Please note that this release is not English-friendly: the only audio and subtitle options are in French. However, in my review, I refer to the characters of the films primarily by their English-language names.


The challenges facing any director approaching a property as rich as Asterix are daunting. The bandes dessinées (strip cartoons to laymen) are some of the most subversive, witty and genuinely engaging graphic novels ever made, and it irks me no end they are almost always consigned to the "children's" section of book shops (you wouldn't believe the odd looks I've received while perusing the shelves between Noddy and Teletubbies). The series, for those who have yet to encounter it, takes place at the time of the Roman conquest of Gaul (ancient France) and centres on the exploits of Asterix, a short and wily little man who lives in the only village that has yet to be defeated by the invaders. Asterix's tribe hold out against their more powerful aggressors thanks to a magic potion which gives them superhuman strength. Asterix, along with his best friend, the large and slightly slow-witted Obelix, travel the known (and sometimes unknown) world, the primary purpose being to laugh good-naturedly at the bizarre habits of various nationalities, but also to comment on contemporary social issues in an often bitingly accurate manner. The brainchild of writer René Goscinny and artist Albert Uderzo, the Asterix series has been phenomenally popular both in its native France and around the world, and has been translated into over 70 languages.

What makes the books work so well is the decidedly adult perspective from which they are written. While young children can enjoy the slapstick humour and beautifully-illustrated panels, adults can appreciate all that and then some more. While the earliest stories (and, later on, many of Uderzo's solo efforts) were for the most part straightforward adventure tales with little in the way of social commentary, at its peak the series was a bitingly potent satire of modern life. While the vast majority of the stories tend to conform to a fairly straightforward formula, usually involving the magic potion, the potion is in fact essentially the Asterix McGuffin. Frequently the focus of Asterix's missions, it is really nothing more than a tool to take our heroes to a far-off land ripe for satire, or to parody one of modern society's many vices. A level of nonchalance pervades in even the most action-packed books, as Asterix and Obelix approach seemingly insurmountable hurdles with a level of self-confidence (arrogance, even) that makes it entirely possible to believe that this rag-tag little village is capable of withstanding the combined might of the entire Roman army.


It is not surprising that the film adaptations have largely been culled from the series' earlier period - and probably just as well too, for I could never imagine the vicious satires of consumerism that were The Mansions of the Gods and Obelix and Co. (unless George A. Romero suddenly decided to try his hand at adapting them), or the dessimation of political campaigns that was Asterix and Caesar's Gift, working on screen. The closest the films ever got was in the Goscinny/Uderzo-directed The Twelve Tasks of Asterix, whose "Place That Sends You Mad" sequence was as accurate a portrayal of office life as I have ever seen (and much more amusing than The Office's infuriatingly smug brand of "comedy").

Of course, it could be argued that Asterix is entirely unsuited to adaptation for the screen. The books are so firmly rooted in verbal humour that to render them faithfully on-screen would result in "animated radio" (a phrase coined by the great Chuck Jones to describe animation that relies on writing rather than cartooning) of the worst possible kind. Certainly, the first film adaptation of an Asterix story, 1967's Asterix the Gaul, which was little more than a frame-by-frame fascimile of its source material, was an extremely lazy example of filmmaking that retained all of the book's content but sucked it dry of any resonance. Clearly the formula that worked so well on paper has to be modified for the screen, and it is interesting to watch how, through the course of seven animated and two live action efforts (with an eighth animated feature due to be released some time in 2006), various directors have applied different methods and styles. This box set includes what I consider to be the three best films, which is surprising, given that they received no direct input from either of the original creators (Goscinny having passed away in 1977 and Uderzo seemingly having no interest in participating in any further screen adaptations of the series beyond a consultancy role), and while none of them constitute anything approaching the quality of the original books, they are all relatively enjoyable to a certain extent.


Astérix et la Surprise de César
(France: Paul & Gaëtan Brizzi, 1985)
English title: Asterix vs. Caesar

When the lovely Panacea and her fiancé Tragicomix are kidnapped by the Romans, Asterix and the smitten Obelix follow them, joining the foreign legion in order to track them down. Their pursuit leads them from Gaul to Africa and then on to Rome, resulting in a thrilling climax in the arena of the Coliseum during Julius Caesar's birthday celebrations...

