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Hannah Montana: Miley Says Goodbye?
R1 - America - Buena Vista Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (1st May 2010). |
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The Show
 I’ve decided to use the internet to voice a personal grievance; I’m in an abusive relationship. I feel close to you dear reader and so Trent (can I call you Trent?), I can freely admit that we’ve been in an abusive relationship. Through watching all of Miley Cyrus’ character work from her concert tour to the amazingly needless feature film, and it’s caused me a great deal of pain. The type of searing pain that has given me pleasure to turn into writing and what I’m hoping is pleasure for you reading it. Watching “Hannah Montana: Miley Says Goodbye” (2010) might be putting the final conclusion on it all; I mean will Miley really say goodbye? Get your twitter machines ready because shocking, omg worthy news may follow. Of course the only real place Miley (Miley Cyrus) could risk thinking about saying goodbye was on the TV show where it all started. The “Miley Says Goodbye” DVD is really just the final 6 episodes of the third season of “Hannah Montana” (2006 – Present). But if I know you want me to cut to the chase. I mean sure there are stabs at comedic character development in the first four episodes, but you really want the dirt, the low down on Miley leaving. In the final two episodes, significantly titled “Miley says Goodbye” comes in two whole parts. Miley has some bizarre dreams about her horse blue jeans (remember him from the movie? Me neither). And so she makes the obvious choice to bring it to Malibu, but the freaky horse dreams continue and so Miley decides to move back to Tennessee. Meanwhile, Lilly (Emily Osment) has been living with Miley and is saddened by her friend’s decision to leave that came at the same time as her boyfriend Oliver (Mitchel Musso) who is also Miley’s best friend, is about to go on a 6 month world tour. Commence the clip montage. Getting this glimpse into the day to day life of Miley (the fictional one, I guess), really reveals how hard life is for your typical teenage pop star. I mean how are you supposed to go on living on beachfront property in Malibu when you have daily issues to deal with like how best to deal with your horse that haunts your dreams. But these typical teen problems are easily solved, since life is so much easier when your Daddy can buy a ranch to fix all of your problems. Yeah that’s the solution; really that’s how Miley does it. In a time when the economic crisis has destructed housing markets, not everyone’s daddy can afford a ranch. Too bad, just get your daddy to buy you a house in Detroit; they’re pennies on the dollar. Honestly I found “Family Matters” (1989-1998) way of dealing with a personality crisis through the cloning of Steve Urkel and turning one into Stefan Urquelle far more believable. And endearing. But that’s the difference between quality television and the world of “Hannah Montana.” The outright fakeness of everything about the acting just makes the laugh track even worse. Stack on top of that a gasp track used when Miley has her stunning revelation and some transition scenes that consist of a green light flying across the screen with ambiguous ‘ooh yeahs’ sung by Cyrus and you have one of the most inane pieces of television ever produced. These jokes are beyond corny and there aren’t even enough bad puns to satiate my hunger for something distracting. Every delivery and line reading is stilted in the Disney Channel style of acting that is degrading the general sense of comedy in the youth. Really, Trent (can I still call you Trent?), the big problem is everything. Everything is wrong with this show where nothing can go right and everything has gone wrong. Comedy no longer exists, transitions are shoddy, acting is nonexistent, but it’s one of the biggest pop cultural phenomena in the past few years. But I guess Miley is getting too old since their next season is the last and they’re trying to usher her era out by setting up the long goodbye here. If you need it directly, it’s not worth your time, please stay away. Episodes on the disc are: - “You Never Give Me My Money” - “Papa’s Got a Brand New Friend” - “Promma Mia” - “He could Be The One” - “Miley Says Goodbye? (Part 1)” - “Miley Says Goodbye? (Part 2)”
Video
Much like the content, the video quality of the show, presented in a 1.33:1 full screen ratio, is faking it. The visual feel of the show has a degree of artificiality that borders on the uncanny valley where nothing seems quite real. Granted the entire show is filmed on a lot, so of course the sets are put together to maximize efficiency and used for just about everything, but the sets of “Sesame Street” (1969-Present) look more like real places. There’s something slightly off about the lighting or the frame rate on these Disney Channel sets that makes me oddly uncomfortable, the transfer keeps about the same look as the TV show and keeps about the same TV quality, so in that case it’s effective in just keeping true to the poor quality of the show.
Audio
And the English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo audio track is just as flat as the rest of the show. It really lets you hear the effort audio technicians put into finding a couple of laugh tracks that hadn’t already been worn out by every other Disney show, tossing in a few Hannah Montana songs, oohs, ahhs and gasp tracks to bring out a poor audio track together. Really this might be the most painful part of the disc as just hearing them talk is bad, but stack that on with the low quality of the audio and you have a heaping portion of hurt. There’s also French and Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo tracks, as well as English, French and Spanish subtitles.
Extras
There are just a handful of special features on the disc, including an alternate ending, a couple of featurettes, trivia track, and bonus trailers. First up is the “He could be the One" alternate ending which runs for 3 minutes and 14 seconds, tacking on to the “He Could be the One” episode, but leading her to choose a different boy than she chose the previous time. I can’t believe she chose Jesse this time. It’s the exact same ending as the episode almost, but this time with Jesse instead of Jake. Why not just go for broke? “Sister Secrets” runs for 8 minutes and 6 seconds, an unnecessarily long featurette that goes with Brandi Cyrus behind-the-scenes of “Hannah Montana” using the generic person’s name-cam superimposed with the recording dot. Brandi goes through the different actors in talking to them about their characters, what they’re like on set and some general behind-the-scenes work. “Hannah’s Highlights: ‘You Never Give Me My Money’” runs for 22 minutes and 37 seconds, really it’s a pop-up trivia track over the first episode on the disc. Really full of useful information like what else the actors have done and what athlete’s foot is. “Dylan and Cole Sprouse: Blu-Ray is Suite” promo runs for 4 minutes and 45 seconds, selling you on blu-ray. “Learn How to Take Your Favorite Movies on the Go with Disney File Digital Copy” promo runs for 1 minute and 3 seconds. Bonus trailers are for: - “Disney Blu-ray” spot runs for 1 minute and 1 seconds. - “Beauty and the Beast: Diamond Edition” runs for 1 minute and 43 seconds. - “The Last Song” runs for 1 minute and 43 seconds. - “Camp Rock 2” runs for 39 seconds. - “The Princess and the Frog” runs for 1 minute and 51 seconds. - “Ponyo” runs for 1 minute and 32 seconds. - “Friends for Change: Project Green” runs for 1 minute and 2 seconds. - “Old Dogs” runs for 1 minute and 22 seconds. - “Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie” runs for 49 seconds. - “Toy Story & Toy Story 2” runs for 1 minute and 17 seconds. - “Genuine Treasure” runs for 1 minute and 7 seconds. - “Disney Movie Rewards” spot runs for 20 seconds.
Packaging
The DVD comes in an amray case, but also includes a cardboard holographic picture frame so you can commemorate your bff-ery with Miley in your room.
Overall
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