Book Review: The Hutt Gambit (1997)

 Hey everyone, how were your weekends? Mine was pretty good. Yesterday afternoon I finished reading the second book in the Han Solo Trilogy, The Hutt Gambit by A.C. Crispin so that's what I'm going to be talking about today. Let's get right into it shall we?

While The Paradise Snare was a great introduction to a young Han Solo, The Hutt Gambit is actually the better of the two. The first book in the trilogy was so small in scope that it doesn't feel like anything really happens. In this one however there's alot going on. Especially with Hutt politics. And there's ALOT of Hutt politics in this book. In fact Jabba and Jiliac have almost as much screen time as Han and Chewie do.

As I said in my review of The Paradise Snare A.C. Crispin was asked by Lucasfilm not to cover Han's time at the Imperial Academy, or the events that led to him meeting Chewie and getting kicked out of the Imperial Military. I can't really find the reason for that, except that this book was written about three years before Star Wars: Chewbacca was published by Dark Horse Comics in 2000 and the second issue covers that event. The development of these comics and novels were pretty compressed back in the 90s, even if they didn't all come out at the same time so it's possible that Chewbacca was in development at the time this trilogy was being written and Lucasfilm didn't want Crispin to cover something the comics were going to be covering anyway. But again there isn't any further information to confirm this theory of mine.

Because of this, the opening of The Hutt Gambit takes place five years after the end of The Paradise Snare. Han wasn't an Imperial officer anymore, and he's friends with a Wookiee named Chewbacca. They get a job piloting for Jabba the Hutt and his uncle/aunt Jiliac the Hutt on Nal Hutta and live on Nar Shaddaa where they meet an entire cast of characters, which I'll get into shortly. But the Empire decides to destroy Nar Shaddaa, hoping to end the smuggling trade once and for all and Han and his friends decide to protect their home.

Most of the characters we're introduced to in this book are actually from previous Star Wars novels. Roa is from Han Solo's Revenge, the second book in Brian Daley's Han Solo Adventures trilogy from the 80s, Xaverri is from The Crystal Star, Ana Blue and Kid DXo'In (don't ask me to try to pronounce that last name) are from The New Rebellion, as is Wynni, a Wookiee who has her eyes on Chewie, and Salla Zend, Shug Ninx and Mako Spince are from the comic book series, Dark Empire. Everyone else is either from the movies like Chewie, Han, Lando, Jabba and Boba Fett or from The Paradise Snare. There's not many important characters in this book that make their first appearance here, aside from Jarik Solo, Moff Shild and Admiral Greelanx, and both Shild and Greelanx are one and done characters who aren't even mentioned anywhere else in the Expanded Universe.

I think Bria works alot better in The Hutt Gambit than she did in The Paradise Snare. I think that's because, except for one scene, she and Han don't have any interactions and even in that scene the don't actually interact with each other. Maybe it's because Bria is working for the Corellian Resistance in this novel, is fighting the Empire, and her whole reason for existing has nothing to do with being Han's girlfriend. 

However the existence of the Corellian Resistance is kind of weird. While it matches up with what Timothy Zahn wrote in Dark Force Rising when he created Garm Bel Iblis, it sort of disregards what Stackpole wrote in Star Wars: X-Wing and what Roger MacBride Allen wrote in the Corellian Trilogy about Corellia being run by the Diktat, who was basically the Corellian version of an Imperial Moff (Governor) and the Diktat isn't mentioned at all here. It's not such a big deal since, despite what the timeline at the end of the book says, Bantam Books and Lucasfilm weren't as concerned about making one big cohesive continuity with the novels in the 90s as Lucasfilm and Del Rey were in the 2000s and early 2010s, it's just something I wanted to touch on as being curious since I've probably read a good chunk of the Bantam era novels and they were all over the Star Wars timeline with some events that take place in a certain era being written and published before events taking place earlier in the timeline.

One of the reasons I like this trilogy so much is because it shows Han doing stuff before he meets Luke Skywalker and Ben Kenobi in A New Hope. He has friends, he falls in love, he has an apartment, and he works for the Hutts. That's also kinda been my problem with Brian Daley's novels from the 80s. Han had things happen to him, but there wasn't really anything personal about it and they were pretty fantastical things as well. Whereas here, Han is portrayed as your average person trying to make a living. Yes, he and Chewie are smugglers, but in between runs they have lives. And I think that's why I can relate to Han in this trilogy than I can in any other book or even the movies, even though this isn't canon anymore. I'll talk about this more in my trilogy wrap-up after I've reviewed the final book, Rebel Dawn.

The last thing I want to talk about in this review is how fascinating and incredibly complex Hutt politics is. Of all the Star Wars novels and comics that I've read, this trilogy develops the Hutts the most. I know there were some Jabba comics that Dark Horse was publishing around the time these novels were coming out in the late 90s, but I've never read them and the Hutts don't really pop up much in the other novels and comics that I have read. As disgusting as Jabba is in Return of the Jedi, I actually quite like the Hutts as they are portrayed in the original Expanded Universe of novels and comics and find their society and culture to be most fascinating. Which is saying something since Star Wars has never really developed the cultures of the characters in the movies, though the novels focus alot on Wookiees, Bothans, Mon Calamari, and the Mandalorians somewhat.

That's it for this review. I would highly recommend you check out these books if you've never read them before. They're super engaging, especially if you're a fan of Han Solo. I'll be back on Wednesday with my overview of the Walt Disney Diamond Editions DVD and Blu-ray releases and then the finale of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier drops on Friday so I'll have a full season/series review for you coming out sometime on Friday afternoon. So until then have a wonderful day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Comic Book Review: Star Trek #75 (1995)

 Hey everyone! Happy Friday! Or whatever. I'm back for another comic book review. This time I'm going to talk about the last issue of Star Trek by DC Comics that my dad bought for me when I was a kid, Star Trek #75. So let's get into it.