The first Asterix film since The Twelve Tasks of Asterix in 1976, this effort by Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi, who later went on to great success working at the Disney studio, is intriguing for a number of reasons, not least because it actually amalgamates the storylines of two separate books, Asterix the Gladiator and Asterix the Legionary. An interesting idea that was also used later on for Asterix and the Big Fight, it makes the plot slightly less predictable for fans of the books, but interferes with our suspension of disbelief by mangling the storylines and warping the series' chronology. By transposing and merging various characters and events, the film is clearly established as taking place within a different reality to that of the book, which at the end of the day does more harm than good.

Nevertheless, Asterix vs. Caesar is a reasonably enjoyable adventure story that initially struggles to find its feet but makes up for lost time as it progresses. The Brizzi brothers do a great job of balancing the emotion with the humour, especially in the final act, where they manage to work in a superb gag involving the descruction of half of the Coliseum. The joke of Asterix and Obelix damaging a famous monument has been repeated on many occasions throughout the series, most notably in Asterix and Cleopatra when Obelix managed to destroy the Sphinx's nose, but it works especially well here because of the animators' close attention to detail (the results of the carnage are an extremely accurate portrayal of what the building looks like today).


Astérix chez les Bretons
(France: Pino Van Lamsweerde, 1986)
English title: Asterix in Britain

Exploiting the inhabitants' refusal to fight on weekends and habit of stopping to drink hot water at 5 o'clock every afternoon, Julius Caesar invades and conquers Britain. Eventually, only one small village holds out, inhabited by Asterix's distant cousin Anticlimax. Anticlimax escapes to Gaul to look for help, and soon he, Asterix and Obelix are crossing the Mare Britannicum (the English Channel) armed with a barrel full of magic potion. The Romans, however, will stop at nothing to prevent the potion from reaching the beseiged village...

It is best to treat Asterix vs. Caesar and Asterix in Britain as a pair, as they were produced simultaneously by different directors but with largely the same team. In terms of tone, Asterix in Britain is decidedly closer to the books, and indeed in many ways is the best Asterix film of the lot, since this is probably the only one to come anywhere near to the style of humour of the texts. Like Asterix vs. Caesar, it was written by Pierre Tchernia, a close friend and collaborator of Goscinny and Uderzo. The film is peppered with astute observations of British (or rather English) stereotypes and visual gags that on occasions even outdo their counterparts in the book, my favourites being wooden 50 BC representations of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. The attempts to retain the feel of the books, however, proves to be this film's undoing, as sections really do drag, the plot gradually unwinding but without the controlled sense of pacing that was present in the source material. It could also do with more in terms of music; most of what is present is a mere recycling of Vladimir Cosma's score to Asterix vs. Caesar.

This film certainly works better in French than in English, with the French renditions of British dialogue proving to be absolutely hilarious and impossible to translate with anything more than a shadow of the original intent being maintained. (The humour plays heavily on the differences between French and English word order, something that simply doesn't work when everyone is speaking English.) In the books, translators Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge would, on occasions, virtually rewrite entire passages to replace non-translatable humour with a suitable equivalent, but on-screen, where the dialogue must fit into a pre-alloted length of time, this luxury is not afforded.


Le Coup du Menhir
(France/Germany: Philippe Grimond, 1989)
English title: Asterix and the Big Fight

While attempting to rescue the druid Getafix from the Romans, Obelix inadvertently manages to crush him with a menhir. When he comes round, the druid has lost most of his mental faculties, and the Gauls quickly realise that, without his magic potion, they are sitting ducks for the Romans. Into the mix comes a fraudulent Soothsayer, who sets out to exploit the villagers' superstitious beliefs...

Asterix and the Big Fight showed up four years after Asterix vs. Caesar and Asterix in Britain, and it is a very different product. Much more sombre in atmosphere, there is scarcely a single gag in the whole film, the humour instead coming from Getafix's mental illness. It doesn't work particularly well, with many of the attempts at slapstick coming across as clumsy at best and downright embarrassing at worst.

