"Spider-Man - The Ultimate Villain Showdown" DVD Talkback (Spoilers)

[James Harvey]

Buena Vista has released a DVD featuring four episodes from the 1990's Spider-Man animated series.

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Spider-Man: The Ultimate Villain Showdown
Studio: Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Release Date: April 30th, 2002

Synopsis: Swing into action with America's most amazing superhero as Spider-Man faces off against arch-rival The Green Goblin and a host of his most evil foes in "The Ultimate Villain Showdown." Bitten by a radioactive spider while on a high school field trip, young Peter Parker is transformed into a human web-slinger with incredible spider strength. Now, for the first time on DVD, you can discover how the Spider-Man legend began and watch as he learns the dark origins of The Green Goblin and wages spectacular battles with supervillains Dr. Octopus and Kingpin. You'll get caught in a web of excitement with this thrilling animated adventure.

Special Features:
-The 1967 Classic Episode "The Origins Of Spider-Man" With Introduction By Creator Stan Lee & The Original Theme Song
-Rogues' Dossiers -- A Lineup Of Spider-Man’s Most Evil Nemeses
-Stan Lee‘s Soapbox

This thread is for discussion of the DVD itself. To discuss the episodes on the DVD, please use the respective talkbacks.

#32. Rocket Racer
#31. Enter The Green Goblin
#30. Attack Of The Octobot
#29. Make A Wish

Comments?

 

[JL Man]

Just a question: Which season is Sins of the Father? The eps on here are from that season right?

 

[Christopher N. Denner]

season 3.

 

[Madness Bat]

I saw an ebay listing of a DVD with all the episodes. What is this?

 

[Ed Liu]

Howdy,

Sorry to burst your bubble, but these are VCDs (Video CDs, packing MPEG movies onto regular CD-ROMS), not DVDs, meaning they're not official releases. The items for sale are just one collector throwing all the episodes together.

-- Ed/Ace

 

[Bane]

I gotta admit though they usually do a good job at making them. Vcd is not really supported by many players and the quality is pretty bad on them to.

 

[Keith]

I picked this one up yesterday and was pretty impressed actually.

Although I wish they would've started with the first episode of the series and then just released them chronologically as an all-in-one box set, the disc itself is pretty well put together.

This show was usually pretty entertaining and this holds true with the episodes on the disc. For those who are unfamiliar with the series or Spider-Man himself (what planet are you from), the origin of the character is actually touched on during the episodes on the disc.

Video and audio quality are good overall. I did notice some edge enhancement in a few sequences, but it isn't overly distracting.

The bonus materials are were this disc really won me over. Including "The Origin of Spider-Man" episode from the original Spider-Man cartoon from the 60's was great. I'd never seen that cartoon, so it was a real treat.

There are some brief video commentaries by Spider-man co-creator Stan Lee that you can watch before each episode and these were great as well, giving some insight into the creation of some of the characters. Anyone who has followed Stan "The Man" over the years is probably familiar with most of his anecdotes, but it's hard not get a smile when watching him talk with such enthusiasm about characters he created.

The Rogues Gallery section gives more than what I'd anticipated. I figured it would just be a text-based feature that told a bit about the villains. It does that and more - the text is actually read as well (which was nice) and you can watch a brief video segment by Stan Lee talking about each particular villain, and then there are two brief video clips of the villain in action in the cartoon series.

Overall it was a great experience - hopefully Disney will release similar discs soon....and maybe other companies COUGH *WB* COUGH can learn a thing or two from this release.

 

[Joe Wagner]

Morbid curiosity - that was the sole reason I considered picking up this DVD especially after reading that the Mouse House had did a cut and paste job to what is easily one of my favorite cartoons of all time. When I found it available at my local Wal-Mart for $14.44 I couldn't pass it up - much like we slow down when there is an accident I had to purchase this disk.

Let me say one thing - I was wrong.

That might be the only time I ever admit to it but imagine my surprise when I opened up the DVD and found a chapter listing stating which episodes were on the disk. The chapter sheet features the cover art for the front and back of the DVD and the disk is just a picture of the Spider-Man face reflecting back the Green Goblin. When I put the disk in I found something else to be amazing - no forced trailers, something Buena Vista home video is notorious for. The menu opens with a bunch of screen caps of villains flashing onto the screen and eventually leads into the city with a still Spidey in mid swing.

Starting the movie will lead you to the long opening theme for the Spidey toon and only has one change - an added "The Ultimate Villain Showdown" label under the Spidey logo. By now you probably want to know what is on the disk - the episodes go in order - "Make a Wish", "Attack of the Octto Bot", "Enter the Green Goblin", and "Rocket Racer". This is also known as Chapter 2,3,4 and 5 in the Sins of the Fathers story arc. The transfer was very well done but a little slow at times - altho this is more than likely the animation and not the transfer. The episodes still contain the original title cards and at the end of the first three episodes it flows directly into the next episode, avoiding the end credits until the end of the movie.