From 1992 until 1995 my dad bought me issues of comic books based on Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation that were published by DC Comics. I had almost every issue from #31 to #75 of both series, plus some of the Annuals and one special from each series. And that's because the price of the comic went from $2.25 (Cdn) in 1992 to $3.50 (Cdn) in 1995 ($5.50 for this double sized issue). I know that doesn't sound like a huge increase in price within those three years, but my dad was buying me two issues per month AND my mom was also buying me issues of The Batman Adventures, an occasional issue of the regular Batman book, plus books in the Berenstain Bears series from the gift shop almost every time I was at the hospital for an appointment. And so my parents decided to stop buying me the two Star Trek comics, though there was only five issues left until DC lost the Star Trek license and it transferred over to Marvel.

The story is the Enterprise returns home from it's historic five year mission under the command of Captain James T. Kirk and as they're returning to Earth the crew witnesses an accident aboard a ship that's testing an experimental new warp drive system, which destroys the ship and kills everyone onboard. At the same time Kirk and his crew are informed that the Enterprise is scheduled for a major refit that will leave the ship out of commission for the next three years. While Kirk waits to hear from Starfleet about what's next for him, he spends time with Carol Marcus, who we met on screen in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and tries to figure out whether Starfleet Command, or at least certain members of the admiralty, is trying to cover up what happened with the accident the crew of the Enterprise witnessed upon their return to Earth.

This issue is actually the third part in a three part story arc called "Star-Crossed", which chronicled Kirk's relationship with Carol Marcus through the years, from meeting at Starfleet Academy to Kirk returning home on the Enterprise after the ship's five year mission as shown on the TV show and being promoted to admiral. I had issues #73 and #74 when I was a kid, so that wasn't a huge deal. Also, this issue doesn't rely on the reader knowing what happened in the previous two issues as they aren't directly connected to one another since they take place in different periods of Kirk's life with the only connection being Kirk and Carol. However I feel like something is missing.

At one point Spock makes a reference to his parents's lives having been in danger and him making a decision based on emotion (his human half) rather than on logic (his Vulcan half) which resulted in the loss of life. There isn't a comic or novel that expands on this reference at all, so I don't know what exactly Spock is referring to unless there's a mission that happened offscreen where Sarek and Amanda are put in danger and Spock has to rescue them. I admit it's been a number of years since I read many of the TOS novels and a few of them I haven't read at all, but I have read most of the DC Comics run and I don't recall this event from the comics. It's weird to have this in the issue when there's no reference to it anywhere. Neither Memory Alpha nor Memory Beta (the canon and non-canon Star Trek Wikis) have any information on this event. My buddy, Aaron says it's probably some editorial mistake, but it's more likely something that Weinstein may have been working on, like a novel or even an issue of the comic that just didn't get published for whatever reason.

Aside from that this is an okay story. It reads fine if you haven't read issues 73 and 74 beforehand, because it has nothing to do with the previous two parts of this "arc". Not like the Tabukan Syndrome (issues 35-40) or Veritas (issues 30-33). The thing about this issue is that the circumstances surrounding the Enterprise's return home is different than they are in the novel The Lost Years which is one of my favourite Star Trek novels written for the TOS series.

The art is okay. Rachel Ketchum (the penciller) and Mark Heike (the inker) do a good job with backgrounds and ships and wide shots. But their character faces look weird. They kind of look like Shatner and the other actors (for the characters who had actors), but the way the faces are drawn make it look like the characters are always sad or really creepy looking. The cover art is pretty nice though. The cover artist isn't credited though, so I couldn't tell you who drew it.

Overall it's a decent issue, though still a bit on the weird side, since nothing really gets resolved and the comics don't come back to this again, as the book was cancelled with issue #80 along with Star Trek: The Next Generation. I'd recommend reading it if you want a quick, less complex version of what happened after the Enterprise returned home after it's five year mission had ended.

Alrighty that is gonna be it for me for today, but I'll be back next week for more posts here at the Review Basement. So until then have a great weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

Anime Review: Haganai: I Don't Have Many Friends (2011)

 Hey everyone! How're you all doing today? I'm doing well. It's a rainy day here at the Review Basement (outside, not inside) so I decided to review an anime series. Yes, it's my first anime review on this blog. I've talked about anime on the old blog, but this is the first time I've talked about it on this blog. The anime I'm going to be talking about is called Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai or Haganai: I Don't Have Many Friends. So let's get into it.

The basic premise of Haganai is a boy named Kodaka Hasegawa, who is a new transfer student at St. Chronica's Academy, gains a reputation as a delinquent because of his brown-blond hair which he got from his late mother who was English. As a result the other students are afraid of him and he has a hard time making friends. Enter Yozora Mikazuki, who comes up with an idea to start a Neighbors Club, as a way for the two of them to make friends. Eventually Sena Kashiwazaki, the daughter of the president of the school, joins the club along with Rika Shiguma, Yukimura Kusunoki, Kodaka's sister, Kobato, and Maria Takayama, the club's ten year old staff advisor. Together the club members participate in activities like going to the pool, playing video games, and going to a beach house.

 I first watched Haganai in either 2014 or 2015 when Brad first lent me the Blu-ray/DVD combo set. I didn't have a Blu-ray player at the time so I watched the DVD. Back then Brad was doing everything he could to get me into anime and outside of a few shows like Sailor Moon, Digimon, Pokemon, Speed Racer, Astro Boy, and Samurai Pizza Cats I was not as big into anime as many of my friends were, so it took alot for me to get into an anime series. It still takes alot for me to get into an anime series. So I was pleasantly surprised when I watched it and found how good it was. I probably binged the show in two days when Brad lent it to me because it was so good and I couldn't get enough of it.

