First Three Movies Getting Blu-rays in Australia! (Plus Lucario OOP?)

[Charmelizard]

First off, I recently found these links to upcoming Australian rereleases of the English dubs of Mewtwo Strikes Back, The Power of One, and Spell of the Unown!

There's a limited edition Blu-ray set containing the trilogy: Pokemon Movie Collection (Limited Edition)
There are also separate DVDs being released, presumably in widescreen at least.
Pokemon: The First Movie: Pokemon: Movie 1 - MewTwo Strikes Back
Pokemon: The Movie 2000:Pokemon: Movie 2 - The Power Of One
Pokemon 3: The Movie:Pokemon: Movie 3 - Spell Of The Unown

On the other hand, it seems that with TPCi releasing Lucario and the Mystery of Mew and Pokemon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea on digital platforms, their Region 1 DVDs have gone out-of-print. This makes me question the likelihood of a Region 1 widescreen Lucario DVD, as well as R1 widescreen releases of the original three films!

Let me know what you guys think!

 

[Moe]

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Finally - fills a huge gap in my collection - even the DVDs were absolutely impossible to find.

 

[Jolty94]

This may be kind of irrelevant to this thread considering I live in the UK, but, I always find random Pokémon movies in the kids sections almost anywhere I go, yet people seem to say/assume they are rare or never in stock? Like I work for Tesco, and some days we have the Deoxys movie, other days the Darkrai movie... are they really that scarce? I've given most of mine to my lil bro cause I know you can get them online again ect if I ever want to...? Is it just everywhere else that lacks Pokémon movie dvds?

 

[Moe]

It depends on the particular movie, some are readily available, some have been long out of print and some were simply never released. Thanks to all the different regions, it's a different situation in each different part of the world - but there's really nowhere outside Japan that it's possible to go out and purchase all the Pokemon movies - even in DVD, let alone Blu Ray.

With this release in Australia, there's still a gap - movies 4 and 5 have been out of print for years, and 6 and 7 weren't released at all. I'm a bit worried that they'll still not release them - there are recent DVD box set releases of all the BW and DP movies together, but no equivalent one for AG. Likewise this set misses movies 4 and 5, which would logically be grouped with the first three if they were doing it by arc.

 

[Piplup]

Likewise this set misses movies 4 and 5, which would logically be grouped with the first three if they were doing it by arc.

It doesn't work this way though. Movies 1-3 + Mewtwo Returns are (or were, since it seems there were changes in recent months) owned by WB. Movies 4-7 are owned by Miramax. Movies 8 and up are owned by TPCI.
The real question is why did they not include Mewtwo Returns there too...
Anyway, it is safe to assume the versions presented here will be identical to the ones from Pokemon.com so they'd be widescreen (and I think people pointed out slight changes like different font size for the credits, but I guess most fans wouldn't notice or care... just saying... pretty sure that aside from being widescreen that's the only difference in these versions, but if there's more differences I'm unaware of I'd like to know about it)

 

[Yoshi1001]

Isn't this also the first time these three movies have been available on Blu-Ray individually in any territory? As I recall, they were only released as part of the 13-movie set in Japan.

 

[Moe]

It doesn't work this way though. Movies 1-3 + Mewtwo Returns are (or were, since it seems there were changes in recent months) owned by WB. Movies 4-7 are owned by Miramax. Movies 8 and up are owned by TPCI.

Good point, I'd forgotten about that.

I suppose we're forever doomed to that blue tint on Heroes then...

 

[Dogasu]

Were the other non-Japanese Blu-rays actually HD? Or just upscaled SD?

 

[Yoshi1001]

As far as I can tell, both the Miramax discs and the Beyond ones I have are real HD. SD up converts usually have some sort of "bias" or "stilting" that's readily apparent, and these have a more "natural" HD look.

 

[Charmelizard]

Were the other non-Japanese Blu-rays actually HD? Or just upscaled SD?

Well, going by the out-of-print quadruple feature Blu-ray from Echo Bridge, 4Ever didn't look the best. It was a little blurry, with a lot of film scratches, and the frame frequently wobbled. Heroes still had the blue tint on it, but besides that it didn't look the worst, at least from my point of view. Jirachi looked the best of the bunch, and it was a definite improvement. Deoxys looked pretty good too, but it still had multiple film scratches throughout.

 

[Thingamajig]

And a limited theatrical release of MSB to tie in with the new DVD/Blu-rays, by the looks of it.

 

[Charmelizard]

Lucky...

 

[Moe]

And a limited theatrical release of MSB to tie in with the new DVD/Blu-rays, by the looks of it.

