South Park: The Complete Eighth Season Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

South Park: The Complete Eighth Season Blu-ray Movie Review

Season Eight: It's ON!!!

South Park's past few seasons have been stellar, seasons that dazzled then and hold up now. Eight is no different, offering a string of high energy, laugh-out-loud, pointed and insightful episodes that cover a myriad of topics from the (then and now) timely to the (then and now) absurd. The season can be crude and cruel in an episode featuring Cartman working feverishly to pass himself off as mentally handicapped in order to compete in and, he assumes, win the Special Olympics and earn a pretty penny in the process. The season rips on movies like The Passion of the Christ and You Got Served, has some fun with Michael Jackson, and deals with societal issues that were hot-button then and still prevalent now, such as corporate behemoths seizing control of the business sphere and illegal immigration; South Park's illegals are disguised as future visitors coming to take ever shrinking pay for their work. There's even a "fake news" episode. The season's best episode is the politically charged "Douche and a Turd" in which the school is forced to change its "insensitive" mascot; the episode quickly evolves into a commentary on the modern political landscape, where two undesirable candidates are often pitted against one another in critical elections. The episode aired on the eve of the 2004 Presidential election in which incumbent Republican George W. Bush defeated Democratic challenger John Kerry.

Where's Stan?

• Good Times with Weapons: At a local fair, the boys purchase ninja weapons and imagine themselves as older, larger, more buff than they are. They undertake an adventure around town, refuse Butters the opportunity to play with them, and find their arch nemesis in an infuriated Professor Chaos. But when one of the boys is seriously injured, the rest hatch a plan to pass him off as a dog to allow the local vet to treat him so as to avoid punishment for their actions.
• Up the Down Steroid: Jimmy and Timmy are competing in the Special Olympics. They’re facing stiff competition this year, and Jimmy gives in to the temptation to take steroids to help him bulk up and be the best athlete he can be. Meanwhile, Cartman decides to pretend to be handicapped, enter the games, and dominate the less mentally and physically able.
• The Passion of the Jew: Cartman is still getting on Kyle for his Jewish heritage, and Kyle is still fighting back against the crude prejudice. But when the boys see The Passion of the Christ, Kyle begins to wonder if his heritage is indeed as Cartman has claimed all along. Meanwhile, Stan and Kenny see the film, hate it, and seek out Mel Gibson to secure an $18 refund, claiming it to be a “snuff film” not worthy of their entertainment dollar.
• You Got F’d in the A: The boys “get served” while playing with their remote control cars. The boys have no idea how to respond, or even what it means to be “served.” Stan’s dad teaches him to respond with a little line dancing to “Achy Breaky Heart” which leads to a major throw-down in just a few days. It’s on!
• Awesom-O: Butters receives a huge package from Japan. Inside he finds a robot programmed to serve him and him alone. Little does he know it’s Cartman in disguise, who is determined to find an incriminating tape Butters is hiding depicting him playing dress-up as Britney Spears.
• The Jeffersons: The boys are enamored with “Mr. Jefferson,” a boy trapped in a man’s body whose home is filled with amazing toys. Soon all of the South Park children are hanging out at his house. Cartman is in love, but Kyle realizes that a boy living with Jefferson, “Blanket,” is being neglected. The police want to bring Jefferson down because he’s rich and black.
• Goobacks: Cartman is running a snow shoveling business. He makes Stan, Kyle, and Kenny do the work while he “negotiates” prices with the customers. The boys learn that a man from the year 3045 has arrived in the present. It turns out he’s looking for work, and more and more follow. They’re happy to work for next to nothing, and they’re even taking the boys’ snow shoveling jobs. Their arrival engenders a crisis for everyday working Americans.

• Douche and Turd: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals protests the school’s mascot, the cow, declaring it a slave and commodity for slaughter. The school decides to change its mascot and allows the students to vote on a new one. However, the boys decide to flood the vote with off-color options: “Giant Douche” and "Turd Sandwich," with Kyle supporting the former, Cartman the latter, and Stan’s vote up for grabs.
• Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes: A new superstore opens in South Park, which means lower local prices but at the cost of local identity and the shuttering of small businesses around town.
• Pre-School: Trent, a bullying pre-schooler who has served time in juvenile hall, is being released and coming back to school. The news sends the boys into a panic, flashing back to their experiences with him in preschool and seeking help from older kids for protection.
• Quest for Ratings: The boys are delivering crack news reporting to the student body at South Park Elementary. However, Craig’s new animal program is forcing them off the air. They rally to improve their show in effort to get back on the air, even if it means resorting to reporting on grossly sensationalized stories.
• Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset: Paris Hilton is appearing at the South Park Mall for the grand opening of her new store, Stupid Spoiled Whore. All of the town's girls are thrilled to see their idol and buy her products, except for Wendy, who doesn't see the attraction and loathes the image Hilton promotes. Meanwhile, Paris decides to adopt Butters as her new "pet."
• Cartman's Incredible Gift: Cartman decides that he can fly off of his roof with some cardboard wings. His attempt is, of course, a failure. He winds up in the hospital in a deep coma. He awakens after two days, and it turns out that the local police believe that he’s been gifted with psychic abilities. He is recruited to solve challenging murder cases.
• Woodland Critter Christmas: A traditional/nontraditional Christmas story in which local woodland creatures are celebrating the season. Stan stumbles upon them and learns that they are celebrating the arrival of their "savior."

South Park: The Complete Eighth Season Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

South Park: The Complete Eighth Season is another colorful and impressively detailed outing. As is the norm with the show on Blu-ray, the innate textural delights -- the construction paper texturing -- are easy to see, and it's consistently well defined and organic. Lines are generally clean but occasional bursts of jaggies do interfere. Colors are the unquestionable highlight; there's a richness to the palette, as monochromatic as each color may be, but there's no shortage of intensive and expertly defined reds, blues, greens, yellows, oranges...all of the staple South Park colors are handsomely intense and revealing. Beyond the occasional jaggies and a few minor encode issues there's no room for complaint here.

South Park: The Complete Eighth Season Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

South Park: The Complete Eighth Season features the series-on-Blu-ray-standard Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless soundtrack, and it's another good one. The opening theme music delivers satisfying instrumental spacing and clarity along with well defined vocals and a healthy low end prominence. The track offers good general musical clarity, whether essential series refrains or bursts of high energy, bass-happy beats like a portion of Who Let the Dogs Out that plays during Douche, an episode that also offers quality reverberation effects in the school gymnasium. General action effects -- the usual South Park chaos -- are handled well, offering room-filling details and discrete elements alike. Dialogue is clear, well prioritized, and center-focused.

South Park: The Complete Eighth Season Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

South Park: The Complete Eighth Season contains only the "mini commentaries" for each episode. Parker and Stone talk up the episodes in short-burst chunks.

South Park: The Complete Eighth Season Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Season eight offers another wonderfully witty, continually crude, and endlessly enjoyable romp through the small, snowy Colorado mountain town. Hitting a myriad of social topics, ripping on a few celebrities, and pushing more and more boundaries, it's a quintessential season amongst a number of great ones. South Park: The Complete Eighth Season's Blu-ray release delivers, again, solid 1080p video and enjoyable 5.1 channel lossless audio. Extras include the Parker and Stone mini commentary tracks. Highly recommended.