Okay, I just made my way through All of the bonus material. What Im about to say might come off more negative than I intend, but do know what I love what is there. and this is only about the bonus content, nothing about movie itself.
my gripes are with what was omitted more than anything. and this could be because I’m just spoiled by how great the toy story content has been in the past. but some things I hoped for or expected but were not there were
An effects only soundtrack.
Young andy home video footage without the VHS filter. (kinda like how we got the Buzz commmercial in the first movie)
set flybys and character rotations. this could have been a great way to illustrate the differences in the older character models compared to the new ones.
Hardly anything on Randy Newman. and a general lack of interviews from the rest of the brain trust. I know their probably busy doing their own projects, but I would have liked to have heard more from there perspective about how they set everything in motion for TS3. Laseter was hardly shown at all except in other divisions like the theme park and toys.
Was Joe Rant mentioned at any point? Not that I can recall.
But most of all I would have liked to have seen the cinexplore content viewable by itself. Didn’t they do that, or something to that effect with Ratatouille? They also did some cooler things in that they gave you the option to jump out of the movie and watch the film makers do their thing for a bit before heading back to the movie. To me that was a more interesting way to handle it. I prefer an organized way of viewing animations tests and whatnot. having it thrown up on screen during the movie is great, but I don’t want that to be my only option.
I know most people will probably never know these are gone, this is really just the geek in me who maybe went into this release with expectations a bit too high, but can you blame me? it was pixar themselves that set the bar so high. They already outdo every other studio in terms of bonus content, and again I absolutlely loved everything that we did get. even when it seemed a bit goofy and irrelevant. I just think they could have been more consistent with the content from the previous two toy stories.
Now, onto some random things I did like, in more detail. cineexplore was great, and the alternate commentary was just as informative as the first. The life of a shot was great, it really shows how much effort from people with all sorts of skill sets come together. (I’m surprised more cameos weren’t pointed out like Lasseter likes to do. oh well)
The setting the story in motion thing by Michael Arndt was fantastic, Ive never been a good story writer but seeing this makes me feel like I’d be more prepared if I were to ever put in an effort to try. It illustrated with clear visuals a good template that you could use (potentially) in crafting a great story. Its of course nothing you should apply to all stories, but it does seem to be solid foundation to start from.
Grab bag was the closest thing to new toy story treats we’ll get. it’ll at least hold us over until the toy story shorts start releasing.
They did a great job with the publicity section, all the trailers (like my favorite, gadgets) was there, even the super rare Japanese poster that has Woody in front instead of buzz. (anyone able to get me a 1080p screenshot of that for me by the way?)
So yeah, that was kind of my rant/review. Again, don’t get me wrong, this is a must own, absolutely. I just feel like the extras were a bit thin by their standards. and it aggravates me that would purposely leave out things like the prison doc for i tunes exclusivity. when you pay for the blu ray you deserve the whole package, and this release could have used more content if they already had it ready to go.
Strange. I wonder if that’s on my DVD.
