The DVD Has Arrived

I FINALLY got my cruise dvd from the 2010 cruise and was able to sit down and watch it tonight. I figured since I’ve been waiting as long as I have, I was going to do it right. I live in an apartment complex with its own private mini movie theater. So I rented it out to watch the DVD with my brother.

Yes, I really did rent out a theater.

So I had the mood all set with the right atmosphere. But when it comes down to the DVD- I’d unfortunately rate it a ‘C’. I hate to say it, but it was just average. What I enjoyed most about it was the commentary from the Backstreet Boys. There were definitely some funny comments, and I learned a bit more the cruise. For example I didn’t realize that Howie was so drunk at International and had to be put to bed. Overall I just enjoyed reliving all those moments, even though I’ve probably seen about 80% of it on youtube already. I did have fun spotting all my friends in the DVD. I was probably only in it for a split second, but not really noticeable. I liked how they took you through pretty much all the events. I also thought it was a nice touch at the end to include all of the fans’ names by their country in the credits.

So I do appreciate the effort, but I was also disappointed with several aspects of the DVD. Mainly, the production value was really poor. I’m certainly no film critic, but I do agree with some of the other fans. They played the music too loudly over all the content, to the point where I couldn’t hear what the Backstreet Boys were saying. I’m just shocked that no one would have caught that. It’s like they didn’t sit down and watch the final product or someone would have noticed that. I really just wanted to see the raw footage, not just a montage of scenes with the BSB CDs playing in the background.

I obviously wished the DVD was longer. While they did manage to cover most events, some events only showed like a minute or two of footage. There were so many great moments that I think should have made the DVD but did not. It just felt very incomplete (pardon the pun)

My last complaint is that the footage was rather repetitive at points. This wouldn’t have been such a problem if the DVD was longer, but considering they omitted so much, I don’t know why they felt the need to repeat so much footage.

I hate to be such a downer on the DVD, as I was really looking forward to it for months. It’s not in my nature to be so pessimistic, but this was my honest review. Will I buy it next year? I know I’ll probably cave and get it even though out of principle I don’t want to. It is a great souvenir to relive those memories. I just hope they take our comments seriously and improve the DVD next time around.