|
|
|
Adventure Time: The Suitor
R1 - America - Warner Home Video Review written by and copyright: Ethan Stevenson (19th May 2014). |
|
The Show
 Occupying an odd place in Cartoon Network’s lineup, somewhere between the actual children’s programming they air early in the morning and the adult-skewing if not exactly more mature late night Adult Swim block, J.G. Quintel’s “Regular Show” (2010-Present) and Pendleton Ward’s “Adventure Time” (2010-Present) are two of the cable net’s best series to meet in the middle. Both play out like brightly colored kid shows for adolescents, especially the arrested adult kind. Specifically, adults who still see the world through a psychedelic lens of candy-coated colors, albeit quite possibly because they’ve just imbibed in some form of herbal enhancement. Of course, not everyone tuned into CN is a pothead or a kid, and Quintel and Ward’s respective series offer enough absurdist humor, surrealist visuals, and just generally imaginative fun to be enjoyed by pretty much anyone willing to give either series a chance. While his fellow CalArts alum’s “Regular Show” is basically a conventional, if animated and time-condensed sitcom about twenty-somethings—even if those twenty-somethings are a blue jay and a raccoon, among many other strange anthropomorphic creatures—creator Pen Ward’s “Adventure Time” is a much more abstract invention that often defies convention, and refreshingly relies on its own vast universe rather than pop culture to tell its often random but as frequently riotous jokes. Set in the whimsical, and vaguely post-apocalyptic Land of Ooo, “Time” tells the many tales of Finn (voiced by Jeremy Shada), a perennially optimistic teenage orphan, and his adoptive brother Jake (John DiMaggio), who also happens to be a magical talking dog. They live in a treehouse with an adorable walking-talking Game Boy named BMO (Nikki Yang), who serves as Jake and Finn’s trusty all-in-one doohickey—their MP3 player, flashlight, and pretty much whatever else the duo need it to be. In their adventures, the boy and his dog—or the dog and his boy—traverse a wild landscape that’s not unlike, as Ward has described it, what would happen if someone crossed Dungeons & Dragons with “Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior” (1981). In their many journeys, Jake and Finn encounter a 1000 year old vampire named Marceline (Olivia Olson), who has a love of music; the intelligent ruler of the Candy Kingdom, Princess Bubblegum (Hynden Walch), who’s both a scientist and fluent in Korean; and the Ice King (Tom Kenney), an ancient wizard who was once a man named Simon Petrikov, but was driven mad in his quest for a kingdom to rule and a woman to love; among many other recurring characters, including a horse named James Baxter (James Baxter), who can only neigh his name and always rides a rolling beach ball into frame like the weirdest Pokemon off all time. Presented in easily digestible 11 minute episodes—the norm for CN—“Adventure Time” is often overflowing with enough content to fill twice that amount of time, endlessly rewarding viewers with a warped and kind of indescribable sense of wild wonder. It’s packed with imaginative humor and set in a thoroughly colorful world. The jokes and scenarios seem like the ideas of a particularly creative 13 year old—and convincingly could be, if not for the firm grasp on metaphysics Ward and his writers often express in surrealistic sequences. The background art is a painted kaleidoscope that looks fit for the margins of that same middle-schooler’s notebook. "The Suitor", volume 6 of “Adventure Time’s” ongoing DVD compilation series, doesn’t have much connective tissue tying episodes together thematically, nor really could it. Unburdened by a larger serialized narrative, the disc's random assemblage never becomes obvious, even as episodes from season five are put up against some from the first. What “The Suitor” does provide—beyond the titular episode from which the set takes its name—are a number of incredibly entertaining, often quite surreal excerpts from the series, and it gives a surprisingly decent cross-section of the show as a whole. The DVD isn’t a terrible entry point for a newcomer, which is impressive for a series now released piecemeal a half dozen times on the format. In “The Suitor” set, as they do throughout the series, Jake and Finn delve into such diverse and hazardous realms as alternate dimensions and lucid dreams, while tackling topics like friendship, fatherhood, unrequited feelings of a romantic nature, and more. The show isn’t shy about much, touches upon adult themes with a delicate brush (rarely, maybe never, getting so explicit as to alert the attention of young, less attuned minds), and is more intelligent than its seemingly juvenile style would suggest. But more importantly, it has a welcomed and ever expanding sense of childlike imagination, and is always fun, even when Ward and crew prove they’re not afraid to explore man’s own hubristic follies—the Land of Ooo is a place where a great “mushroom war” happened eons ago—because it never turns too dark. Each episode of "Adventure" is never less than a good time. “The Suitor” includes the titular episode and 15 others from the first five seasons of "Adventure Time", on a single disc. Episodes include: - “The Suitor”—A suitor named Braco tries to win the heart of Princess Bubblegum with whatever it takes, even as she ignores his feelings. - "James Baxter the Horse”—Finn and Jake are inspired by a horse to create their own ultimate feel-good maneuver to cheer anyone up. - “Shhh!”