Furthermore, although the film's English-language title is Asterix and the Big Fight, the script is actually a rather uncomfortable mélange of two books, Asterix and the Big Fight and Asterix and the Soothsayer, the latter of which contributes by far the most material. In fact, this issue provoked ire amongst English-speaking fans when the film was released, because the adaptation effectively removes any trace of the Big Fight of the title. In other territories, the fact that it didn't share the name of the book led to considerably less confusion. Still, though, the overall combination never quite gels, and unfortunately the middle of the film is comprised with around 30 minutes of dead time, which worked quite well in the original books given that it left ample time for some very amusing gags (in the case of Big Fight) and sharp social satire (in Soothsayer), but is absolutely disastrous in the comparatively straitlaced film.

What saves Big Fight is its wonderful visuals. The animation is by far the best of the entire line-up of Asterix films, and the backgrounds have an almost life-like level of detail, courtesy of background art director Michel Guérin's fantastic attention to detail and lighting. The score, by the late Michel Colombier, is also an interesting piece of work, combining Stravinskyan strings with a theme tune reminiscent of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. This is overall a much more consciously cinematic film than any of the other entries in the series, and although the end result is not particularly inspiring, the technical proficiency is commendable. Interestingly, although the blandest of the three by far, it was a massive success in France, its box office sales beating those of Return of the Jedi. Ultimately, though, this is the weakest film in the set, and sitting through it was something of a chore.


DVD Presentation

The Asterix series has had a rough history in terms of home video, with the majority of previous DVD and VHS releases being unceremoniously cropped from their original aspect ratios to 1.33:1 and, more often than not, dubbed. For these three films, the only previous releases that could be considered definitive were the French VHS tapes, which preserved the films in widescreen and their original language. This box set, containing the three films produced at the Gaumont studio, as well as a fourth disc filled with extras, was originally announced with an October 2004 release date. However, it was delayed again and again, before finally materialising in decidedly limited quantities (at the time of writing, our affiliate, Amazon.fr, seems to be the only online store stocking copies) on December 12th 2005.

The good news is that all three films are in their original aspect ratios (1.66:1 for Asterix vs. Caesar and Asterix in Britain, 1.85:1 for Asterix and the Big Fight) and generally look pretty good. The colour reproduction is much better than the earlier Australian DVDs with which I had to content myself prior to this release, although the reds do at times look a little oversaturated - a fairly common practice in the restoration of animated films. The prints are also in good condition, and there is a generally pleasing, if inconsistent, level of detail throughout (although a smattering of edge enhancement can be glimpsed throughout).


The downside is that these films have been DVNR'd, with fast movement tending to result in pencil outlines being dimmed if not outright irradicated (see image above). While far from the worst examples of DVNR I've ever seen, the problem is substantial enough that I noticed it within a minute of popping in the first disc. All three films are affected, although to my eyes Asterix in Britain exhibits fewer artefacts than the other two. Don't get me wrong, I definitely think that these are the best transfers these films have received to date, but they're by no means definitive and they exhibit problems that no half-way competent mastering technician would have allowed to get through.

I've written a detailed analysis of how the version of Asterix vs. Caesar in this set compares to the Australian and German DVD releases here. My brother has also written an exposé on some of the DVNR artefacts affecting this release here.

The audio is, for the most part, of a very high standard. All three films are presented in 2-channel Dolby Digital (mono for Asterix vs. Caesar and Asterix in Britain, Dolby Surround for Asterix and the Big Fight). There are no noticeable problems with distortion or drop-outs, and the dialogue remains clear and comprehensible throughout. The only significant problem I noticed was that, in Asterix in Britain, the audio becomes slightly desynchronised from the visuals at around the half-way mark. It's slight enough for it not to be noticeable unless you're specifically looking for it, but it's there nonetheless. There are also a couple of audio issues with Asterix vs. Caesar, with a fraction of a second of the title theme at the start missing, and the music during the end credits fading out early, omitting around a minute's worth of material that is supposed play against a black screen.