Fast forward to last year and Brad asked me if I wanted the Blu-ray/DVD combo sets for both Haganai and it's second season, Haganai: Next, because he was getting rid of them. Of course, I said yes, because it had been about five or six years since I originally watched it. And then it sat on my shelf for a few months because I was busy watching other things, including season 2 of The Mandalorian, season 1 of Star Trek: Lower Decks, and season 3 of Star Trek: Discovery. Finally I decided to do another watch through of the series.

 Based on the Japanese light novel, basically a cross between a young adult novel and comic book here in North America, Haganai actually holds up. It's ridiculous of course, but it's also pretty entertaining. My favourite part of the show is the dynamics between the characters. However, I think the main characters are Kodaka and Sena. Yozora, Rika, Yukimura, and Maria are fine as characters, but they honestly don't have a whole lot to do with the story. Sure, Yozora is definitely more prominent than Rika, Yukimura and Maria are, but by the end of the series, we know as much about Sena as we know about Kodaka. 

I don't normally do this, in fact I do my absolute best to avoid this at all costs, but if I were to ship Kodaka with any of the other characters on the show, it would have to be Sena. I know, I know, it's stupid, but hear me out here. Sena and Kodaka's fathers are basically best friends, though Sena's father, Pegasus, disagrees with the way Kodaka's father left him and Kobato alone to continue his work as an archaeologist, and to be honest I like their chemistry better than I did the lack of chemistry between Kodaka and Yozora. And trust me there is no chemistry between Kodaka and Yozora at all. But Kodaka also calls Sena out on her crap. Like in episode 3 when she and Kodaka go to the water park together and Sena gets into an argument with a group of guys who had been hitting on her, instead of leaving it at telling them to stop. Then Sena practically orders Kodaka to fight them to defend her honour. Immediately Kodaka yells at her because she pushed those guys into escalating the fight. This is the turning point in their relationship because Sena realizes that Kodaka isn't going to just fawn all over her like other guys do (Sena's reason for not having friends). Which I like.

I also like Kodaka and Kobato's relationship as brother and sister. Kodaka takes care of Kobato, but in a way Kobato also takes care of Kodaka if that makes sense. We don't see their father at all during this season, though I think his voice appears in Haganai Next in one of the episodes, so it's basically just Kodaka and Kobato, as their mother passed away many years before, though they don't say when she passed away exactly. They hint at it though.

The other characters are kind of just there. We don't see Yozora, Rika, Yukimura, and Maria's lives outside of school, and three of them aren't all that well developed. In fact Rika, Yukimura and Maria are all kind of one note characters that are more stereotypes than actual characters. Which is fine because Kodaka is the main character, and Sena is the secondary character even with what we learn about Yozora by the end of the series. Though I don't like it when Yozora's picking on Sena goes too far and legitimately becomes outright bullying. That's the kind of thing I saw when I was in high school among my group of friends and it was even more stupid in real life than it is in this show. Sometimes it can be pretty funny, especially when Sena walks right into it and Yozora takes her down a peg. Other times it's just like, "was that really necessary?"

Another thing that I like about this anime is that, well, it changes genres in a couple of episodes. In one they're playing an RPG and we see them represented inside the game so it feels more like a Fantasy series. In another they tell a round robin story where each person writes a page in a story, taking turns. That one starts off as a classic Samurai story, becoming Fantasy midway through and then becomes Science Fiction by the end of the story. Most shows can't pull that off and make it work, but man, Haganai does. 

Overall this is a great anime. If you're into anime and into slice of life high school shows, and you haven't seen this yet, I'd recommend you check it out. Like I said in the beginning of this review, it gets pretty ridiculous at times, but it's also alot of fun.

That's it for this review. I'll be back tomorrow for a comic book review though. This week I'm going to be looking at Star Trek #75, published by DC Comics in 1995. So until then have a great night and I will talk to you all later. Take care.    

Video Game Memories: Super Mario Bros. 2 (1988)

 Hey guys! How's it going? I'm pretty good. We finally got some rain here, which is nice, otherwise things are basically the same as they have been. Today I'm going to talk about what I remember about Super Mario Bros. 2 (Super Mario Bros. USA in Japan). I didn't play the game quite as much as my siblings and my mom did, but I think I tried it out once or twice. So let's get into it.

After Nintendo of America decided not to translate Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels because test players were like, "dude, this is hard!", they also decided they needed a sequel to Super Mario Bros. here in North America too. So they took a game called Doki Doki Panic, that also didn't get ported over to the NES despite being on the Nintendo Famicom in Japan, changed the four hero characters to look like Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach (Princess Toadstool at the time), and Toad, and slapped the Super Mario Bros. 2 title onto it. They actually did a little bit more than that, but this is about my memories about the game, not a deep dive into the game's history.

I don't think we ever rented the original 8-bit NES version at all, but of course we had the 16-bit Super Nintendo version on Super Mario All-Stars when I was growing up. I think I only played it once or twice personally. But like with Super Mario Bros. I sat on the floor in our living room and watched my mom play it a number of times. And then later on, I remember sitting in our basement, watching my brother play the game.

I thought it was a unique game since it's the first time, and one of the few times, where you got to play as anyone other than Mario or Luigi in a Mario game that wasn't Mario Kart or Mario Party. Also, the lack of Bowser is bizarre. Then again there's always at least one game in these franchises where you fight a different villain other than the one that most people know the most. I thought it was pretty cool that each of the four characters had different abilities that the other characters didn't. Like Princess Toadstool could hover for a moment when you jump with her, Toad is stronger than the other characters, Mario can jump farther than the other characters, and Luigi can jump higher than the others. Which is nice, because in the previous game, and in Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World, Mario and Luigi are identical in their abilities, so it doesn't matter quite as much which character you play as. 