The Bulbapedia article noted this from there - "While only the movie itself is advertised, the movie is specified as having a run time of 96 minutes, the exact run time of the movie plus Pikachu's Vacation. "

Given there's no length mentioned for the Blu-Ray box set yet, hopefully the screening length is a good sign that maybe there might be finally some decent bonus features on a Beyond release of a Pokemon movie.

 

[Moe]

I saw this over the weekend - doing so really highlights just how much weight nostalgia has, in its dubbed form it's right down near the bottom for my least favourite of the Pokemon movies, but I couldn't pass up the chance to see it in a cinema again.

The downside is that the movie screened on its own - no Pikachu's Vacation and no prologue, it certainly wasn't 96 minutes. Looks like it's going to be a bare bones release, which is a shame.

 

[Yoshi1001]

Not completely surprising. Considering that the shorts were on a separate disc in the Japanese Blu-Ray collection, it's understandable that it wouldn't be included. What was the crowd like? Mostly young adults?

 

[Kirben]

I saw this over the weekend - doing so really highlights just how much weight nostalgia has, in its dubbed form it's right down near the bottom for my least favourite of the Pokemon movies, but I couldn't pass up the chance to see it in a cinema again.

The downside is that the movie screened on its own - no Pikachu's Vacation and no prologue, it certainly wasn't 96 minutes. Looks like it's going to be a bare bones release, which is a shame.

Beyond Home Entertainment stated the Blu-Ray releases would be movies only, when I last contacted them. But I was really hoping Beyond Home Entertainment were simply including the Pikachu shorts as part of the movies. It is really disappointing to hear about the cinema screenings, which confirm the upcoming release will be the movies only for sure.

Beyond Home Entertainment always seem to lack in the content and quality areas, but goes overboard in the packaging area. So we are stuck with another bare bones release, which will only offer lossy sound (Dolby Digital Stereo 2.0/ Dolby Digital 5.1) according to information I was sent. We can only hope Beyond Home Entertainment managed to get decent masters at least, I doubt we will get the recent remasters from Japan since the English dub would need to be resynced.

Looks like the DVD releases in Japan are the best the first three movies will ever get, in terms of content.

 

[Yoshi1001]

I'd assume that the versions on disc are based on the transfers shown on Pokemon TV (and in the case of The First Movie, Cartoon Network), which to me looked like substantial improvements to me (noticeably fewer image defects). As for sound, the one on Cartoon Network was 5.1 (I can verify this personally-I actually went through the trouble of capturing the 5.1 audio for an AVCHD disc I made)-it sounds more directional than the 2.0 downmix. Getting lossless audio would require having access to the masters used to create the original 5.1 mix, which given the distribution no-man's-land the movies have been in, may not have been readily accessible.

Also, as I've said before, consider going the "make-your-own special features" route. It's not easy, but it is much more feasible than it was when the movies first came out.

 

[Moe]

What was the crowd like? Mostly young adults?

About 30 people there, all young adults - but I did go to a 7pm session, maybe the daytime ones would have been a bit more varied - they certainly are at the screenings of the new movies.

 

[Charmelizard]

I saw this over the weekend - doing so really highlights just how much weight nostalgia has, in its dubbed form it's right down near the bottom for my least favourite of the Pokemon movies, but I couldn't pass up the chance to see it in a cinema again.

The downside is that the movie screened on its own - no Pikachu's Vacation and no prologue, it certainly wasn't 96 minutes. Looks like it's going to be a bare bones release, which is a shame.

Any logos or anything? Were the credits retyped?

 

[Kirben]

I'd assume that the versions on disc are based on the transfers shown on Pokemon TV (and in the case of The First Movie, Cartoon Network), which to me looked like substantial improvements to me (noticeably fewer image defects). As for sound, the one on Cartoon Network was 5.1 (I can verify this personally-I actually went through the trouble of capturing the 5.1 audio for an AVCHD disc I made)-it sounds more directional than the 2.0 downmix. Getting lossless audio would require having access to the masters used to create the original 5.1 mix, which given the distribution no-man's-land the movies have been in, may not have been readily accessible.

The rights shouldn't be an issue at all, they would have reverted back to the Pokemon Company after Warner Bros. rights expired.

The lack of uncut version of first movie, lossless audio, and the Pikachu shorts is just the usual lack of care.

Also, as I've said before, consider going the "make-your-own special features" route. It's not easy, but it is much more feasible than it was when the movies first came out.

I already own the DVD releases of the first three movies from Japan which still offer the best experience:
First movie uncut and Pikachu's Summer Vacation in English or Japanese (with dubtitles)
Second movie and Pikachu Exploration Party in English or Japanese (with dubtitles), plus the Yadoking's Day short (Japanese only).
Third movie and Pichu and Pikachu in English or Japanese (with dubtitles).

It is a shame we still can't get a decent release of the first three movies, that is equal to the DVD releases in Japan, after all these years.