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Emperor's New Groove: Ultimate 2 DVD Special Edition
List Price: Unknown [Buy now and save at Amazon]
(film review written January, 2001)
The makers of "The Emperor's New Groove" were reportedly making a movie with a different tone and feel when Disney came in and wasn't pleased with the final product, forcing some re-working of the movie. The final product, more comedy than any other genre, is occasionally very funny - but it takes a while to get going and sometimes feels fractured. I suppose the one piece of the puzzle that depends on whether or not one will enjoy it is - do you enjoy the humor of David Spade?
Personally, I think Spade's hilarious and he's as his best as the Emperor Kuzco, a spoiled brat who delights in getting his way all day. He fires his advisor, an old witch named Yzma(Eartha Kitt) and she ends up trying to kill him. In her attempt, though, she accidentially turns him into a Llama. Yzma is assisted by Kronk(Patrick Warburton, who was always hilarious as Puddy in "Seinfeld"), but Kronk fails in trying to get rid of the Llama.
Kuzco ends up on the cart of Pacha(John Goodman), the peasant whose home he threatened to take down and replace with a Summer home called "Kuzcotopia". Although Kuzco in Llama form is still a jerk, Pacha agrees to help him navigate the jungle after Kuzco finds himself in the middle of some trouble. The two march onwards across the country, trying to get Kuzco turned back into a human, while Pacha hopes to convince him not to turn his village into a Summer home.
There's two great things about "The Emperor's New Groove"; Spade and Warburton. Thankfully, the filmmakers didn't try to block the "edge" from coming into this family film, which often allows Spade to turn his sarcasm volume up to 11. Warburton is hilarious with the exact opposite approach; his flat way of reading lines turns out to be often incredibly funny. Like his character on "Seinfeld", he simply doesn't care. Kitt and Goodman provide solid supporting performances, but their characters seem often there to set-up some of the funnier lines from Spade and Warburton.
There's only a few minor things that I didn't like as much about "Emperor"; there are some minutes here and there that drag as a few jokes fall a bit flat. The animation isn't quite as impressive as some of the other recent Disney films, but I suppose it works for the relaxed story. Although the film has done quite well, I'm not sure if the younger members of the audience might get all of the jokes.
Still, it's a light, enjoyable work that's sometimes very funny. I would have liked to have seen what the original version of the film was all about (it was titled "Kingdom of the Sun"), but hopefully we'll see some of the original version in the deleted scenes section of the eventual DVD release (update: nope, that didn't happen, as you can read below.).
The DVD
VIDEO: There has been an increasing amount of DVD transfers of animated movies that have been almost shockingly beautiful ("Tarzan", "Road To El Dorado"). "The Emperor's New Groove" is well-animated, but it's not quite as stunning visually as those two films. But, for the material, the THX-approved anamorphic presentation is beautiful. Presented in the film's 1.66:1 aspect ratio, sharpness and detail are excellent and the animation is shown off well.
There's nothing in the way of print flaws - this is a clean presentation all the way through. I noticed a very tiny bit of pixelation once, but that was hardly noticable. Edge enhancement and other problems are absent.
Colors are bright, bold and well-saturated, looking stellar throughout the movie, as would be expected. It's not going to stun like the image quality did for "Dinosaur", "Tarzan" or even "Road To El Dorado", but it's definitely the best that "Emperor's New Groove" could look.
SOUND: "The Emperor's New Groove" is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1. Although many animated films have really begun to take advantage of surround sound to enhance the experience, "The Emperor's New Groove" really remains a rather basic comedy with no need for heavy activity.
There is some surround use throughout the movie, though, but it's mainly for John Debney's fun, entertaining score that really fits perfectly in tone with the film. Dialogue (and it's a pretty dialogue-driven picture) sounds clear and easily heard throughout the film. It's a fine sound presentation for the material, and provides good quality audio.
MENUS:: As with many of their latest animated features, Disney has put together fun animated main menus for "Groove", with animation in the main menu and music playing behind sub-menus.