That's going to be it for me for today. Like I said, I don't really have a whole lot to say about this game since we didn't play it quite as much as we did Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario World. I will be back either tomorrow or Friday for my review of the Anime Haganai: I Don't Have Many Friends. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

The History of Disney Movies on Home Video Part 5: Walt Disney Platinum Editions

 Hey guys, how were your weekends? Mine was pretty good. I decided to shuffle some things around for this week and I'm going to be finishing up History of Disney Movies on Home Video series this week with the final three parts coming out today, Wednesday, and Thursday, with a comic book review to finish the week off on Friday. Right now it's time to take a look at the end of the VHS era and the beginning of the Blu-ray era with the Walt Disney Platinum Editions. Let's get into it.

Following the end of the Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection line in early 2001, DVD was starting to replace VHS as the preferred home video format, with added behind the scenes documentaries, and audio commentaries from the filmmakers that just couldn't be available on VHS. Laserdisc had these special features but that format was expensive and had all but died out by the late 90s. While the Gold Classic Collection had bonus features on both the DVDs and VHS tapes, they were still pretty barebone releases. However, with the Walt Disney Platinum Editions Disney almost went overboard with how much bonus material they included on the DVDs. The few VHS releases in this line each got a music video mostly featuring a then contemporary Disney Radio or Disney Channel star singing a song from the movie in question. I say mostly because Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has a music video for "Someday My Prince Will Come" sung by Barbra Streisand.

The original idea for the Walt Disney Platinum Editions was for the lineup to consist of Disney's ten best selling VHS titles, with one title being released a year for ten years, with that movie being released again ten years after the previous release, with the Platinum Edition line being permanent for these films. According to the Disney Wiki Fantasia, Dumbo, and Alice in Wonderland were supposed to be released as part of the Platinum Edition line, but for whatever reason there was a mix-up with the schedule and the three movies were released on special edition DVDs that were separate from the Platinum Editions, with Fantasia being the first to be released in 2000 and Dumbo not coming out until 2006, and Alice in Wonderland not coming out until 2004, with another special edition DVD coming out in 2010. So with that little bit of history out of the way, let's dive into the titles that were released as part of the Walt Disney Platinum Editions.

Like the Masterpiece Collection had back in 1994, the Platinum Editions launched with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, with the DVD released on October 9th, 2001. My sister actually has this DVD release. I think she got it for Christmas in 2001 or for her birthday in 2002. She spent a couple of years in China, and while she was away she gave me this DVD to watch. There's so many bonus features on it too. On the first disc there's the Silly Symphonies cartoon, The Goddess of Spring which had been originally released in 1934, a Making Of documentary called "Still the Fairest of them All: The Making Of Snow White" which is hosted by Angela Lansbury, the voice of Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast and the lead in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, which includes interviews with many Disney and Animation historians, including film critic Leonard Maltin, the Sing-Along Songs and Karaoke versions of "Heigh-Ho", the Barbra Streisand music video that I mentioned earlier, a game featuring Dopey, and an audio commentary by Disney historian, John Canemaker and Walt Disney. Yes, I know, Walt has been dead since 1966, but there are so many interviews with him where he talks about movies like Snow White and Pinocchio that the team working on this DVD release were able to piece together audio clips of Walt to include in the commentary whenever Canemaker thought Walt's perspective would be useful or important.

The second disc contains various art galleries, still images, radio interviews, news clips from the movie's 1937 premiere, deleted scenes, trailers, and "Disney Through the Decades" which has various Disney alumni including Angela Lansbury, Dean Jones (Jim Douglas in The Love Bug), Roy E. Disney (Walt's nephew), Fess Parker (Davy Crockett), John Ratzenberger (every Pixar feature film ever), Robbie Benson (the Beast in Beauty and the Beast), Jodi Benson (Ariel in The Little Mermaid), and Ming-Na Wen (Mulan in Mulan) as they talk about the history of the Walt Disney Company from the early days of the Alice Comedies in 1923, until the Platinum Editions release of Snow White, including the film's theatrical releases in 1944, 1958, 1967, 1987, and 1993). An updated version of this feature would appear on the 2009 Diamond Edition DVD and Blu-ray releases.

The VHS release however wouldn't come out until almost two months after the DVD release. This is the only release to not have a day and date release of the DVD and VHS editions. As mentioned, the only bonus feature on this VHS is the Barbra Streisand music video. I have this release in my current VHS collection as I got it while I was out and about with Brad and Jonathan one day (pre-pandemic obviously) before I recovered the Masterpiece Collection VHS release from my grandparents's place last year before the pandemic hit. While the tape itself only comes with the music video on it, the release has a Disney Through the Decades booklet included inside the clamshell. Now let's move on to the next release. I won't spend as much time on the bonus features going forward, I just wanted to give you an idea of what the Platinum Editions had on the DVDs all through the line.

The next release in the line is Beauty and the Beast. Along with the usual bonus features, this release has three different versions of the film. The first is the special edition which had been released to theatres in 2002 not long before this DVD was released. The second is the original 1991 theatrical version. The third is a special work in progress version that was shown at the 1991 New York Film Festival. This DVD was also available in a trilogy box set with the special edition DVDs of Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas, and Beauty and the Beast: Belle's Magical World. I have this DVD in my collection and it's pretty good. I think the Platinum Editions are my favourite DVD releases that Disney has put out. In fact I think the 2000s is my favourite decade in terms of Disney's DVD releases just because the bonus features are pretty spectacular on them. 

I don't have anything to say about the Platinum Edition VHS because, once again, the music video for the movie's titular song, "Beauty and the Beast" by a pop group called Jump 5 (does anyone remember them?) is the only feature on the tape, and the only version on the tape is the 2002 special edition, which restored a song and sequence called "Human Again" into the movie between "Something There" and the "Beauty and the Beast" ballroom scene. The song was performed as part of the Broadway musical based on the movie.

