendary Pokemon split onto three multicolored slots with the corresponding film logos. The back, much like the front, splits into three sections with brief descriptions of each film.
MENUS:
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After playing a few random clips from the film on the disc, with the corresponding title card music, it fades to a static image with a, "Play," button. Chapters are available via an overlay menu.
VIDEO
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Superb! Being that it is, after all, a copy & paste of the Japanese Blu-Rays with dub credits spliced in. Now, speaking of these splices, the first film uses a print from what seems like the original Warner Bros. theatrical release. The aspect ratio changes from 1.85:1 to open matte 1.78:1 during this sequence. The end credits are just retyped over the new remastered Japanese footage.
The second film uses the exact same method of splicing as the first film. Again, the quality is very good!
The third film is slightly different. Anywhere there was Japanese text they cut to what, appears to be, the original Warner Bros. theatrical print. Again, the opening sequence is open matte 1.78:1. This footage actually looks better than the Japanese sourced image, so it's a shame they didn't use it for the whole film. The end credits, however, are retyped over up-scaled footage. Yes, this up-scaled footage looks awful but is only the end credits. There is, however, this strange line smearing effect throughout. This was not in the original and is a bit distracting, but the film still looks great.
-The entire opening, "Birth of Mewtwo," sequence is absent from the beginning of the first film. It was shown like this in theaters too. This is bizarre seeing as how we know they have this footage in HD, so why didn't they include it?
-All three Pikachu shorts were also cut, however, these were indeed shown in theaters before the main films. The reason for there exclusion is unknown. My theory is that the shorts are part of a different rights package that Viz/TPCI didn't want to shell out for?
-A new release of the three films in Australia, titled the "Gold Edition" does included remastered versions of the Pikachu shorts. While Viz did re-release this box-set, in standard Blu-Ray and DVD packaging, the shorts were still absent.
AUDIO
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For whatever reason the only audio track included is stereo. No surround sound what-so-ever despite the fact that the original DVDs featured 5.1 audio. Films one and three sound OK, but the second film sounds like most of the sound was mixed down to the left speaker.
FINAL THOUGHTS
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As the first major Blu-Ray release of these films in the U.S, it has some major flaws. No surround sound, extras, or Pikachu shorts. But the video quality is much better than the old pan-&-scan DVD's. If you a fan I'd recommend this, but also track down the original DVD's for the extras and surround sound.
TECH. SPECS.
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ASPECT RATIO: 1.85:1 (Original Widescreen)
VIDEO CODEC: AVC
NUMBER OF DISCS: 3
DISC SIZE: Single Layer
REGION CODE: A
SUBTITLES: None
RUN-TIME: 4 Hours 15 Minutes
AUDIO: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 (3.07 MB/s)
Miramax Multi & Double-Features
BOX-ART
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The cover features images of each films DVD artwork on the cover. The renders are on top of a blue background with text in all caps at the top that says, "Miramax Multi (Or Double)-Feature."
The back has information split into multiple sections, with renders on each panel. Rather jarringly two of the Pokémon pictured on the panel about Heroes on the double pack don't even appear in the film! Honestly, Viz Media does this too so, I guess these companies never bother even looking at the films they're putting out. The movies logos are shown, with a description of the film underneath. Tech specs at the bottom of each films panel, but they're both mostly the same. At the very bottom are logos and such.
As a bizarre side note, when I first put the double feature disc in my drive it was labeled, "From Dusk Till Dawn Double Feature," and I thought I somehow got the wrong disk but nope, it's just been labeled incorrectly. Also, back of the multi-feature box incorrectly states that the audio is DTS, but it is actually Dolby Digital.
MENUS:
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Options are overlaid on top of clips from the film. There are three options: Play, Scene Selection, and Movie Select. By default the play option will be set to Destiny Deoxys and must be manually set to Heroes to play it. You must also select Heroes to see the scene options for it. Changing the film in the menu changes the video clips to the corresponding film. I'd also like to note that there is a garish filter over the menu clips, that isn't what the actual films look like.
With the multi pack a background video plays with of renders of Deoxys & Groudon, and you select which film you want to access. After you select a film you can then select play, scenes, or the go back to the main menu. Some generic music plays on the main menu.
