JLA Adventures: Trapped In Time Review (Spoilers)

[mattzimmer]

Just heard about a new DC Comics direct to video movie yesterday sold exclusively at Target. Picked it up and thought I'd share my thoughts. Long story short: for a cheapo, quicky DTV it is NOT Brainiac Attacks. For my full review, read below the fold

Comments

[dcauyojimbo]

Exactly. No, none that I've heard but they did give the 'waiting on sales figures' line. They only announced it on January 15, 6 days before the release date. I was privy to its existence since the 13th. They really kept it under a rock until the last minute, why I have no idea.

Yeah, there is some mismatch there. In the beginning, Giancarlo Volpe (producer-director) and Mike Ryan (writer, who also wrote on GL:TAS) were working on a pitch for a new JL animated series and had an outline of 13 episodes. But the pitch was turned down. Then Target came along asking WBA for an all ages JL DTV to help tie in and promote their JL toyline. Sam Register wanted the JL lineup to be diverse so he picked the characters including Karate Kid and Dawnstar. Art people were brought in like Lynell Forestall (Black Lightning shorts) to do character design. So Sam Register asked Volpe if he was interested in producing. He hooked Volpe in saying he wanted all ages the way GL:TAS was accessible. Volpe and Ryan attempted to, I say loosely, salvage their pitch and sort make the DTV their pilot episode but it wasn't working because there was too much to try and squeeze into initially a 44 minute feature. At some point, it was extended to 52 minutes and Ryan was a big fan of 70s Superfriends and told Volpe about the 'Secret Origins of' episode where Luthor messed with time to get rid of the Superfriends. So it was a jumping off point for them and you see loose nods to that episode throughout the movie. In total, Volpe worked on this from November 2012 to September 2013. So it was kept a secret for a year and 2 months basically. Wild stuff.

The Karate Kid in the Legion of Superheroes animated series was way better than this one.

[mattzimmer]

Are there plans for a wide release for it at other retailers? Because having it only be exclusive to Target (with limited time availability would be a travesty.

Unless they were being cute and simply meant it would be a Target exclusive ONLY for a limited time before a general release everywhere. Is that plausible?

[dcauyojimbo]

They only implied if sales were high, they would consider wide release. For now it is only Target USA in-store exclusive. I honestly have no clue what they hope to gain by the exclusivity. It's probably going to only be a one-off thing. Recall back in 2010, they also made a Superfriends short that came with some Fisher toy and the short was also shown online for while before it was taken down. I think it's only a short term toyline tie-in. Nothing more.

[mattzimmer]

That is crazy. It's a good enough movie In its own right. It doesn't deserve to be a limited time thing at a big box store.

[dcauyojimbo]

It sure is, Matt. It's hard to suss out any logic from WB's decisions these days.

[mattzimmer]

And they FINALLY made another kid friendly superhero movie and no-one will see it? Between this and CN's zero promotion for DC Nation it's like WB/DC WANTS the comic book industry to die.

[dcauyojimbo]

There we go then. WBHE announced a wide release for all retail and online stores. May 20, 2014.

[mattzimmer]

That is the best news I heard all day! Thank you!

[dcauyojimbo]

You are welcome, Matt.

[mattzimmer]

I also heard that the first volume of Beware The Batman is coming out on Blu-Ray too! WHV did TWO things right today!

[dcauyojimbo]

Yep, hopefully just the first wave of good things to come this year.

[mattzimmer]

Yay! Static Shock and Zeta Project Season Two releases next!

[dcauyojimbo]

One can hope they'll finally get to those.

[mattzimmer]

I would also accept Legion Of Super Heroes and Krypto The Superdog. Oooh, and a set of DC Nation cartoons too! They've made enough by now to fill up a couple of discs, right?

[dcauyojimbo]

Yeah, they could even release Legion in one Blu-Ray set.

Heck yeah, they have enough for a DC Nation release. They have to make money off the shorts anyway.

[mattzimmer]

I have a feeling that when Beware the Batman is inevitably canceled this year DC Nation will be kaput too. They will not need to have an hour long block for one cartoon, ESPECIALLY one whose new episodes air in primetime first and each new episode is only 11 minutes long. A DVD release might be one of the way to cut their losses from the DC Nation failure. And I DO think it is a failure. Zero promotion and two (and most likely three) of the four shows getting canceled on their first year on the block tells me that CN never believed in it and that is was destined to fail. I hope I'm wrong. But the writing was on the wall for Green Lantern and Young Justice last year too and all of the signs were correct.