Bee Movie Blu-ray Disc (Simon J. Smith & Steve Hickner, 2007)

Paramount (USA)
1.85:1 1080p
90 minutes
Audio: Dolby TrueHD 5.1 English; DD 5.1 French, DD 5.1 Spanish
Subtitles: Optional English, English SDH; French, Spanish
Extras: The Animator’s Corner: Picture-in-Picture Storyboards; Barry’s Trivia Track; The World of Bees; audio commentary; lost scenes; alternate endings; TV Juniors; live-action trailers; Jerry’s Flight Over Cannes; Inside the Hive: The Cast of Bee Movie; Tech of Bee Movie; Meet Barry B. Benson; “We Got the Bee” music video; DreamWorks Animation Video Jukebox; The Buzz About Bees; The Ow! Meter; That’s Un-bee-lievable!; Be a Bee; Pollination Practice; My Menus

Released: 3 June 2008
Blu-ray case

Seinfeld was a very popular show during its broadcast run on NBC, and it still has a large audience in syndication and on DVD. I never understood why it attracted so many viewers. After all, it was about four selfish, irresponsible, and in the case of Kramer, potentially mentally-ill characters. The whiny exasperation that Jerry Seinfeld offered as “humor” was greeted by stone-faced reactions from me when I caught the tail ends of episodes while waiting for another program to start.

Jerry Seinfeld’s style of comedy was already incomprehensible to me in its real-life incarnation, so you can imagine how utterly un-funny Bee Movie was for me. Like other recent animated movies such as Ratatouille and Flushed Away, Bee Movie features a lower life form frequently considered to be a pest as the hero. This lower life form has surprisingly human-like physical behavior, ambitions, and neuroses. Through the hero’s interactions with humans, viewers are supposed to see how silly and destructive we can be. Well, that’s good and all...but these scripts are over-written by committees to the point that they’re utterly banal. The youngest of children might be entertained by the frantic commotion, but intelligent kids will get much more mileage from watching National Geographic documentaries than from this sort of affair.

Bee Movie is just another “B” movie, especially when you consider how mature, insightful, humorous, and powerful animated movies like Millennium Actress and Final Fantasy are.

Video:
The 1.85:1 1080p transfer is plastically shiny, loudly colorful, cheerily bright, and crystal sharp. Digital-animation movies from the major studios have super high-production values, and it’s rare to encounter one that’s transferred poorly to DVD. Of course, as animation and digital-compression techniques improve, home-video transfers also improve. From a technical standpoint, Bee Movie looks as good as Shrek 3 (HD DVD) and Ratatouille (Blu-ray), though aesthetically, it’s not as rich as what Pixar routinely delivers.

Audio:
I don’t want to induce groans with another pun, but I might as well go for it--the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 English track is as busy as a bee. The Seinfeld bee is constantly in danger of being killed by loud humans, and there are plenty of whizzing sonic elements flying all over the room. Subwoofer activity is surprisingly throaty and heavy for a movie about such tiny creatures.

You can also watch the movie with DD 5.1 French and DD 5.1 Spanish dubs. Optional English, English SDH, French, and Spanish subtitles support the audio.

Extras:
All of the video extras are presented in HD.

First up is “The Animator’s Corner: Picture-in-Picture Storyboards”.

“Barry’s Trivia Track” is a text-based pop-up stream of information about the movie.

“The World of Bees” is yet another while-the-movie-is-playing bonus that lets you see information about the characters as well as the voice actors.

Jerry Seinfeld and various filmmakers contributed an audio commentary. There’s a convivial atmosphere with everyone talking about how great some element or other is and with everyone laughing at Seinfeld’s jokes.

There are three “lost” scenes and six alternate endings. There are also fifteen “TV Juniors”, which are TV commercials that last between one and two minutes. You also get two live-action trailers.

“Jerry’s Flight Over Cannes” details Seinfeld being flown over Cannes on a wire in a promotional stunt.

“Inside the Hive: The Cast of Bee Movie” throws kudos at the voice actors.

“Tech of Bee Movie” explains the animation and voice-acting processes. “Meet Barry B. Benson” is an “interactive” interview with the movie’s protagonist. You also get a “We Got the Bee” music video and the DreamWorks Animation Video Jukebox (song-and-dance clips from various movies).

In “DreamWorks Kids”, you’ll find “The Buzz About Bees” (a bee documentary), “The Ow! Meter” (information about how much pain bees and humans can cause each other), “That’s Un-bee-lievable!” (a trivia game), “Be a Bee” (information about various bee jobs), and “Pollination Practice” (a game about pollinating flowers).

With “My Menus”, you can choose from four different menu themes.

Finally, you get previews of other movies.

Understandably, you lose the 2-disc SD DVD’s DVD-ROM activities (coloring pages, recipes, Sudoku games, a videogame demo, etc.), but you’re not losing much of substantive value.