Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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153 of 158 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gone But Not Forgotten!, October 15, 2006
After two decades, all 27 episodes of the classic 'Dungeons & Dragons' animated TV series are finally available on DVD! This was a Saturday morning staple for many who have anxiously awaited its arrival on DVD for some time. BCI (who was also responsible for the exemplary He-Man & the Masters of the Universe DVD sets) has released not only the complete series, but a ton of extras in this beautifully remastered 5-disc boxed set. For the uninitiated, this series tells the tale of six kids who, after riding the Dungeons & Dragons rollercoaster, mysteriously get sucked into its fantasy world. There, each of them gains magical talents and abilities, all the better to survive their time in the Realm. The bow-shooting ranger, the acrobat, the thief, the cavalier, the wizard, and the boy-barbarian are soon joined by a baby unicorn, and tutored by the mysterious Dungeon Master. Opposing them is the evil sorcerer Venger, as well as various monsters and entities all intent on keeping the kids from getting back home. This was one of CBS' most popular animated series, airing from 1983-1986, and later on the Fox Kids network as reruns. Created by the legendary Marvel Productions, the series was based on the popular TSR role-playing game created in 1974, which spawned an entire industry. Here are the special features;
*All-new half hour documentary, 'Entering the Realm of Dungeons & Dragons' featuring interviews with the show's production team, writers, animators, and network executives
*Two commentary tracks for episodes 'Night of No Tomorrow' & 'The Dragon's Graveyard' with producer Bob Richardson, story editor/ voice director Hank Saroyan, writers Mark Evanier & Michael Reaves, and CBS executives Ted Field II & Judy Price
*Radio show-style presentation of the unaired final episode 'Requiem' featuring select original voice cast members
*Full length animated storyboard with interactive episode comparison for Episode #16 'The Girl Who Dreamed Of Tomorrow'
*'Choose Your Own Adventure' DVD Game & 'Uni's Fun Facts' Trivia
*50 characters, creatures & artifacts profiles with bios, images & clips, plus extensive gallery of original model sheets & memorabilia
*Short live-action film by fan Sean Kennedy
*Alternate and rare footage plus hidden easter eggs
*DVD-ROM features including scripts for multiple episodes (including the un-produced series finale script), complete storyboards and the original series bible
*Episode guide booklet with show's synopsis, writers and original air dates
*Official 'Dungeons & Dragons' hard-cover game supplement created exclusively by Wizards of the Coast featuring 32 pages of character profiles and stat blocks. The adventure is a prelude to the episode 'The Dragon's Graveyard' and is designed to bridge the game and the animated TV series. The characters and world within the animated series are now playable with the traditional RPG game.
It is unfortunate that some uninformed adults originally feared that the game and show promoted occult activities (a claim that seems ludicrous in retrospect). Eventually, it was not magic that led to the show's premature cancellation in 1986, but rather sagging ratings. But thanks to this DVD release, fans can relive all these great adventures anytime they want. For a small company, the now defunct BCI showed unparalleled commitment to modern cartoon classics through their beautifully remastered DVD sets and extensive supplemental material that were second to none. Fortunately for fans, BCI released a slew of classic cartoons on DVD before closing its doors for good.
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132 of 139 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A long-time fan considers this long-awaited DVD set... 99% perfect. , December 6, 2006
This was my #1 favorite cartoon series when I was eleven years old in 1983. I watched it religiously on TV back then, and when we got our first VCR, I recorded every re-run and watched those videotapes until I wore them out. Naturally, I was so excited to hear this show was finally coming out on DVD. I bought it right away, and consider it a great DVD set. All the episodes look great in terms of picture quality. Not to mention, the special features are surprisingly plentiful for an old, mostly-forgotten Saturday morning cartoon, and it really brought back some great memories.
I only have ONE complaint. And I'm going to sound like a real nit-picker here - but I gotta state my case: This DVD set is 99% perfect, but that 1 flawed percent is pretty painfully noticeable, if you remember and love this show.
Any dedicated fan of this show is familiar with the episode "The Dragon's Graveyard" - generally considered to be the best episode of the entire series. That's the one where the kids get mad, and decide to destroy Venger (the ultimate, evil bad guy) once and for all. They plan to do this by convincing Tiamat (the ultimate, evil 5-headed Dragon) to help them. It's a very cool story, because the good guys basically team up with one arch villain in order to settle their grudge match with another arch villain. As I said above, as a kid in the 80's, I videotaped this series and "The Dragon's Graveyard" was one episode that I went back and watched repeatedly. So, in my supreme nerdiness, I kinda know it almost by heart. One of the things I always loved about that episode, and which I still remember clearly, was its powerful musical score. Especially during the scene where Venger throws fireballs at Uni, the baby Unicorn, nearly killing her, and the scene at the end, where the kids have their final, climactic battle with Venger, pin him against a rock, and lead hero Hank has to make the ultimate decision whether to kill Venger, or let him go. From watching and re-watching this particular episode to death on videotape, I remember very clearly that during these scenes the music had a fast, chaotic, rushing quality - a theme not heard frequently in other episodes - which racheted up the energy and took the drama way beyond typical Saturday morning cartoon fare.