The special features include the 1967 Origin of Spider-Man toon with an intro by Stan "The Man" Lee. There is also a Stan's Soapbox feature which is about 20 mins long and features Stan talking about the creation of Spidey and some other details of the Marvel U. As a fan boy I found this feature very enjoyable and even got a couple of chuckles out of Stan. There is also another feature that allows you to watch commentary by Stan before each episode - once again, great stuff. Another feature is a Villains Gallery that allows you to select either Venom, Doc Ock, the Hobgoblin or the Green Goblin and get a complete bio of the character. Each villain has at least two clips that show some aspect of the character as well as Stan's thoughts about the character. The final feature was a sneak peek section - featuring Spy Kids 2, Snow Dogs, Digimon and a couple others that I can't remember right at the moment.

Conclusion - Overall I think the disk is really worth the pick up and was very happy that Disney hadn't pasted together a new movie and followed a story arc from the series. While the DVD had a lot of features I wish there had been an easter egg with Sins of the Fathers Chapter 1 but overall this DVD comes with a lot more extra features than the X-Men DVD's that were released by Universal. Hopefully sales will be good on this disk and we'll see Disney release season sets. An added note to Disney - make Origin of the Silver Surfer your next attempt.

Glad to see that everyone is enjoying the release - hopefully Disney will see that sales are good and bring out more DVD's in the future (altho Season Sets would be IMO the best way to go).

-Joe!

REVIEW:
http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=31491

 

[Cyclops]

Boy, for fan made discs, these ain't that bad. But I think I'll wait for WB to release the rest. ( Here's hoping they release them all.)

 

[The Penguin]

Wow.

They may not be the real thing but they look fantastic.
(May's word of the month "fantastic" )

 

[Spider-Man]

It looks like there was actual time and effort put into the DVD. The menus were awesome. I like how the menu screens changed, with the thwip of Spider-Man's webshooters. And Stan had so much enthusiasm for everything! The villian comments, his interview, the episode intros! He was really into it. I'm looking forward to his DVD now...

 

[Mike Spiegel]

Hey everyone. Seeing how everyone is talking about season sets, I was just wondering, how many episodes were in the entire series?

 

[Joe Wagner]

If I remember correctly Spider-Man: TAS only had 65 episodes total - without including the 13 from the Spider-Man Unlimited series that started directly after TAS ended.

-Joe!

 

[Mike Spiegel]

Yeah, this show was one of my favorites when I was younger. I taped most of the good ones, but I would love to have it all on DVD. Oh, and thanks jjwspider!

Was that the pilot? If so, yeah, that was great. The only real problem I have with the series though is all that recycled animation. Every scene that had Spidey swinging around (EVERY EPISODE) was from another episode, and some of the explosions were the same .ect. That got really annoying over time. And that whole tablet of time thing with Silvermaine got real boring real quick.

 

[kachuke]

well sounds like i'll be buyin this soon as i can find it i hope if sales are good they start sellin them from the beginning if they jump around it's going to be a pain to get the whole series but one thing i'm wondering was is the first chapter that they left out the first episode of series 3? if thats the case if they'd release them by series we'd have to buy it again (which i wouldn't mind) also with all the skippin around tryin to keep it from not being confusing wonder if eventually one or two episodes would be cut out so we'd be ripped off a "complete" season hopefully thats not the case though and i apologize if this was confusin its a little too late for me

 

[Cartoon King]

Spider-Man Easter Eggs

Just found this info on the web. It's how to access hidden eater eggs with Stan Lee interviews!!!


From the main menu, select "Setup". From there, select "Spoken Languages". Highlight "Setup", then hit up. A hidden spider will appear, select it to hear Stan Lee talk about Dr. Doom.

From the main menu, select "Setup". From there, select "Captions". Highlight "Setup", then hit up. A hidden spider will appear, select it to hear Stan Lee reveal who his favorite Super Hero is.


Going home to check this out!

 

[Christopher N. Denner]

Marvel suing Disney over Ultimate Villains Showdown DVD and Ads...

Dunt Dunt Duh!

http://superherohype.com/cgi-bin/news/spiderman.cgi?newsid1020984633,69643,

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/020509/spider_man_suit_1.html

Of course, to me this all seems like a bunch of foolishness on both Buena Vista and Marvel's part. Buena Vista swiping images from Activision is not cool, but holding a licensing on POSES for spiderman? WHAT?!?!

 

[Joe Wagner]

Well if you're considering picking up this DVD you better do it soon. It looks like Marvel is ready to sue Buena Vista Video for using Spider-Man artwork on the disk without thier permition and they also claim that Buena Vista scheduled the release to coincide with the movie. They want all of the "offending" copies to be recalled and destroyed.

I wonder what this could mean to potential future DVD's of the Saban/Marvel cartoons.

Click here for the complete story.

-Joe!

 

[Keith]

Well of course they planned the release to coincide with the release of the theatrical movie!

I think that's called "Marketing", right?

Personally, I'd be really surprised if this disc were recalled.

Prediction - Disney and Marvel will settle out of court, with Disney altering the packaging/artwork on future pressings and compensating Marvel properly for the use of the artwork.

Just my two cents...

Does anyone have a picture of the artwork that is the cause of all the hubub?

 

[TheForgottenOne]

Well i bought my dvd from circuit city and they were having a deal with marvel where you get 3 free comics if you buy the dvd. Now was marvel clueless about the promotion Buena Vista was doing for it, they own the character so there getting paid anyways right?