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(More customer reviews)The cartoon series of Redwall comprises gallant stories of good vs. evil; of mice and moles, hedgehogs and beavers against the likes of rats and snakes and their ilk; of journeyings and coming of age; framed within a medieval yet timeless era. There is heroism, chivalry and treachery. The series is based on the terrific books that emanate from the fertile imagination of Brian Jacques. The books (whose number stands now at eighteen, plus a Redwall cook book) make very good reads themselves.
Frankly I am going to pass on Redwall: the movie and buy the separate Redwall Complete Seasons 1, 2, and 3. Apparently they contain the same episodes that aired on PBS and so thrilled our kids (mostly the boys). The PBS series also got the boys into reading (much more than Harry Potter) and my oldest son had read a dozen Redwall books before he turned ten, and these books run 300 pages or more.
We loved the TV show so much we tried to find Redwall on DVD, but the only thing we could find was Redwall: the movie, in 1999, in Region 2, from amazon dot UK. We didnt buy it because we were holding out for Region 1. Plus, yes, as others have stated, Redwall: the movie doesn't begin to present the complete Season 1: it is selections of season 1 (which in its entirety runs ~260 minutes) edited to make a 75 minute movie. (But it was the first thing of Redwall to appear on DVD.)
We did order the beautiful limited edition green hard bound version of Redwall (Book 1) from amazon dot UK, and we thought it was fantastic to hold such a pristine and great book (with terrific illustrations) in our hands, and all the way from England that. We gave up on getting any Redwall on Region 1 DVD other than the ones we recorded from the TV.
If you notice, the Region 1 version of Redwall: the movie didn't come out until late 2005. The same year also saw the first releases of entire episodes in Region 1 (Redwall: the siege, Redwall: Friends and Foes, which contain only four episodes each.) Another alternative are the so-called Redwall "Special collectors Editions, but they seem redundant now that the Complete Seasons 1-3 have been released.
Now I see that the complete Seasons 1-3 came out this year (2006) and that is what we are springing for. Even though my older son is almost 14, he and his two younger siblings, 11 and 9 still watch our old recordings from the TV. So they are getting the Season 1-3 DVDs this Christmas.
So I applaud the producers of the DVDs to get Redwall on DVD and finally now on Region 1 DVD. I am buying Complete Seasons 1-3 but not Redwall: the movie (which although it was the gallant first attempt in 1999 to put Redwall on DVD, it falls far short of the content and continuity of either the PBS series or what is available on the Seasons 1-3 discs). Watching Redwall was a daily routine on Saturday mornings for the boys and me. As much a we tried to record all the episodes off the TV, we missed several and got repeats of some. I am not sure if the following is on any DVD, even the Complete Seasons 1-3 discs. But I thought I'd mention it:
The neat thing about the TV series is that each episode not only has the animated portion (about 20 minutes per episode), but at the end a four or five minute appearance by the author Brian Jacques explaining how he thought up his characters or where he got his ideas from. Also included in this part of the show was a simple one question quiz about the series, which led into a discussion of such qualities as honor, courage, heroism, etc. Where else these days on a Saturday morning TV "cartoon" are you going to find such values instilled into kids. I also appreciated the firm delineation between good and evil that the series upheld, as compared to Harry Potter, where the two seem to meld into one. The only question I had was would monks really participate in armed battle.
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