Le Roi Lion | Skip Intro

One of Chloé's birthday presents was The Lion King on DVD. The first disk has two versions of the film on it: the original, and the new so-called Special Edition. The second disk is full of rubbish, as far as I can see, but whatever.

The subject here is... DVD menus. Why are they so bad? The current trend in DVD menus is equivalent to the web-design trend in lengthy and pointless Flash animations. Except, and here's the point, whereas with a flash intro you occasionally still get the plonker who omits the crucial "Skip Intro" button, on a DVD the "Skip Intro" button is always missing.

Please stop now.

Two versions of the film, right? But where is the second? Er... If you choose "Set Up" and then "Languages", voila. You can choose among various confusingly named versions: Special Edition DTS French, Special Edition Dobly Digital French, Special Edition Dobly Digital English, and so on with the original version.

What? We're deep deep here into head-up-arseness on the part of the DVD production team. How many people ever go into the DVD setup menu to choose another language? Huh? We do, because some of us are English and some of us are French, but most people I'd have thought will stick with whatever comes on by default, unless they happen to be anal home cinema buffs, which I dearly hope is a tiny minority.

No explanation on the DVD packaging, by the way, on how to find the other version(s) of the film.

But worse than this (?), all DVDs punish you with poor interfacing and shoddy menus. First of all we have to sit through the copyright warning. And if you try desperately to skip it, you get, "This Operation Prohibited By Disc."

What? Haven't I just paid for this? I've paid for it, and every time I use it you're going to make me sit through this?

And then the trailers, particularly on Disney discs, many of which still don't allow you to skip directly to the menu.

And then the bloody menu itself, preceded by a seemingly interminable and pointless animation or mini movie. By this time, steam is coming out of my ears. I JUST WANT TO PRESS PLAY AND SEE THE FECKING FILM PLEASE.

It's as if you buy a book, and turn to the first page, and then have to wait for all the words to appear, one by one, in reverse order, before you can start to read.

Here's a tip, 12-year-old interface designers: Just because you can do a thing, doesn't mean you should do a thing. Please spare people your genius. Small doses please.

The animation belongs in the film, not in the menus. Even if it's cute the first time, it's certainly not by the 20th play.