DVD Review: G.I. Joe Renegades: Season One (Blu-ray)
I previously did a review on the DVD release of G.I. Joe: Renegades: Season 1, Volume 1 where I told a bit about this new G.I. Joe series. Well now the entire first season has been released on Blu-ray, in all its high-def goodness! I missed this show when it was on television, and the Volume One DVD definitely whetted my appetite, so I've been eagerly waiting to see the rest of first season, and now that I've seen it, I have to say it doesn't disappoint. The action and story arc continues on, and any classic Joe fan will recognize a bunch of the new characters that show up (both good guys and bad guys).
To give a quick recap of the show, Cobra is a giant world-wide organization which most people love, because they have no idea that behind the scenes there is an evil mastermind who wants to rule the world and will stop at nothing to do so. A small group of soldiers hand-picked and led by Scarlet, infiltrates one of Cobra's operations and finds proof of Cobra's evil experiments. Unfortunately, the proof is destroyed in an explosion, and Cobra accuses the Joes of causing said explosion, thus labeling them terrorists and outlaws. Now the Joes must travel from town to town, helping citizens in need as they travel while at the same time avoiding capture and trying to get more evidence on what Cobra is up to in order to stop Cobra and clear their names.
In the continuation of this season, we finally get to see both Cobra Commander and Destro in their metal masks, which just totally made me giddy. Also, Zartan is able to become a true master of disquise rather than just a voice mimic like we saw in Volume One. The bad guys seems to have a little more depth as the series progresses, which is nice, but still the Joes are the starts here. The writers and the voice actors all really bring these characters to life such that they feel like real people it's enjoyable just to watch them all interact with each other.
Another thing I really liked about this season is that it had a conclusion. It didn't have a false ending, where everything was looking like it was going one way and then got spun around in order to keep everything as it is for the second season. No, they actually concluded the story, which makes me eager to find how what direction they're going to head in for season 2. As a bonus, this Blu-ray release contains both a behind the scenes look at the show and audio commentaries... I wish more releases would do this. It's usually nice to hear from the people making the show about their thought processes and reasons for decisions that they decided to make.
