Customer Reviews

The Maxx: The Complete Series

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I just got my copy today and am absolutely thrilled. The comments by the previous reviewer as to the video quality are more a comment on the quality of the animation itself. I've had three different copies of the show prior to this DVD and if I'm understanding him correctly, the flaws he's talking about were always there.

I have a taped copy that I have made myself from when the show ran in a marathon after it finished airing the very first time. This one is taped on archival library quality VHS that holds up amazing well (the tape cost $20 at the time in 1995). I also have another copy taped from the first airings on two separate regular VHS tapes and I have the store-bought tape that edited out 13 minutes of the show. I watched the hell out of the regular VHS tapes, but only watched the archival one a couple times and recently made a DVD transfer of it. I just finished watching the new DVD and comparing it to my archival DVD and am thrilled with these DVDs with just a couple of exceptions that I will address later.

As far as the picture quality, it looks stunning compared to all previous copies I had. I'm not watching it on a HDTV or an upconverting DVD player. Just a 32" Samsung and my 5-disc Toshiba player from several years back. But, the colors and sharpness have never looked this brilliant on this show. Yes, there are some animation flaws (like when Maxx is climbing out of the kitchen sink and there's a black line on the bottom of the water), but they have been there from the original airing. They are problems with the original source material and not these DVDs. I think some of the problems the previous reviewer mentioned might just be more obvious because the picture is sharper and cleaner. The bluriness of old TV airings on VHS tapes hide a lot of flaws, and this show was made CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP!

Now, for people looking for negative things, there are just a couple. The music changes from the VHS tape are still here. Any instances of "I Wanna Marry a Lighthouse Keeper" have either been removed completely (like when Julie goes to the police station) or have been replaced with "I'm in Love with a School Bus Driver" (in every other instance). Also, the background song has been completely removed from when Gone attacks Glorie, and the songs have been replaced when Julie is first shown in bondage at Gone's factory, when Maxx is chasing the Isz through the city streets, and when the white Isz has climbed up and is spying on Julie through her window.

Also, two small edits still exist in this version. When Maxx is running away from Retquark'n at the beginning of episode 7, after he says "All I have to do now is reach it," the line "By Rikkirackk, I love the run. To make my legs stretch into the grass" has been removed so it just goes right into him saying "Run Run Run". Also, in episode 9, when Julie asks Maxx if he thinks they can be killed, and he says "Absolutely, I'm sure of it". Her, response "Now there's a happy thought" is missing.

Other than those music changes and the two small edits, these DVDs exactly match the broadcast versions I had taped.

Just a warning as well, both discs played fine on my older Toshiba player, but on my cheap $50 Sony DVD player, while the first disc played fine, the second disc "Special Features" menu will not come up. The episodes play fine though. Also, my computer will not even recognize these discs, even though it plays other homemade burned DVDs fine. Not a big problem, but I was just wanting to make some comparison screenshots for some friends.

All in all, if you're a big fan of the series and of the comics, like me, and have watched your old VHS tapes over and over again, buy these DVDs!! Buy them now! If you're looking for top notch animation to watch on a HDTV as reference quality animation or something, you'll want to skip it. This is not Blu-Ray anime.

Well, the transfer quality (compared to either the old rips floating about online from the broadcast, that really good version someone authored as a DVD, and the bootleg DVDs from the VHS release) is fantastic. Not perfect, but definitely a massive upgrade from any previous version you own.

All episodes (including #8, the Hammerhead episode missing from the official VHS) are there, as is the recap episode. However, "I Wanna Marry a Lighthouse Keeper" is still missing, replaced with the in-house creation "I'm in Love with a School Bus Driver", which is a shame, but it's certainly not the first time a TV show has had music replaced (just look at Dawson's Creek...).

The discs, while being DVD-R, have high-quality gloss artwork on them, far better than any "at-home" options, and the slick is pretty professional and high quality as well.

Special features include audio commentaries on all episodes, and an interviews featurette.

Well worth it, even despite it's minor misgivings.

Oh, and the original MTV oddities head is on at least one episode, with full credits on all episodes (besides the re-cap, which was originally aired before episode 11).

Dig it.

