Friday, March 19, 2010

Astro Boy Astro, Apparently.

Wow, this place has lit up ever since the Astro Boy movie was released on DVD and Blu Ray earlier this week. At one point the Visitor Map was glowing with traffic coming from every corner of the globe. I'm glad to see so many people interested in Astro and I hope that the film gets its proper dues now that it has hit the home video market.

Watching it again on Blu Ray has actually surpassed my experience watching it in theaters. I enjoyed it even more seeing it again all these months later. I'll talk about that another time.

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to take screen shots from a Blu Ray, and I'd really like to do that so I can make use new images for the site. Can anyone help with a workaround? The only thing I can do right now is actually take a picture of my monitor.

But now, time for a rant.

One thing I'm really not fond of though is the Canadian releases' insistence of adding French text to the box. Not only is the packaging cramped and ugly, but there's a separate menu where the user picks what language to watch the film in. This menu appears BEFORE the main menu! Why? Well, because Astro Boy isn't called Astro Boy in French. No, the movie has an entirely different name all together.


Yes, that's right. Astro Boy in French is called Astro. And so there has to be a separate menu with its own logo. This logo also appears on the cover and spine of the case. Because, obviously, the titles of this movie are just so totally different when you compare the two languages. Ugh.

Don't mean to offend anybody who speaks French (or who enjoys the sight of cramped text on their movie packaging). It's just a pet peeve of mine. The name of the movie is Astro Boy, not "Astro Boy Astro". The new menu is redundant but it doesn't bother me too much. However, I like collecting movies and I care about these things, so I feel that this should have no permanent place on the packaging artwork if I so decide. And that's not the worst example I've ever seen. Did you know that "Hulk" in French is "Hulk (Version français de The Hulk)"?

US buyers should count themselves lucky that they don't have to deal with this. Other than that, it's a good release.

4 comments:

F-Man said...

I collect movies as well and made the mistake of buying in store only the very first time (Pirates of the Caribbean 2, crappy movie anyway, will not keep it). Then I learned to import from the US always (except French movies).

In Astro Boy's case, that means I'll have a Spanish dub instead of the French one, and I'm a French Canadian! Most of my family can't do a proper sentence in English. But in the end, movies should always be watched in their original language only, so I'm completely fine with that.

hurlebibi said...

you know the worst? ... french people call astro boy ... astro boy.

That's just a fantasy of the people making the dvd (or the movie)

and i agree v___v movie are made to be watched in their original langages.

french dubbed voices sucks >_<

Rextraordinary said...

Someone has posted several screenshots from the movie on the Astroboy Online forum. Check it out!

Anonymous said...

Print a custom sleeve for the box. The light blue is not right.