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Tarzan: Collector's Edition
DVD Review by Yanman |
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"He's freaky looking, that's what he is." Disney DVDs have been plagued by controversy in the past, what with DIVX, a lack of animated features, pricing, and non-Anamorphic video issues. When the controversy over the flawed original non-CE release of Tarzan happened a few months ago, we decided to just stay out of it and wait for the Collector's Edition before writing a review. Well we are glad we did, for only a few dollars more (on Amazon the difference works out to about three bucks), you get a great movie, with a ton of extras, and not an audio flaw to be heard. With the quality of the picture here, the number of extras, and great sound (Even if it is only 5.0!), look for this one to end up on our top DVD list of 2000, for sure. The story of the "Lord of the Apes," has been tackled many times in the past, just a quick search can reveal over 25 versions of the story adapted for the movies. However, Edgar Rice Burroughs, the 1912 author of the original Tarzan of the Apes, had once stated that no movie Tarzan had ever done the character he created justice. The primary reason is due to the simple fact that a human actor would probably be killed performing the stunts that the book Tarzan achieves effortlessly. Enter the Disney Tarzan, he is faster, stronger and more fearless then any before him, he walks on all fours and literally "surfs" the jungle. The video quality is truly stunning, without a single flaw, and almost appears to be three dimensional on our reference set. Presented in widescreen anamorphic at an aspect ratio 1.66:1, this DVD will surely delight owners of 16x9 TV sets. While trying to spot video flaws, we watched much of the movie with our players "bit rate meter" turned on and noticed that this DVD has some of the lowest compression rates we have seen, constantly staying around the 10mbps maximum bit rate. All that mumbo-jumbo aside, suffice it to say that, this one is five stars plus! The choice of audio on this DVD is an interesting one to be sure; it is only presented in 5.0 surround, not the typical 5.1 that we have started to be accustomed to receiving. Why, the lack of a LFE, channel? Well without writing a book about why, it appears that the same effect can be achieved with a 5.0 channel mix, by including the deep bass effects in throughout the five channels. As is the case with all "two-disc" Collector's sets, the number of extras here is nothing short of incredible, with over 30 different choices of extras to view. The amount of time needed to view all of the extras here, would be around 262 minutes, making any rainy day fly right by. Extras include, a Directors/producer's commentary, interactive trivia game, making of the music, story treatment, abandoned sequences, and many many more (see the sidebar for more). Disney has done DVD right with the Tarzan Collector's Edition, Edgar Rice Burroughs would be proud of what his baby has grown up to be. Get ready Tarzan will be surfing into your living room over and over again…
This DVD was reviewed on Yanman.com's Reference Theater #1, using a Toshiba SD-5109 DVD player, Toshiba TW56X81, and M&K 750 THX Speakers. Panamax protects all systems at Yanman.com.
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Tarzan Staring: Tony Goldwyn Directed By: Kevin Lima Running time: 88 Min. Bonus Materials
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