Prep & Landing / Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice Blu-ray delivers great video and audio in this enjoyable Blu-ray release
The outrageous yuletide adventures of Christmas elves Lanny and Wayne continue in this totally tinsel adventure that reminds us there's room for everyone on the 'nice' list. Santa's stealthiest little elves must race to recover classified North Pole technology, which has fallen into the hands of a computer-hacking naughty kid, in an effort to stop Christmas from descending into chaos.
Holiday TV specials come in three flavors: cute, clever and classic. The classic specials are the easiest to spot, even if they're
sometimes the hardest to track down, and have the least to prove. They typically have some gray in their beards too, come
with an insistent parent desperately assuring their kids "you'll love it!", and CG is rarely in play. See A Charlie Brown
Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Emmet Otter's Jug-
Band Christmas, The Snowman and A Muppet Family Christmas, or compile your own nice and naughty
lists. Cute specials are far greater in number but shorter supply, and kept alive by sugarplum'ed nostalgia rather than virtue
or merit. Behold! A Chipmunk Christmas, Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too, Nestor, The Long-Eared
Donkey and, lest we forget, He-Man & She-Ra: A Christmas Special. Which brings us to clever specials, a far
more recent evolution in holiday specialing that deals almost exclusively in pop culture references, copious nods to classics of
old, shiny new CG animation, and sudden, last-minute surges of syrupy sentiment. Enter Shrek the Halls, Merry
Madagascar, Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas Special, Gift of the Night Fury, The Kung Fu Panda
Holiday Special and other salty but sweet December confections. Funny? Sure. Classic? Not so fast, Shrek.
Both Prep & Landing specials land squarely in the clever camp, even if each one wears its heart on its sleeve from the
get-go. Will either one be remembered in twenty, forty, sixty years? Not a chance. Should that stop families from enjoying its
elves-on-a-mission merriment in the meantime? Not at all. Classics are becoming tougher to come by thanks to market over-
saturation and ever-shortening attention spans, but there's no reason to miss out on a few good family friendly laughs and
some good-natured fun while lamenting the relative obscurity of the Specials of Christmas Past.
"A Christmas special. That's nice. You want to watch it? You do?"
Have you ever wondered how it all gets done? How Santa gets in and out of millions of homes, all in one night? Let's just
say he has a little help. The operation has its challenges but we're always prepared. Our mission statement, get in, get out,
never be noticed. I'm part of Prep & Landing: an elite unit of elves getting houses around the world ready for the Big Guy's
arrival.
Originally pitched as a Walt Disney Animation theatrical short, the first Prep & Landing adventure earned a quick
upgrade to full-fledged ABC television special from man-with-the-Disney-Animation-plan, John Lasseter. And while the
resulting 23-minute midnight misadventure isn't quite as clever as it seems to think, especially early on, it has its Christmas
charms. Dave Foley, for starters, as beleaguered elf Wayne, a veteran Prep & Lander who gets passed over for a coveted
promotion, assigned to Nice List duties for yet another year and, to top it all off, saddled with an overly eager new recruit,
Lanny (Derek Richardson). That all becomes the least of Wayne's worries, though, when a young boy wakes up and catches
the elves mid-mission, forcing the unlikely duo to set things right so Santa (W. Morgan Sheppard) can touch down. Sure, it's
all a bit by the numbers, much as it tries and, every now and then, manages to skew Christmas convention. But the elves are
a lovable bunch, Wayne's life lessons will warm the iciest hearts, and the first special sets the stage for the best gift in the
Prep & Landing bag o' goodies: Naughty vs. Nice, a superior followup in almost every way.
Like the song says, Santa knows who's been naughty and who's been nice. Make it on the Nice List, and you can expect a
visit from Prep & Landing. But end up on the Naughty List? Get ready for a whole different crew: the Coal Elf Brigade. Their
job? Confirm and deliver. Their goal? To rehabilitate children... one lump of coal at a time. These guys are tough, always
prepared for those naughty kids. Well, almost always.