EXTRAS:
Commentary: This is a commentary from producer Randy Fullmer, director Mark Dindal, Art Director Colin Stimpson, Character Designer Joseph Moshier, Head Of Story Stephen Anderson, Kuzco Animator Nik Ramieri and Pacha Animator Bruce Smith. Director Dindal and Producer Fullmer are the main participants throughout the track, but different artists and individuals come in throughout the track to offer their roles and contributions to the movie.
The commentary was more enjoyable than the previous Disney animated commentary tracks that I've listened to lately, which were more heavily technical in nature. The contributors here are willing to joke about the proceedings and have a sense of humor about the process, which provides some entertaining moments between the addition of some informative and interesting comments about getting the movie together from the begining to the final animated product. There's little or nothing in the way of pauses of silence throughout the track, and it's a fun, enjoyable commentary that children and adults can enjoy and learn about the animation process from. I was rather dissapointed though, that there's really no discussion here about how the film had to be changed from a drama to a comedy. Since there is a disclaimer before the commentary, I thought there was going to be a ton of information about how the picture had to be changed, but that didn't happen. Still a good track, though.
Music Video: Rascal Flatts - "Walk The Llama Llama".
Also: "Emperor's Got Groove" interactive game, DVD-ROM content(game, website, etc); Sneak Peeks trailers (Monsters, Inc., Snow White, Hunchback of Notre Dame 2, 102 Dalmatians, Atlantis: Lost Empire).
Disc Two:
Introductions/Menus: Both director Mark Dindal and producer Randy Fullmer play host on this second disc, providing much of the interview footage, introducing the disc and also, some of the other special features. The menu for the second disc is animated and has a "secret lab" background.
Pick Your Groove: If you would like to look at the story and production featurettes back to back, pick the "studio" groove, which shows the viewer these features in an uninterrupted whole. Or, you can pick the "animated groove", which takes us through all of the animation comparisons.
Development
The Process: A short featurette where director Dindal and producer Fullmer give the viewer an overall concept of how an animated film goes from start to finish.
Research Trip: This short featurette offers both the producer and director talking about their trip to Machu Pichu and a Llama farm to get ideas for the animated feature (1 min, 26 sec).
Story Treatment: The original text version of the story outline.
Visual Development Gallery: 33 pages worth (9 images per page) of concept art from various elements of the story.
Kingdom Of The Sun: Early on, the film was called "Kingdom Of The Sun" and had a rather different tone to it. This area presents the viewer with 3 pages of concept art from that early stage of the film.
Story and Editorial.:
The Process: This is a more in-depth featurette that shows the process of throwing out ideas and having several groups trying to work together to make a scene work from the meeting rooms to the rough draft on-screen.
The Pitch: We get to see two pitch meetings (story artist telling the director what he has in mind) and the final storyboard version of the scene.
Putting It Up On Reels: This is a short featurette that takes a look at the editing process to make the most out of the comedy in a particular scene.
Deleted Scenes: "Practice Destruction Of Pacha's Village" (this scene is also available on the one disc special edition and is presented in rough form); "Pacha's Family" (rough - happily this scene was deleted cause it's extremely boring) and original ending (storyboards).
Layouts & Backgrounds:
Layout and Background Departments: This is a short overview of the tasks that these two groups have to do to give the film a busier visual look.
Inside Scene Planning: This section takes the viewer into the process of visually planning out the details of a scene.
Storyboard To Background Comparison: This gives viewers a split-screen comparison between the storyboard/rough sketches and the animated backgrounds with no characters added in.
Workbook Gallery: This provides a gallery of small sketches that the artists did to plan out the dinner scene.
Layouts and Backgrounds: Layouts gives several galleries worth of rough set concept art and backgrounds gives both a gallery of animated background images and color keys for the animators to use.
Publicity:
Trailers/TV: 2 Trailers, 3 TV Spots.
Gallery: A gallery of poster and ad campaign art.
Animation:
Overview: A fairly basic overview of the elements involved in planning out the animation process.