Up next is The Lion King, which is also a special edition release. While there's no work in progress version of the movie, there are still two versions of the movie on this release. The first is the special edition version which includes a song called "The Morning Report" sung by Zazu during Simba's pouncing lesson with Mufasa near the start of the film. The second version is the original 1994 theatrical version. It's actually a pain to switch versions on this than it is to do so on the DVD for Beauty and the Beast. So if I just want to watch the theatrical version I'll just pop in the 1995 Masterpiece Collection VHS and watch it that way and then just watch the special edition version when I want to watch this DVD. 

The VHS, which was released with the DVD on October 7th 2003, contains only the special edition version of the movie and the usual music video. This time we have "Circle of Life" sung by the Disney Channel Circle of Stars, which consists of Disney Channel alum Hilary Duff (Lizzie McGuire), Raven Simone (That's So Raven), Christy Carlson Romano (Even Stevens and Kim Possible), Tahj Mowry (Smart Guy), Kyla Pratt (The Proud Family), Anneliese van der Pol (That's So Raven), Orlando Brown (That's So Raven), and A.J. Trauth (Even Stevens). I love this music video (it's on the DVD as well obviously).

Next is Aladdin which came out on DVD and VHS on October 5th, 2004. I also have this DVD in my collection. While there's only one version of the film on this DVD, the theatrical version, there is a deleted song in the bonus features on Disc 1 called "Proud of Your Boy" which Aladdin was supposed to sing to his mother, who was supposed to be in the film. However, that entire storyline was cut from the movie, probably at the request of Jeffrey Katzenberg since he was still the head of Walt Disney Feature Animation at the time. I also like the documentary on here called "A Diamond in the Rough: The Making Of Aladdin" because it's actually set up as a college lecture for Animation students, hosted by Leonard Maltin (he was EVERYWHERE on Disney DVDs in the 2000s) and featured the cast and crew of the film (minus Robin Williams of course). So that's pretty cool.

The VHS release came out on the same day as the DVD. I've never seen the VHS release in person so I don't have very much to say about it. The music video is for "A Whole New World", sung by Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson.

While Bambi is still a 2-disc release, it seems to be lighter on bonus features. There's still the usual bonus features on the second disc, but there's nothing on the first disc except the movie and a featurette called "Inside Walt's Story Meetings". There's no audio commentary, no music video, nothing. There's actually no music features on this release at all. Mind you this is the only movie in the Platinum Editions that isn't a musical and doesn't have any characters singing at all. 

The VHS release has nothing on it. By the time Bambi was released on VHS (for the final time) and DVD, I was almost finished high school. My sister had just started high school and my brother was just finishing middle school so we were all "beyond" the age where Disney movies were bought for us on the regular as they had been in the 90s. So these releases weren't really on our radar past 2002 or 2003. I do remember seeing the commercials for them on TV though. Usually in the evenings during That '70s Show, Smallville, and Star Trek: Enterprise but also during Power Rangers Dino Thunder on ABC on Saturday mornings in 2004. 

Next is Cinderella. Now, I can't remember if it was this DVD that I got for my sister for her birthday one year or if it was the Diamond Edition release that I got her. I think it was this one but I don't remember for sure because I can't remember when I got it for her. This release came out on October 4th, 2005 and as with the other releases we've had so far, this was the first time that Cinderella was released on DVD. By this point the Disney Princesses had become a franchise all of their own and so their movies tended to get the...ahem...royal treatment when it came to their DVD releases. Which means tons of bonus features.

The VHS release was notable because it was the last VHS release in the Walt Disney Platinum Editions to have a full retail release. The remaining two VHS releases were both Disney Movie Club Exclusives in 2006 and 2007. Also the Disney Channel Circle of Stars return to sing "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" in the music video for this release. However there's a slightly different lineup this time around. Christy Romano, Hilar Duff, Tahj Mowry, and A.J. Trauth are out, and joining Orlando Brown, Kyla Pratt, Raven, and Anneliese van der Pol are Amy Bruckner (Phil of the Future), Alyson Michalka (Phil of the Future), who is also the older sister of AJ Michalka who played Lainey on The Goldbergs and Schooled, Ricky Ullman (Phil of the Future), Cole and Dylan Sprouse (The Suite Life of Zack & Cody/Suite Life on Deck), Brenda Song (The Suite Life of Zack & Cody/Suite Life on Deck), and Ashley Tisdale (The Suite Life of Zack & Cody/Suite Life on Deck and High School Musical)

Next is Lady and the Tramp. This is another one that we didn't have when I was in high school and I haven't found it out in the wild either. Not that I was looking for it specifically, but back when I was going thrifting and going to geek sales and flea markets before the pandemic, I never came across this release of the movie. I came across the Diamond Edition Blu-ray at least once, but otherwise it's mainly been the Masterpiece Collection VHS that I've come across the most (and I own it as well). There's the usual bonus features on the two disc set. According to the Disney Wiki, all of the bonus features are on the second disc, with no audio commentaries or anything else on the first disc. The Making Of documentary, "Lady's Pedigree: The Making of Lady and the Tramp" is originally from the deluxe widescreen edition of the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection release that came out in 1998, seven years earlier. The music video is "Bella Notte" sung by Steve Tyrell, who isn't associated with Disney in any other way interestingly enough. 

The VHS release came out on May 16th, 2006 as a Disney Movie Club Exclusive. By 2006 Disney was the only studio that was still releasing movies on VHS with most everyone else having converted completely to DVD in 2004 though Batman Begins, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, War of the Worlds, Fantastic Four, and Elektra having been released on VHS in 2005. I think Disney stayed with it through to 2007 when they released Pixar's Cars on the format, because they'd been releasing movies on it since 1981, and their first two DVD lines, the Walt Disney Limited Issues, and Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection lines didn't sell very well in 1999 and 2000. But the thing is not very many people actually owned DVD players in 1999 and 2000, and most people were still watching movies on VHS at that point. My family didn't get a DVD player until 2004 at the latest. There also wasn't alot to attract them to DVD in 1999 and 2000 because the bonus features were minimal and studios like Warner Bros. were still using flimsy cardboard snapper cases as their packaging and would right up until at least 2005. So I can see why Disney wouldn't want to continue using VHS to release their movies on as long as possible.

