DVD Review: Max Headroom
Saturday, August 14th, 2010 06:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizvogelThere are some things that even a purist like me grabs on sight, without all that tedious fretting about possible changes or other DVD-worries. Max Headroom was one such, way back in... April? when it was announced.
And now it's here. Squee!
Packaging first: Excellent. The discs are single-sided. They come in slim-packs, two to a case but not double-stacked, with three cases total in the box. Maximum convenience with minimum shelf-space. The much-advertised-on-Amazon "lenticular" cover is actually just a slip-cover with a holographic Max -- cheesy, but an appropriate kind of cheesy.
The lead-in graphics to the menu are a little disturbing to the eye, but again, in an entirely appropriate-to-the-show way, disorienting and jumpy with judiciously-applied static. The menu itself is clear and easy to navigate.
The "complete series" doesn't include the original UK TV-movie, unfortunately. Not a huge loss, as it's the same story as "Blipverts", but would have been nice for us completists. (Of course, I've got it on VHS around here somewhere, so I can talk.)
For more details about extras, etc., see the quite good review on tvshowsondvd.
And now, on to the content itself: Wow. The first episode, "Blipverts", is a dystopian tour-de-force. I'd remembered the show being good, and occasionally controversial; I hadn't remembered it as having the kind of no-holds-barred storytelling intensity that I usually associate with Farscape. Sit up and pay attention, kiddies; this show wants you to think.
For such an iconically-80s show, the concepts aren't dated at all. You want corporate ownership of civil liberties? We got it right here. News as entertainment, with journalistic standards sacrificed to network profit margins? Step right up. Constant surveillance of your every move, public and private, through closed-circuit cameras, satellites, your credit accounts, and "harmless" feedback about your viewing habits? We've got you covered -- literally. Life isn't sacred, but it can be expensive... depending on whose life we're talking about.
The second episode, "Rakers", isn't as intense, but it's still very good. And still very topical. Again, the idea that basic morality is a soft and outdated concept, which only interferes with corporate profits, comes into play; you could easily picture these discussions happening in the boardroom of BP.
The overall copy quality is very good. It helps that the show was deliberately a little grainy, a little staticky at times, but it still looks like something that could have been shot today. The tech holds up well, too, and for much the same reason: Rather than trying to look cutting-edge for 1987, the style was deliberately retro -- and not the let's-predict-futuristic-retro that fails so badly even a few years after the fact, but bodged-together salvage-retro. One gets the impression that the society of 20 minutes into the future doesn't have much in the way of industrial production; it's a service-and-consumption economy (not a very healthy one), nobody makes anything anymore. (Sound familiar?) So yeah, most people are watching TV on cathode-ray tubes -- because that's what they could cobble together, out of the refuse of technology that was built to last. Wall-spanning flat-screens are for the elite. Okay, nobody's walking around texting on their iPhones, but if you're going to fixate on that, you're missing the point.
And the point is: Pay attention. Your eyeballs (figuratively and literally), your past, and your future are not your own; they're just commodities for giant corporations to barter for money and power. Even your brain-patterns are not your own -- just ask Edison Carter. And if you think that's just science fiction, you've been watching too much TV.
And now it's here. Squee!
Packaging first: Excellent. The discs are single-sided. They come in slim-packs, two to a case but not double-stacked, with three cases total in the box. Maximum convenience with minimum shelf-space. The much-advertised-on-Amazon "lenticular" cover is actually just a slip-cover with a holographic Max -- cheesy, but an appropriate kind of cheesy.
The lead-in graphics to the menu are a little disturbing to the eye, but again, in an entirely appropriate-to-the-show way, disorienting and jumpy with judiciously-applied static. The menu itself is clear and easy to navigate.
The "complete series" doesn't include the original UK TV-movie, unfortunately. Not a huge loss, as it's the same story as "Blipverts", but would have been nice for us completists. (Of course, I've got it on VHS around here somewhere, so I can talk.)
For more details about extras, etc., see the quite good review on tvshowsondvd.
And now, on to the content itself: Wow. The first episode, "Blipverts", is a dystopian tour-de-force. I'd remembered the show being good, and occasionally controversial; I hadn't remembered it as having the kind of no-holds-barred storytelling intensity that I usually associate with Farscape. Sit up and pay attention, kiddies; this show wants you to think.
For such an iconically-80s show, the concepts aren't dated at all. You want corporate ownership of civil liberties? We got it right here. News as entertainment, with journalistic standards sacrificed to network profit margins? Step right up. Constant surveillance of your every move, public and private, through closed-circuit cameras, satellites, your credit accounts, and "harmless" feedback about your viewing habits? We've got you covered -- literally. Life isn't sacred, but it can be expensive... depending on whose life we're talking about.
The second episode, "Rakers", isn't as intense, but it's still very good. And still very topical. Again, the idea that basic morality is a soft and outdated concept, which only interferes with corporate profits, comes into play; you could easily picture these discussions happening in the boardroom of BP.
The overall copy quality is very good. It helps that the show was deliberately a little grainy, a little staticky at times, but it still looks like something that could have been shot today. The tech holds up well, too, and for much the same reason: Rather than trying to look cutting-edge for 1987, the style was deliberately retro -- and not the let's-predict-futuristic-retro that fails so badly even a few years after the fact, but bodged-together salvage-retro. One gets the impression that the society of 20 minutes into the future doesn't have much in the way of industrial production; it's a service-and-consumption economy (not a very healthy one), nobody makes anything anymore. (Sound familiar?) So yeah, most people are watching TV on cathode-ray tubes -- because that's what they could cobble together, out of the refuse of technology that was built to last. Wall-spanning flat-screens are for the elite. Okay, nobody's walking around texting on their iPhones, but if you're going to fixate on that, you're missing the point.
And the point is: Pay attention. Your eyeballs (figuratively and literally), your past, and your future are not your own; they're just commodities for giant corporations to barter for money and power. Even your brain-patterns are not your own -- just ask Edison Carter. And if you think that's just science fiction, you've been watching too much TV.