VIDEO
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With the films on a single disc I was expecting some downright awful compression, and yet, it's not horrible honestly. With each film being roughly ten gigabytes in size, they manage to look fairly decent within their 25/50 gig constraints. If you pause and look close, yes, you can see some compression noise here and there. In a casual viewing you won't notice it though, and it looks fine. I have seen other animated films, although typically digitally mastered, that look great at lower bit-rates and are about the same size.
The main issue with the video is that the dub versions of movies four-seven have always been from poor quality sources. With quite a bit of grain, and poor colors. With films six & seven the reds & whites seem too bright, clipping at times. Black levels also seem a bit washed out too. The reds aren't really a true red either, but more of an orangey-red. With film five...well, it's got that controversial dark blue tint. All home video versions of the film, outside of Asia, have had this terrible dark blue color shift. Nobody really knows why this was done, or if it was some sort of error they've just been too lazy to correct.
AUDIO
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The audio is a mixed bag. Films 5 & 7 are in stereo regardless of which version you have, and films 4 & 6 are the same lossy surround sound mixes as the DVDs. The advantage the double pack has is that it uses 24 bit DTS-HD MA encoding. Of course your trade off is that your only getting two of the four films, and in mixed down stereo no less.
EXTRAS
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There's really no space for extras, but even if there were, I doubt they would actually port any over from the DVDs due to licensing issues. So, sadly, none of the Pikachu shorts are here.
FINAL THOUGHTS
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It sucks that we can't have the best of both worlds, with lossy surround sound on all four films. Who knows what's up with the rights to films at this point, it's been over a decade and we've yet to see a re-release, re-issue, or remaster of any of these films.
Films 8 & 9 have never received Blu-Ray release in North America, and are currently on only available digitally on sites like Amazon & iTunes. I'm not a huge fan of the way they've spilt up the Kanto, Joho, and Hoenn films into weird sets this way, but it's all thanks
to licensing that we don't have proper complete collections! (Ideally, it should be a double pack of films 1 & 2 with them being set in Kanto. A Johto set would be 3-5, with 6-9 being the Hoenn saga.)
TECH. SPECS.
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ASPECT RATIO: 1.78:1 (Open Matte Widescreen)
VIDEO: AVC (14 MB/s) (Double Pack)
(18.3 MB/s) (Multi Pack)
NUMBER OF DISCS: 1
DISC SIZE: Single-Layer (Double-Feature) / Dual-Layer (Multi-Feature)
REGION CODE: A
SUBTITLES: None
RUN-TIME: 2 Hours 48 Minutes (Double-Feature) / 5 Hours 32 Minutes (Multi-Feature)
AUDIO: 24 Bit English DTS-HD MA 2.0 (Double-Feature | Film 5 - 1.8 MB/s) (Film 7 - 2.6 MB/s)
English Dolby 5.1 ( Multi-Feature 448 KB/s | Films 4 & 6)
English Dolby 2.0 (Multi-Feature 192 KB/s | Films 5 & 7)
Films 10-13 / Diamond & Pearl Collection
BOX-ART
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Keeping in theme with the previous box-set, all four of the legendary Pokémon are featured on the cover. This cover also includes Ash & Pikachu. In my opinion this cover looks better than the previous one, it's just a bit more stylish. The back, however, looks similar to the first one and has four segments with descriptions of each film with the respective legendry's on two of them. The back, annoyingly, doesn't mention any of the specs such as as aspect ratio, subtitles, or audio options.
MENUS:
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Video clips of the films plays in the background with music. Your given a choice as to which film you'd like, and then options of audio & subtitles settings. The first two films are on disc one, while the second two are on disc two. There are no chapter menus, meaning you must use your remote to skip to them.
VIDEO
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Much like films 1-3 this set is very nice quality, with the added benefit of these films being digital, rather than cel animated. Colors pop, and contrast is great. The average bit-rate on all films is about 26 MB/s, and no compression is seen. The only problem with the video is some slight banding and macro-blocking that pops up occasionally.
AUDIO
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Fortunately, unlike films 1-3, this set includes a full 5.1 surround sound track as well as a stereo mix on all four films. All audio tracks are 16-Bit DTS-HD MA.
