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The
DVD animation (once you get past the Rhino sequences
which can be fast-forwarded through or skipped
past) starts with a pan past a leg, then across
a chest, and finally around the side of a head,
pulling back to reveal a beatifully done CG Optimus
Prime. (His optics are yellow, not blue, but that's
my only complaint with the rendering.) He stands,
shifting his weight from side to side, looking
back and forth, and tapping the barrel of the
his laser rifle in his left palm. More importantly,
this is the only motion in the menu, and
it's so subtle that its very easy to ignore, the
diametric opposite of the bright, loud, distracting
animation of the Season 1 Box Set menu.
The Season 2 theme song repeats in the background,
fading out at the end before it starts again.
Optimus
is standing in the center (moving from back to
front not side to side) of a CG room composed
of interlocking pieces of metal and colored in
tones of grey, blue, and purple which blend nicely.
Behind him is what looks like Teletran-1, although
the angle of the camera makes it impossible to
see if there is keyboard detailing or screens,
done in the same pieced-metal and coloring scheme
as the rest of the room. Above this is a sign/screen
with a metallic border and black background with
Transformers Season 2 done in purple.
(All text on the menu is in the Transformers font.)
In the front, in the bottom right corner is a
standalone, boxlike structure in a sort of rusty
brown with the menu selections inset. There are
three selections: Play All Episodes,
Scene Index, and Audio Setup. The
lettering is bright blue, and each selection highlights
with a red background when you select it. If you're
on Disc 4, an option for the Special
Features menu is added at the bottom.
The
animation you'll see upon choosing Play All
Episodes is as follows: The screen shifts,
centering Optimus Prime, who looks right, left,
right, left, takes a step backwards, puts his
gun away behind his back and says "Autobots!
Transform and roll out!" We are then treated
to a lovely, faithful-to-the-show, CG animation
of him doing just that. (His hands literally fold
in half! It's so cool.) As his wheels hit
the ground, the trailer appears out of the darkened
background. The lights dim, his headlights and
engine come on, and he drives straight into the
camera as the screen fades to black and plays
the first episode. (In this case, 'Autobot
Spike'.)
When
you select Scene Index, Optimus lowers
his gun to his left as the screen zooms in on
his chest and his waist piece moves up and clicks
into place (I found the sound effects here to
be a nice touch) to become the navigation taskbar.
The truck windows serve as screens, displaying
the chapter selections. Selections of animation
from each chapter play in the background, but
they're not large (each is about 1/6 the height
of the total screen) or distracting. The chapter
title, in front of each chapter animation, is
preceded by its number (ie. 1. Opening Titles).
In the navigation taskbar, a large rectangle (top
center) gives the episode number and title (ie.
Episode 15 Autobot Spike) with the episode
number centered above the title. Below is a small
rectangle (same width, bottom center) reading
Main Menu. Opposing triangles equally
roughly 2/3 the height of the stacked rectangles,
serve as the left and right navigation buttons
respectively. All the navigation taskbar buttons
have a light silver border and blue-gray background,
and are very readable. All text for this menu
is in the blue and highlights in red. The background
music is instrumental theme from the closing credits
of Season 2. When you select and play an episode,
it starts immediately, with no interim animation.
Upon
selecting the Audio Setup menu, the screen
zooms in and pans to the right, revealing another
boxlike structure, this time in purple. The animation
is clean and simple. As with the Main Menu,
the selections (Surround 5.1, Stereo
2.0 and Main Menu) are inset as is
the title (Audio Setup) at the top. The
color of the title is kind of an 'energon pink'
with the selections colored in the same bright
blue as the selections for the Main Menu,
and like the Main Menu selections, they
highlight in red. The theme song does not play
as you view this menu. Upon choosing to return
to the Main Menu, the selection animation
simply reverses, panning to the left and pulling
back.
The
animation giving you the Special Features
menu on Disc 4 is identical to the animation
that gives you the Audio Setup menu, except
it pans left, revealing a monitor with a purplish
border and black background which fills the screen.
The title (Special Features) is in green, the
selections (see the list below) are in purple
except the Main Menu selection which is
in blue. No music plays while you're in the Special
Features menu.
The
list of Special Features is as follows:
-
A
Taste of BotCon 2002
-
Intro
-
Simon
Furman
-
Aaron
Archer
-
Pat
Lee
-
3H
Enterprises
-
Panels
-
Autographs
-
Fans
-
Trading
-
Mistake
Reel
-
Interviews
-
DVD
Credits
A
Taste of BotCon 2002 and Interviews
each have sub-menus. Select them, press Enter
or Play on your remote and the monitor
image fills momentarily with cel-animated static,
then reveals the menu. The format and coloring
of the selections are the same as the main Special
Features menu, but have Special Features
instead of Main Menu at the bottom in blue.
In the menu for A Taste of BotCon 2002,
the sub-selections are individually numbered,
and in the menu for Interviews, the interviewee's
title is centered above their name. The Mistake
Reel feature just starts, but unlike the Outtakes
& Anomalies feature from the Season
1 Box Set, is comprised only of animation
mistakes that actually made it into the show.
It still didn't particularly catch my attention,
but at least its not just hands and dandruff.
DVD Credits is, well, just that.
  One
of the collector cels for this set features a
seated Megatron holding up an energon cube and
smiling. For me, it was instantly recognizable
as a scene from 'Fire in the Sky'. The
other is Ravage leaping from the right side of
the cell with an explosion in the background.
Upon
receiving this box set, I braced myself for a
repeat of the menu from the Season 1 Box Set,
and was happily surprised to see this one instead.
The menu is clear, well-animated, and concise,
with an extreme minimum of confusing background
animation. As with the Season 1 Box Set,
the episode and chapter guide accompanying the
set is very nicely put together, illustrated,
as are the fold-outs of the box, with artwork
from the series.
The
voice-overs from the commercial bumpers remain
in place in this set, which I rather liked because
it gives a sense of completeness. They were always
a part of the show, and even though they're not
really required when there are no commercials,
it's nice to have them back. Once again most of
the animation errors have been corrected (where
possible), but there have not been as many sound
effects added to the commercial bumpers.
This
set gets higher marks than the last one, not just
because of the menu changes, but because of the
overall feeling of greater respect for the series.
I highly recommend it.
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