Next up is The Little Mermaid and this is probably my favourite release of the movie ever. By this point Disney was starting to go more in depth with the Making Of featurettes on their DVD releases, often making full blown documentaries on the making of the animated classics. While Aladdin had an almost two hour documentary on the making of the movie, The Little Mermaid's feature, "Treasures Untold: The Making of The Little Mermaid" goes more in depth into the history of the film getting greenlit by Peter Schneider and Jeffrey Katzenberg just after The Great Mouse Detective came out in 1986, including an interview with both of them, amazingly enough even though Katzenberg was basically in a feud with Disney, specifically with Michael Eisner, over his grab for power at the studio following Frank Wells's death in 1994, around the time The Lion King was coming out theatrically. Though Eisner isn't mentioned at all as he was no longer CEO of the Walt Disney Company by this point, having been replaced by Bob Iger. There are plenty of other bonus features on this DVD as well, though I haven't explored all of them. I have watched the music video for "Kiss the Girl" sung by Ashley Tisdale (High School Musical) though. The DVD came in a trilogy box set along with The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea and The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning. My sister has the box set and I have the individual release of the movie.

Now we come to the end of the VHS era at Disney with the Walt Disney Platinum Edition release of The Little Mermaid which came out as a Disney Movie Club exclusive on January 3rd, 2007. While Cars was the last movie that Disney released on VHS, this release was the final release for a movie in the main Disney Animated Canon. One thing I find interesting about these last few VHS releases is that they were all in the standard slipcover cases instead of the clamshells that Disney is mainly known for. Also I find it interesting that Disney started releasing their animated movies on VHS in earnest when Michael Eisner was about to join the company as CEO, and they stopped releasing them on VHS as Bob Iger came in to replace him. It's like the VHS era was also the Eisner era at Disney. 

The first release in the Walt Disney Platinum Editions line to have a DVD release only was Peter Pan. There aren't a whole lot of bonus features on this DVD, but the one it does have is "You Can Fly!: The Making of Peter Pan", which has been on just about every home video release of the movie since the Masterpiece Collection VHS and Laserdisc in 1998. This is actually the third time that Peter Pan has been released on DVD. The first was back in 1999 when it had a release as part of the Walt Disney Limited Issues line, and then in 2002 it had a special edition DVD and VHS release. Some of the bonus features on this release were actually ported over from the 2002 DVD while a few are brand new to this release including a music video for a song called "Never Land" sung by Paige O'Hara (Belle in Beauty and the Beast) and the Platinum Edition music video for "Second Star to the Right" (the movie's title theme) by T-Squad, I have no idea who they are, I just know they aren't associated with Disney in any other way.

Of course The Jungle Book got a new DVD release in 2007. It had been eight years since the Limited Issues DVD had come out and the movie got the same treatment as the other Platinum Editions DVDs. The behind the scenes documentary, "The Bare Necessities: The Making of The Jungle Book" is pretty neat. I've never owned this DVD, though trust me I have been looking for it, but the documentary is on YouTube so I've watched it there a few times. Again, it delves into the history of how Walt decided he wanted to make this movie, and even talks about how Walt's death in 1966 affected the movie's production and release. Especially since the movie's director, Wolfgang "Woolie" Reitherman became the producer for the animated Disney movies going forward until The Fox and the Hound in 1981. The music video on this release is "I Wanna Be Like You" by the Jonas Brothers as weird as that sounds.

Next is 101 Dalmatians. Again there really doesn't seem to be as many bonus features on this release as there have been on previous ones in the line. If you look at the list on the Disney Wiki, there definitely isn't as many as there were for Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King. Even Bambi doesn't seem to have as many as the first four in the lineup did. And I think that's just because we're into the mid-2000s by the time Bambi came out on DVD and 101 Dalmatians didn't come out until 2008, right around the time Blu-ray was starting to gain traction as a viable home media platform, with DVD now being ten years old at this point. Amazingly enough 101 Dalmatians didn't get a Blu-ray release until 2015 when it was released as part of the Diamond Editions, which I'll be talking about next time. Most fitting is that Selena Gomez (The Wizards of Waverly Place) sings "Cruella De Vil" in the music video on this release.

Second to last in this line is Sleeping Beauty. This was the movie's second DVD release as it had gotten a two disc special edition DVD and VHS release in 2003. The Making Of feature is different, but I think the rest of the bonus features were ported over from the 2003 DVD. This release came out on October 7th, 2008. The music video for the film is "Once Upon a Dream" sung by Emily Osment (Hannah Montana). Yes folks, we've now entered the era of High School Musical, Disney Channel sitcoms, and Hannah Montana (and the Jonas Brothers). It's an era of Disney that I'm least familiar with as I was in my early 20s by the time Sleeping Beauty came out on DVD as part of the Walt Disney Platinum Editions and so I wasn't exactly keeping up with what was airing on TV at the time, though I did see bits and pieces of Hannah Montana on Family Channel, as we didn't have Disney Channel here in Canada until 2015 so all the Disney stuff was either on Family Channel or ABC Kids. 

Now we come to the first Blu-ray release in the Walt Disney Platinum Editions line, which is Sleeping Beauty. There isn't actually anything to say about this release because all of the bonus features are ported over from the DVD. I don't own this release and I've never seen it so I don't know how good the picture quality is compared to the DVD release.

