The Avengers Blu-Ray Review

I'm not going to do a review of the Avengers movie. If you want that there are about a thousand websites you can go to that say more than I ever could. This review is about the five combo blu-ray package.

Extras / Behind the scenes:

The extras in this package are decent. If you watch all of them they will keep you distracted for quite a while. The deleted scenes are fun but in the end you know why they ended up being deleted. There are a couple of exceptions.

DVD:

This is a nice to have but not a need to have. This is a nice addition if you have a friend you want to lend this movie too.

Blu-Ray:

The quality of this blu-ray is not notch. Sometimes you'll get a blu-ray that just doesn't seem right. The picture quality might be off or the sound isn't what you would expect. This one lives up to Disney Standards it's the best you can get.

Blu-Ray 3D:

I guess this is nice to have but i don't have 3D TV so I can't eally comment on it.

Digital Copy:

What can I say...AWESOME! I say this because Disney acctually gives you a digital copy! A real copy you can put into iTunes or your other media server. This is not that horrific piece of trash known as "Ultra Violet" that some other studios give you. Thank you Disney for not going that route.

Sound Track:

This is another thing Disney has been doing lately. The Muppets Blu-Ray also did this. You can download the sound track for free. In most cases these are not songs I would have bought but this is a nice touch. It really ends up adding value to the whole package.

Comic Book:

You get a free digital avengers comic book. That's not too shaby.

Poster:

You can also get an Avengers poster at no charge. It's not that nice but it's still a nice overall addition.

Packaging:

This is the only hit or miss part of this package. The hologram on the front is cool even if it makes your eyes hurt. The part that isn't cool is how the dics are found. Most of the time each dics has it's own snap in. In this package the DVD and digital copy are stacked on top of each other (on the same snap) and the Blu-Ray and 3D are stacked on top of each other. That just seems kind of cheap.

Price:

Right now you can get this for 19.99. WOW! If a family of four went to see this in the moives you paid a lot more than that. In many cases a family of two paid more than that if they saw the 3D version. This is a real bargin.

Movie Review: The Avengers

The Avengers hit this weekend and shattered the opening weekend record.  Last figure I saw had it making over 200 million in the US on the opened weekend.  With a figure like that some people would assume that it must be a good movie but is it?

I want to start by saying that I am not a comic book fan but I can enjoy the movies.

When it comes to any movie I judge how good it was by whether or not I’d buy the Blu-Ray / DVD when it came out.  Considering that the only comic book movie I really enjoyed recently was the Dark Knight.

The Avengers starts off in a decent manner.  It’s a fairly action packed beginning that sets the tone for the movie but I have to warn people.  If you have not seen Captain America and Thor you might be a little confused about what is going on.  The Avengers is actually part three of a three part story.

The next hour or so is decent but it can be boring at times.  The story just seems to stall out for a while.  It really made me wonder if some of the scenes could have been removed or shortened.

Once the end starts it goes non-stop.  It’s an action festival.  If you like fights, explosions, and utter chaos then you will love the end of this movie.

I have to say the best thing in the Avengers is the humor.  Throughout the entire film they placed some really funny moments that make you laugh.  Such things as seeing the Hulk sucker punch Thor give the movie some welcomed breaks from the intense scenes.

The characters as a whole are fun to watch. The casting for all of the characters is excellent.  Captain America is a great fit.  Robert Downey Jr. is to Iron Man what Johnny Depp is to Captain Jack Sparrow.  Thor is a little pretty for the character but he still does a good job.

It would be very hard to find a better fit for Black Widow than Scarlet Johanson but when it comes to her and Hawkeye I couldn't help but wonder what we were missing.  I think both of these characters would have their own movies if done correctly.

That brings us to the Hulk.  After a some really poor movies I really thought no one would be able to do a good movie with the Hulk in it.  However,  they pulled it off.  The Hulk is the real highlight of the movie.  He is just fun.

I’m not sure if I’d buy The Avengers on Blu-Ray or not.  The main draw of the movie was the action and it does that well.  However the story wasn’t compelling enough to really draw me in.

Overall The Avengers is a fun movie that is worth seeing at least once.

2009 – Disney Year in Review

2009 was an odd year. Instead of facing the normal news and stories normally associated with Disney we got hit time and time again with shocking news or news that didn’t fit Disney.

The year started poorly. Disney fired people left and right. No one was safe. From the top to the bottom people lost their jobs. Disney cut down to the bone and then got out the hack saw.

Disney cleaned their movie studio with a vengeance. Forget about service, loyalty, or longevity. None of it mattered. Things were going to change. The movies weren’t the only segment to change. The parks also saw their saw change with the heads of some of the parks being changed.

Other things changed that Disney couldn’t control. Roy E. Disney is gone leaving a huge void in the Disney community. Wayne Allwine, man who voiced Mickey Mouse also passed away this year. That kind of ran under the radar but was none the less a big loss. A lot of people forgot the connection between Disney and Britney Murphy. She was announced as the voice of Tinkerbell.