Subtitles are provided in French for the films themselves, but not for the extras. The subtitles seem to be reproductions of Teletext hard of hearing streams, judging by their placement, colours and significant simplification of the original dialogue.

Another criticism that I might make regarding the presentation of these films is that the original distinctive Gaumont production logos have been removed from the start of each film and replaced with the 2005 variant. In the grand scheme of things this isn't that big a deal, but it does omit a part of the cinematic history of these films.


Extras

The bulk of the extras are contained on their own separate disc, but there are a few features on the discs corresponding to the films themselves. Each of the three discs contains theatrical trailers for all three films (the same ones on each disc), as well as brief featurettes entitled De BD au film, each of which runs for just under 10 minutes. Narrated by film critic Philippe Durant, they provide a condensed comparison of each film to the books upon which it is based, discussing plot changes and characters that are removed or added, as well as instances where gags or characters are lifted from different books in the series. Luckily, the highly visual nature of these featurettes makes them reasonably easy to understand even if you don't speak a word of French.

The extras included on the fourth disc, entitled Le Forum des Bonus, are substantially more wordy in nature. Astérix et la Marguerite is a 51-minute retrospective documentary charting the making of the three films, beginning with the founding of the Gaumont animation studio and ending with various crew members' memories (seemingly largely positive) of making these films. Several key participants are present, including Yannik Piel, the producer of all three films, directors Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi and Pino Van Lamsweerde, and a cavalcade of artists. Albert Uderzo and screenwriter Pierre Tchernia also pop up on a number of occasions, as well as Uderzo's daughter Sylvie, who runs his publishing house Les Éditions Albert René and seems to be something of a connoisseur of Asterix memorabilia. This is a slickly produced featurette, but it does suffer from a lack of footage produced at the time of the making of these films (it's possible that they weren't documented at the time, although the fact that they were such a massive media phenomenon in France makes this a little unlikely). Asterix and the Big Fight's director, Philippe Grimond, is also conspicuously absent, although mutterings from various crew members suggest that they didn't think much of his take on the world of Asterix. It is certainly commendable that the documentary doesn't attempt to paint an overly idealised picture of the making of the films: although most of the speakers seem to be generally positive about their experiences, they do disagree at times on the end result, and I got an overall sense that not many were particularly happy with the direction taken with Asterix and the Big Fight.

Running for 62 minutes, Comment Astérix est Devenu un Héros de Dessins Animés, provides a more general account of the history of Asterix, from his beginnings as the creation of Goscinny and Uderzo to the pending release of the eighth animated feature, Asterix and the Vikings. It describes the production of the non-Gaumont films (although it glosses over the most recent, the German-produced Asterix Conquers America, fairly quickly) and features some very interesting material, including a still-annoyed Uderzo's account of his and Goscinny's dismay when they discovered the existence of the first film, Asterix the Gaul, produced behind their backs at the request of their former publishing partner, Georges Dargaud. This documentary features substantially more archive footage than Astérix et la Marguerite, including some nice interviews with Goscinny and Uderzo and footage of the premiere of Asterix the Gaul.

The only piece of archival footage included in this set, L'Atelier d'Animation is an extremely brief featurette in which directors Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi give a quick guided tour of the production process on Asterix vs. Caesar, going from storyboard to layout to animation to paint to photography in the space of just under five minutes. It's certainly nice to get a glimpse at cel painting and rostrum photography, two practices that have completely disappeared since the onset of computerised ink and paint processes. The quality of this clip is not too hot, though, obviously sourced from VHS.

The final featurette is actually an easter egg of sorts: a 4-minute piece entitled Quel Est Votre Gaulois Favori?, in which several of the interviewees from the two documentaries discuss their favourite character.


Overall

Asterix's translation from paper to the screen has never been an entirely satisfactory process, and the three films included in this release are no exception. That said, despite some problems with the transfers and a lack of English-friendly audio options, fans of these titles will definitely want to pick up a copy of this box set.

Comment on this content - sign up for a Digital Fix login, or sign in now Username: Password: Remember: Register now!