Lastly we have Pinocchio on DVD and Blu-ray. It was released on March 10th, 2009, closing out the 2000s. I think the Platinum Editions is the only home media line to be confined to a single decade and to actually be around for that entire decade as the Walt Disney Classics started in 1984 and ended in 1994, the Masterpiece Collection started in 1994 and ended in 1999, the Limited Issues came and went in 1999 and the Gold Classic Collection started in 2000 and ended in 2001. The Pinocchio DVD has some really cool bonus features, including the Making Of feature, "No Strings Attached: The Making of Pinocchio" which would later be ported over to the Signature Collection Blu-ray in 2017. The music video for this DVD is "When You Wish Upon a Star" by Meaghan Martin (Camp Rock). 

 The Blu-ray release for the movie basically has all of the same bonus features as the DVD release. So there really isn't a whole lot to say, since I've never owned this release nor do I really need to since I already have the Signature Collection Blu-ray, which includes all of the bonus features from the Platinum Edition DVD and Blu-ray.

It's also interesting to note that while the Platinum Editions line was coming out, major changes were happening at Disney. Walt Disney Feature Animation switched from traditional handdrawn Animation to 3-D Animation, Michael Eisner got kicked out and Bob Iger took his place, Disney bought Pixar and the Jim Henson Company, and Disney Feature Animation became the Walt Disney Animation Studios after John Lasseter and Ed Catmull took over as the heads of both WDAS and Pixar Animation Studios. It also meant the end of the direct-to-video sequels that had started coming out in 1994 with the sequel to Aladdin, The Return of Jafar, as well as many other changes at the company. Also, the Platinum Editions is the second longest home media line that Disney has had. Not in terms of the number of releases, but in terms of how long it came out for. It went on for eight years (2001-2009), falling behind the Walt Disney Classics which ran for ten years from 1984-1994. Disney learned from the poor sales of the Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection that quality is much better than quantity as this line is a pretty solid line of releases. Too bad they can't apply this lesson to their live action remakes... 

And that folks is the Walt Disney Platinum Editions. Between the bonus features and the fact that I have so many of these releases in my own collection means I had quite a bit to say even though it's a much smaller line compared to the Classics, Masterpiece Collection, and Gold Classic Collection, but what it lacks in quantity it more than makes up for it in quality because, like I said, this is a pretty solid line. Also it helps that there's actually a bit of background information on Disney's original concept for this lineup, which is missing from the Masterpiece Collection, Limited Issues and Gold Classic Collection. The Classics had a little bit about that, but this line is the one where we get a bit more of a behind the scenes glimpse into the decision to produce this line the way they did.

Alright guys that's going to be it for me for today, but I will be back on Wednesday with a look at the Walt Disney Diamond Editions, which is a weird one. Then on Thursday I'll be finishing off this History of Disney Movies on Home Video series with the Walt Disney Signature Collection. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Star Wars: The Han Solo Trilogy #1: The Paradise Snare - Book Review

 Hey guys! Yeah, you don't have to tell me. I know, I'm back. And that's because I ended up being further along in reading The Paradise Snare than I thought I was when I wrote my comic book review yesterday, so I ended up finishing the book before bed last night. Now I'm going to talk about it and I actually have alot to say about this book because this is what made me a Star Wars fan. So let's get right into it.

The Paradise Snare is actually the first Star Wars novel I ever got. My parents had the Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn and I think I had the 1996/1997 junior novelization of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope already, but this was the first Star Wars novel that made me a fan of Star Wars. I'd seen the original movie on VHS and watched them pretty regularly, but being a Star Wars fan wasn't in the very fabric of my being the way being a Star Trek fan was, especially by late 1997 and early 1998. But this? This novel did it for me. This novel made me a Star Wars fan.

The reason The Paradise Snare made me a Star Wars fan is because it kinda opened up the universe for me a little bit. As I came to discover as I read the earlier novels like Heir to the Empire, The Courtship of Princess Leia, and Shadows of the Empire, Star Wars was about these extraordinary characters in extreme circumstances. Now that's a pretty obvious observation if you just watch the movies, especially Return of the Jedi where Luke is over powered and facing the Emperor, who is even more over powered than Luke is. But if you watch A New Hope on it's own, especially at the beginning of the film before Luke has stepped into that larger world, he's a pretty relatable guy. He has his own dreams and wishes and basically reacts the way we would all react if we were forced to live on a backwater desert planet, on our parents's, or uncle's, farm with nothing to do.

But The Paradise Snare at it's core is about a young man who dreams about being a pilot and trying to make that dream a reality by getting away from his abusive guardian, falling in love, and learning to find his place in the universe. Plus it fills in some of the gaps about Han Solo's backstory that were never even mentioned in the movies or even in Brian Daley's early Han Solo books from the late 70s and early 80s. Those books were just fun, goofy adventure stories. The Han Solo Trilogy digs deeper into who Han Solo is and what he's about, so that we know why he's such a jerk in the first movie. 

While it's not as legendary as Han's relationship with Chewbacca would become, I love the friendship that Han has with Muurgh, the Togorian, who looks like a giant anthropomorphic cat if you look at the picture of him on the book cover. It starts off with Muurgh just being Han's bodyguard on Ylesia, but then they genuinely become friends, much like how Oliver and Diggle became friends on Arrow. Which eventually leads into one of the easiest escape scenes in a Star Wars thing since Han, Luke, Leia, Chewie and the Droids escaped from the Death Star in A New Hope. Maybe even easier than that. Muurgh is like the prototype for Chewie in a way, though Han's Wookiee foster mother (only way I can describe that relationship), Dewlanna, also fills that role of the prototype Chewie.