I won't go into depth on the details of the show - chances are that if you're thinking about this DVD you already know of the show and love it!

I've been waiting years for a "MAXX" release on DVD, but I have to say I'm disappointed in this one. I can't say whether it's an issue with the show itself or the DVD, but the DVD is hard to watch at times. Aliasing ("Jaggies"), Rainbows and flickering are only some of the problems, but they're very noticeable and obvious throughout. Other problems popping up have been pixelation and color banding. The show just doesn't look nearly as good as it should have - it actually seems like a low resolution video (320x240?) being blown up to fit the screen without any cleanup or remastering (almost as if they just decided to "throw it out there"). The CG parts being much worse (more obvious) than the animated parts. I would say it looks better than the VHS I had years ago, but not the jump in quality you would expect on DVD (and the VHS was released 13 1/2 years ago!). I would give the video quality about a 6.5/10 by todays standards.

The disc DOES have a few extra features (interviews, commentary and a recap episode) - while not much, having commentary on each episode is great (I havent had a chance to listen to this yet - the commentary is by Sam Kieth (Creator), Gregg Vanzo (Director), Claudia Katz (producer), Seth Kearsley (storyboards/character layouts)). The interviews, while also a great feature, disappointingly seemed to be in non-anamorphic widescreen (4:3 letterboxed).

Also disappointing is the "Burn on demand" part of this product. While the packaging and labels are professional like any other store-bought DVD, these come on blue-backed discs (much like any DVD-R you can buy in stores) - the downside are that these don't last as long as professional pressed discs. Another big downside is that on my first set, the 2nd disc was badly scratched (if you've ever had a spindle of DVD-Rs, you've probably come across some that just look to be in terrible condition - that's how this one was). The replacement copy was much better, but the first disc had a few light scratches but also fingerprints on the bottom of the disc right out of the box. It just doesn't seem like much quality control went into these.

Overall a great show that I have to recommend as this is the only DVD available. I would have liked to see it be remastered in some way, but unfortunately that's just not the case here. The DVD extras are great, the bonus content is great, but the video appears poor on a 24" widescreen monitor (upscaled to 1080p by the PS3) - the effect was much worse watching on a 50" TV. SDTV will probably look fine, but this show just wasn't meant for the type of displays we use nowadays.

I'm very happy they finally released this on DVD, but I'm disappointed in the format. The VHS release was fantastic because all episodes were merged into one long episode- nothing was omitted, just opening and closing credits. The DVD presents it as separate episodes- like it appeared on T.V. This is annoying because The Maxx episodes were only 15 minutes long- take out commercial and introduction and opening/closing credits and you get more like 12 minute episodes, so it's annoying to have to sit through the introduction and opening/closing credits every 12 minutes. They should release this format for the purists geeks, but also include the VHS version- one long episode.

Enough has been said here already about how fantastic a show "The Maxx" was (and is) when it first appeared on MTV back in 1995. I'm just here with a quick note about Amazon.com's "CreateSpace" program of "Burn-On-Demand" DVDs.

To be frank, I wasn't too thrilled with the idea of purchasing a DVD-R set, especially as I'd heard a bit too many reports of problems both online and from friends. But "The Maxx" was too hard too resist, so I decided to chance it and ordered my set in February 2010. When my set arrived, the two DVD-R discs were indeed the expected purple media - thankfully the transfers were more than satisfactory and the discs played without a hitch.

Until October, when I discovered that Disc 1 would no longer playback properly. The DVD-R media had obviously deteriorated in some manner, as my player was unable to properly track the show. At 21s into Episode #1, playback froze for a few seconds, then the disc skipped forward several minutes before playback resumed. After a few seconds, playback froze again, and the disc skipped forward a few minutes once more before playback resumed. This defect continued for most of Disc 1. It definitely wasn't a DVD Player problem, as all six of my players had the same problem with this disc.

Great.

