This week’s slate of home video releases offers CG action for adults and some classic 2D cartoon fun for kids as Paramount Home Entertainment releases Robert Zemeckis’ performance-capture fantasy feature Beowulf, and Warner Bros. delivers re-mastered episodes from the first season of the hit 1980s television series The Smurfs on DVD for the first time ever.
The theatrical version and the unrated director’s cut of Beowulf each come with featurettes that go behind the scenes and examine how the time-honored epic story came to the screen via state-of-the art digital technology. The theatrical version only offers the doc A Hero’s Journey: The Making of Beowulf, but the director’s cut also includes the featurettes Beasts of Burden: Designing the Creatures of Beowulf, The Origins of Beowulf, Creating the Ultimate Beowulf and The Art of Beowulf. There are also six deleted scenes and a theatrical trailer.
Those who purchase the director’s cut on HD DVD will also get an interactive version of A Hero’s Journey: The Making of Beowulf with optional pop-up trivia. The two-disc set features additional deleted scenes and more featurettes including The Journey Continues, Stunts and Rigs, Plan of Attack, Fight Me, Baby It’s Cold Inside and A Conversation with Robert Zemeckis. The HD DVD edition lists for $39.99.
The Smurfs: Season 1, Volume 1 is a two-disc set with 19 installments from the Emmy-winning Hanna-Barbera show’s 1981 debut season. For those who have been living under a mushroom for the past twenty plus years, the series centers on a village of little, blue people who live in peace and harmony, when they’re not being terrorized by the evil wizard Gargamel, his cat Azrael and various monsters, dragons and trolls. Listing at $26.99, the set contains the bonus episode The Smurfs Springtime Special and a music video featuring the best moments from the first season cut to the famous theme song.
It’s been 50 years since Belgian cartoonist Peyo first introduced The Smurfs (a.k.a. Les Schtroumpfs) in comics magazine Le Journal de Spirou. Now Paramount and Nickelodeon movies are working on a CG-animated feature film that was originally slated for release this year, but was pushed back. Director Colin Brady (TMNT, Everyone’s Hero) is attached to helm the project, and John Lithgow and Saturday Night Live alumnus Julia Sweeney among the possible voice cast members.