While I think Bria Tharen is an interesting character, more on that in a moment, my problem is with her relationship with Han. Han basically forced himself into Bria's life. She was quite content in falling for the scam of the t'landa Til on Ylesia, believing it was an actual religion, when in fact it was not, but then Han wouldn't leave her alone, even though she asked him to, a few times. I realize this book was written in the 90s, by a woman who had been a Sci-Fi author since the late 70s and had even written some of the Star Trek novels published by Pocket Books, but this doesn't really sit well with me. Maybe because I'm more aware of things now than I was at 10 or 11 years old, when I got this book, or maybe it's because it just feels like bad storytelling to me. Especially since Bria leaving Han at the end of the book is what made him decide to not let anyone else get close to him, obvious lies because Chewie, Lando and others all become close friends of Han, even before he meets Luke and Obi-Wan in the Cantina. Really? Like you could take Bria out of the story entirely, or at the very least have her not become Han's girlfriend, and just have it so that Han being so solitary has to do with him having been mistreated (putting it mildly) by Garris Shrike, more than because a woman he's only known for a few months, maybe a year by the end of the book, leaves him because she realizes she has a serious addiction problem (thanks to being whammied every day for a year by the t'landa Til) that she needs to get her life back in order.

And that's why Bria is an interesting character. I've known people who have been in abusive relationships and have mental health issues and deal with alot of intense stuff like that, so it fascinates me to see that portrayed in a Star Wars novel. And so her relationship with Han feels so forced and doesn't work very well in terms of who Han is at this point, and who Bria is following their escape from Ylesia. It actually doesn't get better in the later books, because Bria is just kind of a background character who doesn't have any interaction with Han until the third/final book, Rebel Dawn. However, Bria as a solo character (I said it that way on purpose I promise) works so much better without those interactions with Han.

The book also kind of has a weak ending too. Not a whole lot happens, except for Han confronting Shrike (I've wanted to type Shrek this whole time), Bria and Han going to Corellia and then to Coruscant, the pre-Prequel era Coruscant, where Bria leaves and Han gets into the Imperial Academy. I do like the epilogue where Han leaves Coruscant to go to the Academy, which felt like a great way to end the book, but the last third of it, between Han, Bria, Muurgh, and Mrrov (Muurgh's girlfriend) escape from Ylesia and the epilogue that I just mentioned. Definitely the weakest ending for a book in this trilogy.

One interesting note is that, according to the book's page on Wookieepedia, the author, A.C. Crispin, was asked not to cover Han's time at the Imperial Academy or his first encounter with Chewie. I'll talk about that more when I review the second book, The Hutt Gambit because it explains why that book opens the way it does. I just thought it was something I should mention here since it does end with Han going to the Imperial Academy.

Overall, despite my problems with this book, it's still one of my favourite Star Wars novels. Mainly because it's the first one I ever got, through the Scholastic book order of all places. I still prefer this trilogy over Solo: A Star Wars Story, but I'll get into my reasons why in my review of Rebel Dawn. This book humanizes Han and gives him more dimension than the movies ever could, though The Force Awakens comes pretty close to doing a better job than the original three movies did. 

Alright guys that's gonna be it for me for today. I'll be back on Monday for my look at Super Mario Bros. 2. I realize I've said that like three times already, but this time it's true. So until then have a great weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys: The Death of Nancy Drew #6 - Comic Book Review

 Hey guys! Happy Friday! How was everyone week? Mine was pretty weird. All of Ontario, including Ottawa, is in lockdown with stay at home orders in effect, so you know, there's that. Plus other things going on as well. Today I'm going to be taking at the final issue of Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys: The Death of Nancy Drew. I'll try not to spoil too much of it, just incase you decide to read it. Let's get into it.

There honestly isn't a whole lot to say about this issue. There's not a whole lot of material to cover in the issue because so much was crammed into the previous five issues. Basically this issue wraps up the few loose ends from the previous issues. Like who tried to have Nancy killed. Yeah, I'll talk about THAT shortly.

As I've said in my reviews of the last few issues, this series didn't need to be six issues long. Four issues would've been fine though you could just as easily fit it into two or three issues and that would've been okay too. I don't know if this is a problem with modern comics in general, with Dynamite Entertainment, or just with Anthony Del Col's writing style in particular. The thing is it's Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, so no matter how you look at it, you're not exactly getting very complex character pieces out of these characters or even very complex stories either. Even The Hardy Boys Casefiles and Nancy Drew Files novels weren't exactly the most complex stories or character pieces ever written, but they were still enjoyable reads.

Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys: The Death of Nancy Drew started off strong with the first couple of issues. I mean I really enjoyed those first two issues or so. But as the series went along, it just started to feel drawn out and pointless, since I had pretty much guessed who the villain was by issue #5. Without revealing who it is, it became pretty obvious since the character didn't actually show up until the fifth issue and they did everything they could to dissuade Nancy to back off the case. Which she couldn't do since it involved her own death.

As this series went along I began realizing that you very much needed to have read the previous mini-series, Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys: The Big Lie to fully understand what exactly was going on, since Nancy and the boys constantly refer back to that series since this is a direct sequel to it. Also the recap at the beginning of the first issue is only meant to catch readers up so they can read the first issue and then try and find the previous series in trade paperback collected edition form. The recap wasn't meant to replace reading the actual book.

In all honesty I do like this series as a whole, despite it's flaws. However I do think you should pick it up in trade paperback along with the trade paperback of The Big Lie and read that one first and then read this one just so you have a better idea of what's going on. The only reason I read this series first is because it's what I started getting first though I was aware of the previous mini-series.

That's gonna be it for me for today and for this week since it is Friday. Like I said, it's a short review today because I just don't have much to say about this issue. I may do a full series read through and review it as a whole later on down the line. In the meantime I'll be back next week with more posts, including the next Video Game Memories installment, my Walt Disney Platinum Edition overview and my review of Star Wars: The Han Solo Trilogy Book #1, The Paredise Snare since I'm almost finished reading it. So until then have a great weekend and I will see you on Monday for my look at Super Mario Bros. 2 (Super Mario Bros. USA in Japan). Take care.