How superior? The comedy is sharper, the script is tighter, the stakes are higher, the animation is more satisfying and the
chewy moral center of the Prep & Landing cookie is more filling. This time around, Wayne and Lanny team up with
Wayne's younger brother, Coal Brigade legend Noel (Rob Riggle), to retrieve a stolen elf device from a computer savvy kid
genius (Emily Alyn Lind) determined to hack into the North Pole network and remove herself from the Naughty mainframe.
Tack "more clever" to the previous checklist. It's not clever for clever's sake either, and expected gags are soon shelved in
favor of two interlocking, semi-touching lessons in brotherly and sisterly love. It's all too on the nose and the fast and loose
action movie genre-teering grows heavy handed, but kids will have an out and out blast, parents won't begrudge the 20-
minute holiday treat, and Naughty vs. Nice will get plenty of repeat viewings in the coming months. Classic? I don't
see it. But who's to say what specials our children will pass onto their kids? They could certainly do a lot worse.
Prep & Landing and Naughty vs. Nice celebrate the season with a brightly colored 1080p/AVC-encoded
presentation sure to dazzle the kids. Reds and greens are brimming with holiday cheer, black levels are decent (albeit muted
on occasion) and contrast and clarity earn spots on Santa's nice list. It isn't the boldest or bubbliest CG-animated image I've
reviewed, particularly when snow storms are raging or the lights go down, but it certainly gets the job done. The animation
doesn't mask its television roots very often either, although it only leads to a few eyesores, specifically smooth textures, slight
macroblocking (which thankfully remains a rarity) and a fair bit of mild banding. Fortunately, most, if not all of it appears to
trace back to the source, absolving Disney's high definition encode of any major misdeeds. All things considered, Prep &
Landing's Blu-ray debut won't leave too many fans disappointed come Christmas morning.
No one will mistake Prep & Landing's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track for anything more than it is: a lossless
presentation of a televised holiday special. That doesn't mean it's underwhelming, far from it. It just doesn't boast the sonic
prowess or soundfield precision of a more fully realized film or series. The rear speakers are energetic and engaging throughout
both specials, even though directional effects are rather two dimensional. The LFE channel is weighty and aggressive, despite
lacking nuance. And dialogue is crystal clear and perfectly intelligible, albeit without much in the way of grounded voices that
sound as if they were captured anywhere outside of a warm, cozy recording booth. Still, the specials' sound designers go to
great lengths to make the Prep & Landing twofer bigger and grander than they are, and just about every action-packed
sequence goes above and beyond.
Operation: Secret Santa (HD, 7 minutes): This animated short finds Wayne and Lanny on a secret mission
assigned to them by the boss lady herself, Mrs. Claus (voiced by Betty White).
North Pole Commercials (HD, 7 minutes): Ten animated commercials steal the supplemental show: "Elf-
Date.com," "The Fruitcake Factory," Spa Navidad," "Christmas Carol's," "Yuletide Tech," B.U.L.B. Transit," "Captain Avalanche's
Super Sled," "Kringle County Christmas Fair," "Super Elf Mart" and "Yuletide Joe."
Tiny's Big Adventure (HD, 1 minutes): Pint-sized elf Tiny tackles a deadly mission of his own: making coffee.
Behind the Jingle (HD, 2 minutes): Singer/songwriter Grace Potter discusses her role in Naughty & Nice.
Kringle Academy (HD, 5 minutes): A series of orientation videos for elves in training.
North Pole News (HD, 3 minutes): Two amusing black and white North Pole news reels.
I could wax poetic about what makes a Christmas classic a Christmas classic and prevents a clever holiday special from earning
such high praise, or I could spare you the waxing and simply recommend Disney's Prep & Landing twofer. Clever,
funny, heartwarming and relatively easy to watch more than once (for those of you with kids who keep the same five movies in
constant circulation), the duo -- Naughty vs. Nice especially -- is better than most of the December drivel desperately
hoping to be declared The Next Great Christmas Classic. Disney's Blu-ray release delivers too thanks to a solid video
presentation and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track, even if its supplemental package merely eeks by. This one isn't a
tough sell. What've you got to lose? Your kids will love it, you'll let loose a few light laughs, and the fam will be treated to a fun
evening with Wayne, Lanny and the Prep & Landing crew.