And yet, while watching this same classic episode on the DVD set, I noticed that this music had been completely replaced with slower-paced, formulaic sections of music that can be regularly heard elswhere in the series. This change in the music made the scenes described above considerably less effective, severely weakening the emotional impact of this episode.
Allright, now - yes - I realize how trite and ridiculous it must sound for a 34 year old man to be nit picking the DVD quality of one single episode of a Saturday Morning cartoon show he loved when he was eleven. But the whole reason I bought this DVD set in the first place was to re-experience the innocent fun of those childhood memories, and instead I got a diluted version of that experience.
As a matter of fact, in the "Episode Trivia" section, it even mentions that another version of "The Dragon's Graveyard" episode exists, with a completely different musical score... and when I read that, all I could think was, "Yeah, no kidding, and you bozos put the weaker of the two versions on the DVD set. Thanks a lot!"
So... that's my one major nit-pick with this set, and I'm guessing other obsessed fans who are total geeks for this show will notice and be bothered by it, too. But casual viewers, or those with only faint memories of this show, will never notice it in a million years, and will probably enjoy this set just fine. So overall, I suppose, that makes my one complaint a pretty small gripe. For me personally, this new version of my favorite episode will take some getting used to, but mostly, I'm just happy to have this great series on DVD, so I can re-experience it, and share it with my own kids.
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48 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A fantastic release marred by Disney's meddling, December 23, 2006
The people at BCI Eclipse (and Andy Mangels in particular) have established themselves as masters at releasing cartoons on DVD with great care, no small feat given Filmation's reputation and the time-compressed PAL masters that Hallmark left behind before destroying everything else (or so the story goes). With Dungeons & Dragons, though, things were much more hopeful, just so long as the artificial commercial breaks, mystifying edits, and the awful new theme that Saban created for recent re-airings were absent.
Naturally, Murphy's Law had to kick in, in the form of The Walt Disney Company.
Nine episodes (every episode from "City At The Edge Of Midnight" until the finale, with the exception of "The Traitor", "The Last Illusion", and "The Dungeon At The Heart Of Dawn"-one third of the show's 27 episodes, for those counting at home) have had three pieces of music-one "oasis" theme and two fast-paced, dramatic battle themes-replaced. All three were penned and conducted by Rob Walsh. To the experienced fan of the cartoons of Marvel and Sunbow, this replacement comes as a surprise, since Walsh's music was never removed from Rhino's Sunbow releases, where it is extremely prevalent, to the point of even totally supplanting that of Johnny Douglas.
What makes this especially aggravating is that the UK DVDs were untouched, "The Dungeon At The Heart Of Dawn" (a Walsh-heavy episode) is untouched, and Disney has created new music that is really bad, a maddening choice considering that the majority of the missing cues have been replaced by the familiar music of Johnny Douglas (and other than in "The Dragon's Graveyard", where Walsh's music is vital, the change is not immediately recognizable). We don't deserve this unexplained set of changes, and BCI *really* doesn't, because they have done an awesome job assembling features for this set.
First and foremost of these extras is a radio play rendition of Michael Reaves' unproduced (and nigh legendary) series finale, "Requiem". While Katie Leigh (voice of Sheila, the thief) is the only original cast member present, the voices assembled (especially for Hank and Dungeon Master) are close matches. Second are two commentaries (moderated excellently by Andy Mangels) and a very nice documentary. Third is the alternate/rare footage, but there are only two of the episode previews, and the best of the series openings (for the second season) looks like an ancient PAL transfer (sped up and zoomed in). Fourth is a plethora of scripts, storyboards, and other documents from the series' production. Also present is a fan-made production and extensive (and I mean *extensive*) character and object biographies (with appropriate clips from the series).
If not for Disney's imposed meddling with the soundtrack, this set would qualify as the best '80s cartoon released to date. It has a great deal of special features, excellent packaging, and even manages to (finally!) bridge the gap between the actual D&D game to the series. While I would have liked to have seen all of the "Today on Dungeons & Dragons..." previews (or at least known that this was an issue, so I could have contributed the two or three extras I have on barely-acceptable VHS tapes) and the season 2 opening at its proper speed and resolution, these seem like minor concerns when compared to the unnecessary music replacement on this set. Shame on Disney for downgrading an excellent purchase to three-quarters of what it should be.
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