—Finn and Jake distress BMO when they wager not to talk for the day, making BMO think they are not the real Finn and Jake. To avoid them, BMO hides in the wall listening to its favorite song. - “Another Five More Short Graybles”—Cuber tells more stories of the "old days": Finn and Jake try to entertain Jake jr., Princess Bubblegum tries to help Cinnamon Bun conquer his fear of the dark, Ice King and his penguins decide on which one of their movies to watch, the Earl of Lemongrab and his brother Lemongrab 2 argue over their toy lemon doll, and Mr. Fox's sub-conscious self draws a treasure map. - “Wizards Only, Fools”—Starchie asks the scientifically-minded Princess Bubblegum to use magic to cure him of his sickness, so they have to get him a magical cure from Wizard City. - “Be More”—Finn and Jake disguise themselves as MOs to infiltrate the MO factory and save BMO from malfunctioning. - “Sky Witch”—Marceline is on a top-secret mission tracking Maja the Sky Witch. But when she loses the witch's trail, Marceline turns to Princess Bubblegum for help. - “The Vault”—When Finn starts sleepwalking and dreaming about the green Ghost Lady he filed away in his memory vault at the end of "The Creeps," Jake and BMO help him tap into his repressed memories to uncover a secret past. - “Red Starved”—After Jake accidentally eats Marceline's red erasers when they become trapped in a cave, Finn must find a red object before his friend has his blood drained. - “Hug Wolf”—After an encounter with a Hug Wolf, Finn goes through a Jekyll and Hyde-like transformation, becoming a hug wolf himself. - “Beyond this Realm”—When Finn finds and touches a porcelain lamb, it transports him into the spirit world, and only the Ice King can help get him out. - “King Worm”—Finn has a vivid dream that may be more than it seems. - “Morituri Te Salutamus”—The duo choose to partake in gladiatorial combat against the Fight King's ghost warriors, but Finn succumbs to bloodlust while Jake becomes obsessed in keeping a cool morale. - “Heat Signature”—Marceline plays a prank on Finn and Jake by making them believe they're vampires, but it goes too far and escalates when they're manipulated by her ghost friends. - “Blood Under the Skin”—Finn decides to get the best armor in Ooo to show off towards several mocking knights, but in order to receive it, he must go on a quest where he must survive one embarrassing situation after another. - “Henchman”—Finn takes the place of Marceline's henchman, and he finds out how hard it is to obey her strange ways.
Video
“Adventure Time: The Suitor” is presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen. Much like the compilation releases of “Regular Show”, Warner Brothers and CN's season-spanning set of “Adventure Time’s” ongoing best-of volumes offers an erratic and not always pleasing picture, although more often than not color is rather catching and the background art always imaginative. Episodes from early seasons are plagued by ringing, harsh edge enhancement, artifacts, and even bothersome banding and errant aliasing—issues which manifest in many episodes, even more recent entries, simply due to the limitations of the DVD format (the series looks considerably better in high definition, both in broadcast and on disc). However, other episodes, specifically newer adventures of a more recent time, are totally math—er, quite good—and translate with rigid line art and largely problem free color fills.
Audio
Recent episodes of “Adventure Time” are broadcast in Dolby 5.1 surround sound, yet the “The Suitor” compilation DVD features a Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo mix on every episode, even those selected from the later seasons. The track is serviceable, but doesn’t always support the surrealist fantasy sequences with what should be—and presumably are, in multi-channel—more immersive. There are no serious issues to report, and dialogue is always intelligible.
Extras
"The Character Gallery" (5 images) includes text biographies for the various "suitors": Braco, James Baxter, Mr. Fox, Cubber, and King Worm. Pre-menu bonus trailers are for: - “Adventure Time: Jake the Dad” on DVD (1.78:1, anamorphic widescreen; 31 seconds). - “Adventure Time: Season 3” on Blu-ray (1.78:1, anamorphic widescreen; 34 seconds).
Packaging
“Adventure Time: The Suitor” is volume 6 is Warner and Cartoon Network's ongoing “Adventure Time” compilation series. The DVD set includes the titular episode and 15 others from the series' first five seasons. The single DVD-9 is housed in a white keep case.
Overall
Much like the “Regular Show” compilation sets, “Adventure Time: The Suitor” serves as a serviceable if not entirely satisfactory stop-gap between the slow-to-trickle-out Blu-ray sets of the series' individual seasons. The less serialized nature of “Adventure Time” makes the completely random assemblage of episodes herein not quite as jarring as one might expect it to be when episodes from season five come up right after an adventure from season one or two. The humor is zany, absurdist, surreal—in the best possible way—and each pint-sized 11 minute episode is packed with colorful creativity, bursting at the seams with the stuff of pure imagination. The A/V quality of the episodes is erratic, with issues present in the animation of the earlier seasons that translate poorly in standard definition. But flaws and all, “Adventure Time: The Suitor” is recommended for those fans who aren't interested in waiting for the high-def release of a complete season, or the few looking to have more recent episodes of the series in the meantime while still intending to double dip down the line.
|
|||||
|