Jonah Hex - DVD & Blu-Ray review

Well, I dropped the big bucks and picked up the DVD Blu-Ray digital copy version of Jonah Hex and I watched it and the special features. Let's take a look at it together, shall we?

Since the special features are only available on the Blu-Ray, a lot of folks won't be seeing them but I'll try to recap what little you're missing. First up, the deleted scenes, all three of them. We get to see a very rough scene of Jonah at night walking into a cemetery in the French Quarter, rough CGI crows following along with him. A weird Cajun funeral procession meets Jonah and a young Black boy with no pupils sits up in the casket and points across the graveyard. Jonah heads the direction the boy pointed.

Second scene is Jonah riding along, another rider on a horse following him, the rider is obviously dead. Lt. Evan and several soldiers appear to take Jonah to Grass. Jonah states that they should at least bury his partner first. Evan gets a puzzled look on his face and Jonah turns to find the horse and the dead rider are gone. Evan offers him a drink, Hex takes it, spilling quite a bit through his cheek and he sorta growls (this was seen in the trailer after Fox asks him "Can you?")

Next we have a scene on a stagecoach with Lilah and Doc Williams. Remember Doc Williams? He was the guy that had one line in the fight tent (not the guy Hex was talking to). Anyway, this takes place after the tent burns down and it is basically Williams being creepy and Lilah being bored.

The next special feature is the history of Jonah Hex comprised of talking points from Dan Didio, Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, Tim Truman, John Landsdale and Tony DeZuniga (wearing the worst wig I have ever seen in my life!). It was good to hear Jimmy and Justin talk about Hex, Tony was fantastic to watch, Didio? meh. Landsdale? Dear lord in heaven, I wanted to punch the man in the face. On camera he confesses that his stories were based on a faulty memory that he had of the character. Joe thought that Hex always had heavy supernatural elements so he wanted to recreate that. So DC decides to publish stories based on a bad memory? ARRRRGHHHH. I almost laughed as some of the folks talk about the wide range of writers and the several incarnations that there has been of Hex. Hmm, Writers? How about FOUR (counting J&J as one)! Incarnations? Three!! Superman has gone through more. Firestorm has gone through more!!!

And, of course, there is no mention whatsoever of Michael Fleisher, the man who wrote more Jonah Hex stories than everyone else combined!!! I can see why I wasn't contacted to be in the special features, I would have probably gone ballistic halfway through any interview. (hmmmm, I might have to shoot my OWN interview. Hmmmmm)

The last special feature is one that runs alongside the movie as a picture in a picture and it talks about how they shot various scenes, built sets, did special effects. I haven't watched the whole thing with this feature but it is fairly interesting so far (I have gotten up to the train explosion).

Tomorrow, I'll cover what I think is the main travesty of the whole Jonah Hex movie.