Production Progression: This allows the viewer to use the multi-angle feature to see the four stages of animation for the dinner scene - Story Reel, Rough Animation, Clean-Up Animation and Final Scene.
Character Voices This is a 5 minute featurette that introduces us to the actors who voice the main characters and their thoughts (as well as the thoughts of the animators) about their character (also on one disc se).
Computer Generated Images: The animators lead us through the computer animation process for many of the computer-generated details that are included throughout "The Emperor's New Groove".(2 min, 20 sec) (also on one disc se).
Rough/Clean-Up Animation: This is a split-screen comparison from the rough animated version of the dinner scene to after lines have been cleaned up and gone over in the cleaned-up version.
Character Models: Models that give the animators something to work from for all elements of the character.
Putting It All Together
Ink & Paint/Processing: This gives an overview on how the film goes from a series of animated drawings to a final product that's in color, as color is added electronically.
Clean-Up To Ink/Paint Comparison: This gives the viewer a chance to compare the clean-up animation version that was seen in the previous section for the dinner scene with the final, color version.
Color Models: Provide the animators with the desired colors for characters in the film.
Music and Sound
Sting: This is an interview with Sting about his contribution to the film. I'm very suprised that there is no discussion of the singer's contributions that were cut out of the final picture (I've heard that Sting's wife made a documentary (called 'The Sweat Box') about Sting's involvement with the picture - hopefully we'll see that one day).
Music and Sound Effects: This gives the viewer a look at what happens after all of the animation has been completed, and the final layer is to add the music and sound to the feature.
Mixing Demo: Watch a scene from the film with either just the dialogue, sound effects or music - or different combinations of the elements.
Final Thoughts: Although "Emperor's" isn't my favorite of the Disney animated features, the studio has still provided a solid 2 DVD special edition. Although I'm not sure how much replay viewing value art galleries have, the second disc's featurettes are fairly informative. Casual fans or those new to the film should be satisfied with the one disc special edition - those would like to learn more about the making of the film might be interested in this 2 disc edition for ten dollars more.
The makers of "The Emperor's New Groove" were reportedly making a movie with a different tone and feel when Disney came in and wasn't pleased with the final product, forcing some re-working of the movie. The final product, more comedy than any other genre, is occasionally very funny - but it takes a while to get going and sometimes feels fractured. I suppose the one piece of the puzzle that depends on whether or not one will enjoy it is - do you enjoy the humor of David Spade?
Personally, I think Spade's hilarious and he's as his best as the Emperor Kuzco, a spoiled brat who delights in getting his way all day. He fires his advisor, an old witch named Yzma(Eartha Kitt) and she ends up trying to kill him. In her attempt, though, she accidentially turns him into a Llama. Yzma is assisted by Kronk(Patrick Warburton, who was always hilarious as Puddy in "Seinfeld"), but Kronk fails in trying to get rid of the Llama.
Kuzco ends up on the cart of Pacha(John Goodman), the peasant whose home he threatened to take down and replace with a Summer home called "Kuzcotopia". Although Kuzco in Llama form is still a jerk, Pacha agrees to help him navigate the jungle after Kuzco finds himself in the middle of some trouble. The two march onwards across the country, trying to get Kuzco turned back into a human, while Pacha hopes to convince him not to turn his village into a Summer home.
There's two great things about "The Emperor's New Groove"; Spade and Warburton. Thankfully, the filmmakers didn't try to block the "edge" from coming into this family film, which often allows Spade to turn his sarcasm volume up to 11. Warburton is hilarious with the exact opposite approach; his flat way of reading lines turns out to be often incredibly funny. Like his character on "Seinfeld", he simply doesn't care. Kitt and Goodman provide solid supporting performances, but their characters seem often there to set-up some of the funnier lines from Spade and Warburton.
There's only a few minor things that I didn't like as much about "Emperor"; there are some minutes here and there that drag as a few jokes fall a bit flat. The animation isn't quite as impressive as some of the other recent Disney films, but I suppose it works for the relaxed story. Although the film has done quite well, I'm not sure if the younger members of the audience might get all of the jokes.