Some things changed but as the same time didn’t change. Disney raised prices again. Who’s shocked about that? They’ve done that every year. You can set your watch by it. The less for more mentality continued to dominate the business plan. Disney also pushed DVC hard this year. We saw two new DVC resorts spring up at existing resorts. That left me wondering when the Poly is going to get a DVC update. Don’t laugh it will happen.

The Tree House Villas made a comeback. They sound cool but they are too expensive for me. If you got a bunch of people together it might be worth it.

Some classic rides changed this year. Space Mountain got an overhaul. It may not have been up to peoples expectations but it was still a great enhancement. The Tomorrow Land Transit Authority also got an overhaul. Visually this was a good enhancement but many people have complained that the sound track cannot be compared to the original and really took a lot away from this ride.

Also in the ride change category was Stich. Stich was force fed to us once again. The first instance was his Supersonic Celebration. I’ve had sneezing fits that lasted longer than this attraction. If there was ever an attraction that DOA it was this one.

The American Idol Experience opened. I was happy about this because when this is showing the crowds will be less wherever I’ll be. Yes you couldn’t pay me to see this attraction but I enjoy anything that reduces my wait in line somewhere else.

Fantasmic was cut down to two nights a week. All I have to say about that is BOOOOO! I’ll never see it now.

Kim Possible exploded onto the World Showcase. People seem to like but I haven’t had a chance to experience this yet. I might try it on my next trip.

Disney decided to slap many people in the face and come out with its own official fan club. D23 hit and left a ton of people wondering: why would you pay that much to join? D23 could be huge but until Disney remembers a few of the classic business tricks it’ll stay a source of contention and not generate any where near the revenue that it could. The one thing people seemed to like about D23 was the expo. That was great if you were in or could afford to go to California. For everyone else, go pound sand.

2009 also had a lot of odd or shocking news. The biggest splash was Disney buying out Marvel. It made me wonder where that came from. It seemed to happen overnight. It’ll be fun to see what happens in the next year as far as Marvel is concerned.

Another shocking event was the monorail accident. It truly was shocking. Some people didn’t think so but when you consider how many people have ridden the monorail over the last three decades and when you consider there had never been a fatality, it was shocking. If you do the math you find out that the monorail is a safer form of transportation than walking.

The Fantasy Land expansion was announced. It got leaked in advance but it still shocked a lot of people because of the size and scope of the project. I still can’t wrap my head around the sheer size of the new land. It’s hard to imagine.

The final shocker I’ll mention was the lady who sued Disney for making her stand in line to ride the Tower of Terror. If you didn’t hear about this one, let me give you some of the details. The plaintiff claimed the Tower of Terror is therapeutic to her condition and prevents her from having to have surgery. Her condition is a stomach ailment. Most people find the Tower of Terror to worsen an ailing stomach but not her.

In movies Up exploded and proved all the critics wrong. G-Force fell flat and showed money and a famous movie icon doesn’t make a successful movie. Not learning their lesson at all A Christmas Carroll fell even flatter when compared to its cost. The Princess and the Frog proved to be one of the most underrated movies in recent memory and for some reason people didn’t go out to see it in the throngs you’d expect. The 20,000 Leagues prequel was canned but a remake of the Black Hole was green lighted. Don’t think about that too long or you’ll get a nose bleed.

Buy 4 get 3 free was a huge success and drained a lot of the crowds out of the summer season. The free dining wasn’t as big of a hit because people didn’t see it as a value anymore. Despite that fact the crowds during December were higher than predicted.

“What Will You Celebrate?” was the promotion of the year. I really didn’t care too much for this promotion. It cost more than the “Year of a Million Dreams” and it seemed like people got less from it. If you couldn’t go on your birthday you really got nothing out of this.

There were a ton of other things that happened this year too. One could go on for pages and pages covering all of it. I’ll leave that up to Ricky Brigante. His 4+ hour podcast that was released through Inside the Magic covered everything.

In the end this year was a mixed bag. Not good but not bad either. Hopefully next year will be better.

Breaking News: Disney Buys Marvel for 4 Billion

It was announced this morning that Disney bought Marvel for an estimated 4 billion dollars.

As a Disney fan I have mixed emotions about this. Does this mean Spiderman and the X-Men are going to start showing up in the parks? I hope not. I should mention that I hate the fact that the Power Rangers and TMNT have appeared in the parks from time to time. I guess Spiderman would be better than them. If they do appear it better be restricted to DHS or the California Adventure.

That being said one thing that would be me excited about this deal is the possibility of a new theme park. If you could take the world of Marvel and give it to the Imagineers and tell them to build a new park just imagine what you could get. That could be impressive. If you don’t know much about marvel keep this in mind – Marvel has 5000 characters. Yes 5000. In fact the only major characters they don’t own that I can think of are Super Man and Batman.

It should be interesting to see what transpires in the next few weeks or what additional announcements are made.