Well, I rented it this afternoon and so far I gotta say, I'm not impressed. The BTS trailor is one of the least informative or interesting I've ver seen, with and a lot of interrupt Brian Henson's thought to show 2 second cut away of character reaction that has noithing to with what was just said. and I find Gonzo and Rizzo a little annoying. By the way the real star of the BTS feaure is Dave Goelz's head which does an amazing 5 minutes at the bottom of the screen. You don't have to look quick or anything for it, it's pretty balatant and it's there a while.
As for the commentary, Brian (while he is a good director pats himself on the back a lot but never explains why. "This was a complicated shot to do ehre" And this..this was very hard to do. In fact, I didn't think we woudl actually get that, but we did. remeber that complicated effects shot I told you about earlier? yeah, we're doing that again here too." And when he's not doing that he's patting Kirk Thatcher on the back "That was kirk's idea. And that's a classic Kirk thatcher kind of line. " one gets the impression you know why Jerry Juhl left. I should be fair here. once you get passed some of that, it IS a good commentary. I've gotten the impression befpore that Brian isn't comforatble talking to the camera and doing interviews. if you watch him he makes a lot of nervous jokes and that kind of thing. So I won't hold that too much against the DVD. However, unlike the MFS commentary where Gonzo and Rizzo interact with the director, Gonzo and Rizzo ocaisionally make dumb jokes that again break up the flow and then REALLY breaking up the flow by stopping the movie and showing BTS footage that would have done better if mixed in with the actual BTS documentary. At one point this gets really bad as they show one of these "hidden treasures" which just repeats exactly what Brian had just said in the commentary. or when they actually interrupt the middle of 'Sailing For Adventyure" to show shots of the model ship in the middle of a parking lot like there was no better place to put this.
While I generally like MTI as a film, I just found this DVD lacking in a lot of places. Bottom line, if you own a copy on video it might be worth it to rent it to see the extras once, but don't bother buying a second copy just to get them. I'll echo what someone else said here once that if this is the kind of treatment we can expect from the Disney people regarding the Muppet franchise, then hope someone else gets them. I sense dark times ahead.
Oh, I did like the interactive menu which features Gonzo and Rizzo running around coaxing you to choose certain features. I should alo add that until viewing the film on DVD I hadn't realised that Dave Goelz's head is a feautred attraction in the the film itself as well. Look very carfully during and around the scenes near the song the 3 characters do in the inn Lotsa Goelz's head. Really it's quite something!!!
--Matt
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