I got my hands on one of those Friendship is Magic complete Season One DVD's to review for you all, and review I shall! Did the commentary edition they promised live up to the hype? Is this package of four discs worthy of your hard earned money? Find out after the break!
I threw this into my DVD player expecting a short behind the scenes look at the show with one or two DHX staffers and a voice actor. I also expected it to be heavily regulated. Boy was I wrong.
We have over two hours of commentary across six specific episodes, each picked for their influence on the season as a whole. As for the people actually involved, right from the start two of guys straight from Hasbro Studios (Brian Lenard and Robert Fukes) join Jayson Thiessen (Supervising Director), Cathy Weseluck (Spike), Andrea Libman (Pinkie/Fluttershy), Tabitha St. Germain (Rarity), and Nicole Oliver (Celestia/Cheerilee) to give their insights into the two episode pilot. Everything from the design of the intro sequence to the creation of the ponies themselves are picked apart scene by scene with more under-the-hood observations than all the interviews we have ever listened to combined!
On disc two, they explore Winter Wrap Up, and invite even more major players. Art director Ridd Sorensen gives us bits and pieces on all the little intricacies that go into actually building a living, breathing Equestria , Daniel Ingram to discuss the music (including the season's first major song), and Wootie for the creativity factor (and wacky factor, but we expect that from Wootie now right?)
This continues on for three more episodes, including Show Stoppers, Suited for Success, and Best Night Ever. Needless to say, its jam packed in both talent and commentary for all of us to drool over. There were things I never even would have noticed had they not pointed them out, and a surprising amount of shout-outs to our favorite background ponies from the Hasbro Studios duo.
Everything else is what you would expect from a compilation like this. All 26 episodes spread out across four discs.
So should you buy it? Hell yeah you should buy it. Even if you already own all the episodes across multiple devices, the huge amount of commentary is enough to make it worthwhile, and supporting this will hopefully get us some season two commentary love in the future!
It's exclusive to Amazon, so if you want it you will need to get it on there!