MOD DVD-Rs purportedly "should" last as long as normal stamp-pressed retail DVDs (i.e., several decades at least). I didn't rent this set for short term usage only - I purchased it with the expectation that it would last for many years to come - so I felt that Amazon should replace my defective disc, especially since THEY were the manufacturer. Obtaining a replacement was no easy task; the customer service rep insisted I had to contact the manufacturer for replacement, that Amazon was not responsible... and refused to acknowledge that Amazon WAS the manufacturer. 45 min. later, after much frustration and repeated requests to speak with someone else who understand's Amazon's own CreateSpace "Burn-on-Demand" program, I was finally put on hold; the rep soon came back on and said my request had been approved. (About time...) A replacement set would be sent out to me shortly, and I would be receiving a new invoice, information and a return label in my email momentarily. I wonder tho... was I really getting a replacement, or was this rep just trying to get rid of me, since I stayed firm on my requests?

Two weeks later I knew the answer for certain. I never received a replacement, I never received any paperwork, and there was still nothing listed on my account that this replacement even existed. *SIGH*

I contacted Amazon again two days ago, expecting to have to go through this entire ordeal all over again. Thankfully, that was not the case at all. I spoke with a wonderful Customer Service rep, explained the situation, and she put me on hold while researching the matter. She was quickly able to corroborate my story, and obtained approval to send me out a replacement overnight... talk about good service!

I indeed received my replacement set yesterday. I opened it with the expectation that I'd just be swapping out the bad Disc 1 , but I got a rather interesting surprise... the replacement set of "The Maxx" did NOT come on purple-backed DVD-R media - these were silver discs. From all appearances, my set contains standard pressed single-layer DVDs - these even have a set of pressing codes stamped around the inner rim to denote the product ID, file dates and manufacturing info (MOD DVD-Rs don't have this sort of information, as it's pressed onto the disc during the stamper and injection molding phase; Disc 1 was dated 10/11/2010, Disc 2 10/10/2010). Needless to say, I was rather shocked at this revelation!

Oh, and before I forget... yes, they played perfectly.

There were only two physical differences I noted between the sets, as follows:
* UPC Product Code on the rear of the case -- the purple DVD-R set features the words "2 DISCS" above the UPC bar codes; the silver DVDs only have the bar codes.
* UPC Bar Code Box on the actual disc -- the purple DVD-Rs have a UPC Bar Code box printed onto the label side of each disc (at the bottom center); the silver DVDs have none.

Anyway, I obviously had a wonderful resolution to my problem.. and I felt that some of you other "Maxx" fans might also be interested in this info. Cheers!

I found nostalgia wash over me when started watching the Maxx. I remember getting home late at night after working security and sitting down with a pizza and watching what Much Music (MTV In USA) had to offer, The Head, Aeon Flux, Spawn and the Maxx. The Maxx was dark and cerebral with a dash of over the top violence for good measure. It was one of my favorite shows.
The DVD of the Maxx is not bad picture quality considering when it was filmed (I think it was late 80's, early 90's), even the 3d stuff was not too bad. Remember even the simplest 3D at the time took 2 to 3 days to render unlike today when it takes 3 minutes. I enjoyed the commentaries and special features which gave some insight into the development of the show. Overall not a bad purchase and would recommend.

I feel torn about this product. I'm grateful someones finally offering The Maxx on DVD. And on the right DVD player it does work well. But that's the problem. This DVD will not play right on every player. So be warned you may buy this product and be very dissapointed. But if it does work as it should well then I suppose it's worth it.

Sam Keith's The Maxx is a twisted yet beautiful masterpiece. I bought this product after reading reviews and finding out the backstory, and I must say, this is one of those greats that, unfortunately, does not get the attention it deserves. This is a must have for any cartoon/comic book fan/anyone who likes good storylines. One thing to note, however, is that the episodes are not as long as one would expect. The storyline gets told though, and it is done cleverly and with great professionalism. Buy The Maxx, you will not be disappointed.

Glad this MTV series finally available on DVD. Found it as enjoyable as watching the original on TV, minus of course any comercials. Great to be able to watch full series in order to gain perspective of the entire story line. Better than VHS tape.

To my knowledge, there was never an official DVD release of The Maxx.
When you get your copy, there will be a sticker on it that says "This product is manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media."
In short; "We burned you a copy."
That's okay because, they did a pretty good job.
Yes, the picture could be a lot cleaner but, all-in-all, it's worth the price of admission.

Great show.
I am grateful that someone got around to putting it on DVD.