FINAL THOUGHTS
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The quality is great, but I personally lost interest in the series during the Diamond & Pearl series as I was entering teen years. I prefer the older films, but I still love the series and animation in general.
I'm hoping for a Blu-Ray set of the Advanced generation films someday! A Blu-Ray set of all the Black & White films came out fairly recently, I'm unsure if I'll get it, but I definitely would films 4-9 on Blu-Ray. No complete sets have come out after the Black & White one. This means that X & Y have no Blu-Rays in North America yet.
TECH. SPECS.
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ASPECT RATIO: 1.85:1 (Original Widescreen)
VIDEO: AVC (29.5 MB/s) Film 1
(26 MB/s) Films 2-4
NUMBER OF DISCS: 2
DISC SIZE: Dual-Layer
REGION CODE: A
SUBTITLES: English
RUN-TIME: 7 Hours 14 Minutes
AUDIO: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 & 2.0 (3.65 MB/s; 3.3 MB/s)
Detective Pikachu
I'd like to note that while this is the UHD set, I'm only reviewing the standard Blu-Ray!
BOX-ART
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The front features a render of Tim & Pikachu in front a cityscape. The film logo is on a billboard on the roof of the building. Various Pokémon are scattered through the various buildings. The lighting is very reflective of the lighting used in the film itself, with loads of moody neon blues & purples. There is a blurb in a magnifying glass about detective mode, which is a Blu-Ray exclusive extra.
The back has more Pokémon renders, stills, a brief description & a list of extras at the top. The center has info about the digital copy & UHD disc. At the bottom are various text & logos, with a grid for tech specs above. Both the UHD & standard Blu-Ray specs are listed. (I suspect the UHD disc has more dub tracks than what is listed, but I can't currently view the disc to find out.)
MENUS
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Menu options are overlaid on top of a static render. The render is the same image from the cover of the box. When on the special features section video previews of each featurette play.
VIDEO
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The film looks great here on Blu-Ray, with no major issues. Compression is fine, no visible artifacts. Colors & contrast are good. There is a nice fine grain structure with no hints of noise reduction. The film has a nice color grading style, relying mostly on the neon lights around the city.
AUDIO
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The main track here is a Dolby Atmos mix, but If you can't play Atmos tracks (Like me) it falls back to a 24 Bit 7.1 TrueHD mix. If you can't play that, it falls back further to a full bit-rate 5.1 Dolby EX mix. There is also a standard non-matrixed 5.1 track, along with several dubs and an English descriptive track (DVS) at 448 KB/s.
EXTRAS:
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The bulk of the extras are behind-the-scenes featurettes. There's also a music video. The biggest extra is a pop-trivia mode, which isn't PiP (Picture In Picture) but is a re-encode of the film with the overlays hard coded onto the film. The film itself is about twenty-one gigabytes, with the trivia file being about thirteen and a half. The audio is 5.1 Dolby at 384 KB/s. The video bit-rate is a few megabits lower than the main video too, but the quality doesn't suffer massively and looks about the same. It always confuses me when studios waste so much space by not using PiP, but I guess it's less work this way?
FINAL THOUGHTS
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I liked the film, maybe not as much as the older, nostalgic, anime ones but it was decent. I got it at Wal-Mart on black Friday, so it was cheap, but also had no digital code. Tucked inside, I have my theater ticket, and card pack they gave out! Like the first film, theaters gave out free TCG packs, however, they were also available for purchase around the same time as the films release. They were only available for a limited time though, and I don't know if you can still buy them.
TECH. SPECS.
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ASPECT RATIO: 2.40:1 (Original Widescreen)
VIDEO: AVC (21.9 Mb/s)
NUMBER OF DISCS: 1
DISC SIZE: Dual-Layer
REGION CODE: Free
SUBTITLES: English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish
RUN-TIME: 1 Hours 44 Minutes
AUDIO: English 24 Bit Dolby Atmos / TrueHD 7.1 (3.2 MB/s)
English 5.1 Dolby EX (TrueHD Core / 640 KB/s)
English, English DVS, French, Spanish, Portuguese 5.1 (Dolby 448 KB/s)
