"Samurai Jack: Season Two: DVD Talkback (Spoilers)

[James Harvey]

Samurai Jack: Season Two


http://news.toonzone.net/images/2005-02/t-jackseason2.jpg

The stylized action series from the acclaimed creator Genndy Tartakovsky (Star Wars: Clone Wars, Dexter’s Laboratory) returns as Warner Home Video debuts Samurai Jack: Season Two on DVD.

Samurai Jack tells the tale of a young samurai cast far into a high-tech future by the evil shape-shifting wizard Aku. Jack’s only goal is to find a time portal so that he may return home to liberate his people from the terrible sorcerer and his demon forces that rule the world. Join Samurai Jack on the solitary warrior’s quest to return to the past and undo the destruction that Aku has wrought upon the land.

This 2-disc collector’s set contains all 13 episodes (over 4 hours) featuring the animated warrior, and will be available on May 24 at $29.98 SRP. Samurai Jack received an Emmy in 2004 for Outstanding Animated Program.

Discuss This DVD!

[Temple Fugate]

The extras on this set were even more informative than on the Season One set. Genndy Tartakovsky's biographic featurette shed a lot of light on the inspiration behind Jack, as well as the journey that brought him to work for CN and George Lucas. (Although you can't deny the featurette kisses ass way too much, but that was probably an intentional over-emphasis on the makers' parts. At least, I hope it was. The way it's presented you'd think Tartakovsky was just as famous as George Lucas.) The art direction for it was fantastic. This obviously took a lot of time to produce; it wasn't just a camera crew recording interviews and then editing them together, like the Season One featurette. Now I really want Maco to narrate my biography.

The XXV commentary, much like the commentary for the previous set's VII, goes into a lot of detail in terms of composing shots, art design, inspiration, and the overall creative process behind the episode. It's clear why they chose this particular episode to talk about. It won an emmy, and apparently was one of Tartakovsky's favored projects from this season. (It's my fave on the set, and not just because it's almost entirely in W I D E S C R E E N.) Tartakovsky and his team are clearly passionate about the cartoons they produce, and I really get a charge from listening to these guys explain the ins and outs of the craft. This has already given me some much-needed inspiration for certain projects of mine that haven't been going so well as of late. Anyway, I wish there was more than just one episode with commentary.

My favorite special feature, however, is the pitch for the Scotsman's second appearance on the series. Marc Andrews was a maniac! I wish they'd just release a box set of these episode pitches. This was as entertaining as the episode itself. I can't believe how much work is done on just the first draft of a storyboard before its even 100% sure to be produced as an episode. And I thought writing a script was hard.

The other stuff: Standard triple-play with the spoken and subtitle languages being in English, French and Spanish. As with the first box set, a "karaoke" version of the opening theme plays on the menus. The design for the box and menus perfectly echoes the series' jagged techno-futurist style. Can't wait for Season Three around Christmastime.

Samurai Jack season two DVD box set - ****1/2

[Wingfox]

Right on, Temple


I purchased the DVD yesterday, and thanks to you I'm looking forward to the extras.

****1/2

Fox

[Hades]

Awesome DVD. This contains some of the worst episodes in the series (15, 16, 21, 26), but it also has some of my favorites (25, 17), so this one is a win and lose situation together.

Regardless, I do enjoy owning more Jack, and hope Season 3 does NOT take a year to come out like this did. With the rate the AS DVDs come out, and since this only had 1 commentary track, there is no excuse why this set could not have been out back in Nov.

[Temple Fugate]

A while ago, when WBHV first announced the season two set, they also mentioned the third set was going to be out fall/winter 2005. I'm guessing it'll be coming in late Nov, to match up with a typical six-month schedule.