Still, it's a light, enjoyable work that's sometimes very funny. I would have liked to have seen what the original version of the film was all about (it was titled "Kingdom of the Sun"), but hopefully we'll see some of the original version in the deleted scenes section of the eventual DVD release (update: nope, that didn't happen, as you can read below.).
The DVD
VIDEO: There has been an increasing amount of DVD transfers of animated movies that have been almost shockingly beautiful ("Tarzan", "Road To El Dorado"). "The Emperor's New Groove" is well-animated, but it's not quite as stunning visually as those two films. But, for the material, the THX-approved anamorphic presentation is beautiful. Presented in the film's 1.66:1 aspect ratio, sharpness and detail are excellent and the animation is shown off well.
There's nothing in the way of print flaws - this is a clean presentation all the way through. I noticed a very tiny bit of pixelation once, but that was hardly noticable. Edge enhancement and other problems are absent.
Colors are bright, bold and well-saturated, looking stellar throughout the movie, as would be expected. It's not going to stun like the image quality did for "Dinosaur", "Tarzan" or even "Road To El Dorado", but it's definitely the best that "Emperor's New Groove" could look.
SOUND: "The Emperor's New Groove" is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1. Although many animated films have really begun to take advantage of surround sound to enhance the experience, "The Emperor's New Groove" really remains a rather basic comedy with no need for heavy activity.
There is some surround use throughout the movie, though, but it's mainly for John Debney's fun, entertaining score that really fits perfectly in tone with the film. Dialogue (and it's a pretty dialogue-driven picture) sounds clear and easily heard throughout the film. It's a fine sound presentation for the material, and provides good quality audio.
MENUS:: As with many of their latest animated features, Disney has put together fun animated main menus for "Groove", with animation in the main menu and music playing behind sub-menus.
EXTRAS:
Commentary: This is a commentary from producer Randy Fullmer, director Mark Dindal, Art Director Colin Stimpson, Character Designer Joseph Moshier, Head Of Story Stephen Anderson, Kuzco Animator Nik Ramieri and Pacha Animator Bruce Smith. Director Dindal and Producer Fullmer are the main participants throughout the track, but different artists and individuals come in throughout the track to offer their roles and contributions to the movie.
The commentary was more enjoyable than the previous Disney animated commentary tracks that I've listened to lately, which were more heavily technical in nature. The contributors here are willing to joke about the proceedings and have a sense of humor about the process, which provides some entertaining moments between the addition of some informative and interesting comments about getting the movie together from the begining to the final animated product. There's little or nothing in the way of pauses of silence throughout the track, and it's a fun, enjoyable commentary that children and adults can enjoy and learn about the animation process from. I was rather dissapointed though, that there's really no discussion here about how the film had to be changed from a drama to a comedy. Since there is a disclaimer before the commentary, I thought there was going to be a ton of information about how the picture had to be changed, but that didn't happen. Still a good track, though.
Music Video: Rascal Flatts - "Walk The Llama Llama".
Also: "Emperor's Got Groove" interactive game, DVD-ROM content(game, website, etc); Sneak Peeks trailers (Monsters, Inc., Snow White, Hunchback of Notre Dame 2, 102 Dalmatians, Atlantis: Lost Empire).
Disc Two:
Introductions/Menus: Both director Mark Dindal and producer Randy Fullmer play host on this second disc, providing much of the interview footage, introducing the disc and also, some of the other special features. The menu for the second disc is animated and has a "secret lab" background.
Pick Your Groove: If you would like to look at the story and production featurettes back to back, pick the "studio" groove, which shows the viewer these features in an uninterrupted whole. Or, you can pick the "animated groove", which takes us through all of the animation comparisons.
Development
The Process: A short featurette where director Dindal and producer Fullmer give the viewer an overall concept of how an animated film goes from start to finish.
