Rick and Morty: Season 6 - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Rick and Morty: Season 6



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
I must say that I unabashedly love Rock and Morty. It’s one of those comfort food Cartoon Network style shows that is both smart, witty, stupid, clever, and completely inane at the same time. Sticking with a roughly 3 hour run time for all 10 episodes (sans commercials of course) it continues on with the time traveling adventures of Rick Sanchez and his grandson from another dimension, Morty.

Now, before I go on I’m of course going to address the near perfect timing of series co creator Justin Roiland, a man who has had a bevy of unsavory charges levied against him over the last year, which saw his ultimate dismissal from the show, only for the news to LITERALLY announce this last week that all charges against the man were dismissed. I’m sure I could wax eloquent about the ever popular subject matter of cancel culture and it’s effect on media, but nobody wants to hear about. Likewise I’ll keep silent with my opinions on whether Justin is guilty of the crimes he was accused of, but rather to say that I’d rather focus on the hilarity of the show, rather than focus on the tabloid media storm that became Justin Roiland’s involvement over the last year or so.

Season 6 of the titular show was finished about 2 years ago in actuality. It was being animated and produced back in 2020, with both the show runners AND the audience wondering if we’d ever come out of quarantine, and what the world would look like if it was. As such there is no post covid style of commentary, but rather a hilarious 10 episode arc relating to movies, tons of special guests (Peter Dinklage plays a hilarious cameo as a Hans Gruber alien villain in the 2nd or 3rd episode), and Rick and Morty STILL trying to set the timeline straight.

Of course we have everyone’s favorite alternate reality of Beth, dubbed “Space Mom” (who ends up hooking up with her own alternate reality self), a Die Hard action episode, Rick stupidly awakening alternate “night” personalities of all of the family, and yeah, more Evil Rick as he tries to stop the rest of them from resetting the timeline. At this point in the show half of the family are spliced in from other time lines (Rick has usually accidentally killed the main family a few dozen times), and both he and Morty and Jerry get zapped back into their own time lines and have to get back to basics.

Looking into the special features of the disc, it’s clear that the show runners had an absolute blast with the grab bag style of story telling here, adding in some heart, some tears, and some absolutely hatred of our good “friend” Rick Sanchez (the original one that is). Nearly every episode has something to do with a famous pop culture movie, and twines everything together into the over arching story line, leaving us with a gigantic pretzel twist of an ending that sets up the next season.




Rating:

Rated TV-MA by the MPAA




Video:

Broken record stuff right here. If you've seen the previous seasons of Rick and Morty, then you've seen this one (in regards to the video). 1 single BD-50 houses all 222 minutes of the season, and the resluts are generally REALLY good. The show doesn't really stretch the limiations of animation with the simplistic style, but there is plenty of fine details and generally well done transfer moments to stay hovering just on the edge of excellence. The show is bright and colorful, with tons of primary shades (yellow and red being a huge one) and very minimal artifacting. about the only thing that I could find that was remotely problematic was some occasional banding that came and went throughout the season. Otherwise, spot on great looking image.








Audio:

Instead of a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 core, we have DTS-HD MA 5.1 mix this go around, and outside of being recorded a bit hotter than the TrueHD track, is largely the same expereince. There's lots of swooshing and roaring of Rick's spacecraft as they jump from planet to planet, some heavy explosions to rock the subwoofers, but mostly this is a fairly front heavy track with some random ambient chaos thrown in for good measure to spice up the surruonds. The latter half of the season (as well as the Die Hard episode) get REALLY chaotic and bring out the surrounds a lot more, but overall this is a typical excellent 5.1 TV show mix.






Extras:

• Rick and Morty: Inside Season 6 – Take a trip through the show's portal-less sixth season with co-creator Dan Harmon, co-executive producer Steve Levy, showrunner Scott Marder, and writers Heather Anne Campbell, Albro Lundy, Rob Schrab and James Siciliano
• Anatomy of a Scene: "Bethic Twinstinct" (Featurette) – Co-creator Dan Harmon, showrunner Scott Marder, director Douglas Einar Olsen and writer Anne Lane dig into the carcasses of two scenes while you stare at them in a numb trance.
• Anatomy of a Scene: "Night Family" (Featurette) – Clock the most extensive car chase in the series' history with co-executive producer Albro Lundy, showrunner Scott Marder, writer Rob Schrab and director Jacob Hair.
• Anatomy of a Scene: "Analyze " (Featurette) – Co-creator Dan Harmon, showrunner Scott Marder, director Fill Marc Sagadraca and writer James Siciliano go blow-for-blow on Jerry's fight with Pissmaster.
• 10 Inside the Episodes (Featurettes) – Take a deeper look into each of the ten episodes from the season.

Final Score:
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Yeah, it’s not hard to say that I’m a mega fan of Rick and Morty. It’s that perfect blend of bizarre and insightful and hilarity that makes for an incredibly funny watch. I don’t think that there was an episode this season that didn’t have me laughing out loud as hard I could (except maybe the episode where Beth and Space Beth hook up, that was kind of bland), and once more, I can’t wait for more. The Blu-ray looks and sounds as great as expected, and the Steelbook is classy as usual (there is a regular release as well for those who don’t want the steelbook packaging). The only annoying thing that I noticed was that this is the ONLY set since the series began that doesn’t come with a digital copy. Either way, still a blast and well worth picking up.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Justin Roiland, Chris Parnell, Spencer Grammer, Sarah Chalke, Kari Wahlgreen
Created by: Dan Harmon, Justin Roiland
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, French, German DD 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH, French, German, Dutch
Studio: Warner
Rated: TV-MA
Runtime: 222 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: March 28th, 2023

Recommendation: Great Buy for the Fans

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. I also enjoy this series and will take a look.