Research Trip: This short featurette offers both the producer and director talking about their trip to Machu Pichu and a Llama farm to get ideas for the animated feature (1 min, 26 sec).
Story Treatment: The original text version of the story outline.
Visual Development Gallery: 33 pages worth (9 images per page) of concept art from various elements of the story.
Kingdom Of The Sun: Early on, the film was called "Kingdom Of The Sun" and had a rather different tone to it. This area presents the viewer with 3 pages of concept art from that early stage of the film.
Story and Editorial.:
The Process: This is a more in-depth featurette that shows the process of throwing out ideas and having several groups trying to work together to make a scene work from the meeting rooms to the rough draft on-screen.
The Pitch: We get to see two pitch meetings (story artist telling the director what he has in mind) and the final storyboard version of the scene.
Putting It Up On Reels: This is a short featurette that takes a look at the editing process to make the most out of the comedy in a particular scene.
Deleted Scenes: "Practice Destruction Of Pacha's Village" (this scene is also available on the one disc special edition and is presented in rough form); "Pacha's Family" (rough - happily this scene was deleted cause it's extremely boring) and original ending (storyboards).
Layouts & Backgrounds:
Layout and Background Departments: This is a short overview of the tasks that these two groups have to do to give the film a busier visual look.
Inside Scene Planning: This section takes the viewer into the process of visually planning out the details of a scene.
Storyboard To Background Comparison: This gives viewers a split-screen comparison between the storyboard/rough sketches and the animated backgrounds with no characters added in.
Workbook Gallery: This provides a gallery of small sketches that the artists did to plan out the dinner scene.
Layouts and Backgrounds: Layouts gives several galleries worth of rough set concept art and backgrounds gives both a gallery of animated background images and color keys for the animators to use.
Publicity:
Trailers/TV: 2 Trailers, 3 TV Spots.
Gallery: A gallery of poster and ad campaign art.
Animation:
Overview: A fairly basic overview of the elements involved in planning out the animation process.
Production Progression: This allows the viewer to use the multi-angle feature to see the four stages of animation for the dinner scene - Story Reel, Rough Animation, Clean-Up Animation and Final Scene.
Character Voices This is a 5 minute featurette that introduces us to the actors who voice the main characters and their thoughts (as well as the thoughts of the animators) about their character (also on one disc se).
Computer Generated Images: The animators lead us through the computer animation process for many of the computer-generated details that are included throughout "The Emperor's New Groove".(2 min, 20 sec) (also on one disc se).
Rough/Clean-Up Animation: This is a split-screen comparison from the rough animated version of the dinner scene to after lines have been cleaned up and gone over in the cleaned-up version.
Character Models: Models that give the animators something to work from for all elements of the character.
Putting It All Together
Ink & Paint/Processing: This gives an overview on how the film goes from a series of animated drawings to a final product that's in color, as color is added electronically.
Clean-Up To Ink/Paint Comparison: This gives the viewer a chance to compare the clean-up animation version that was seen in the previous section for the dinner scene with the final, color version.
Color Models: Provide the animators with the desired colors for characters in the film.
Music and Sound
Sting: This is an interview with Sting about his contribution to the film. I'm very suprised that there is no discussion of the singer's contributions that were cut out of the final picture (I've heard that Sting's wife made a documentary (called 'The Sweat Box') about Sting's involvement with the picture - hopefully we'll see that one day).
Music and Sound Effects: This gives the viewer a look at what happens after all of the animation has been completed, and the final layer is to add the music and sound to the feature.
Mixing Demo: Watch a scene from the film with either just the dialogue, sound effects or music - or different combinations of the elements.
Final Thoughts: Although "Emperor's" isn't my favorite of the Disney animated features, the studio has still provided a solid 2 DVD special edition. Although I'm not sure how much replay viewing value art galleries have, the second disc's featurettes are fairly informative. Casual fans or those new to the film should be satisfied with the one disc special edition - those would like to learn more about the making of the film might be interested in this 2 disc edition for ten dollars more.
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