The Energon Pub

[Judge Deliberata]

So, let's be honest. Us Canadians' options are narrowed down by some as we don't tend to always get the cool stuff available down south. Some of us don't have oodles of bucks to spend on multiple versions of the DVD, so we must choose. Here's a bit of a breakdown, partly copy-pased from my post in the "Canada gets Shafted on Best Buy..." post in the Toys forum:

We don't have Target up here, so there's one down. Badaboom.

Picking it up at TRU nets you gift cards. Nice, but nothing special.

Best Buy offered a lithograph of Megatron if you preordered, and if you ever wanted a large pic of Megs' movie concept sketch next to a view of him standing atop a building from the end of the movie, you're in luck: That's what you got.

But the fun doesn't end there: The Best Buy Gift set is neutered for Canadians. No Metallic Ratchet or Megatron. We get a box which contains the standard 2-disc edition of the DVD, a booklet, and a random 3'' Titanium figure, which the box says is one out of four - I got battle damaged Optimus, and Galvatron was acquired as well by another member her in the toys forum.

The only benefit of the Wal-Mart pack is 'Beginnings', which is as stated elsewhere, a little animatic of IDW's prequel comic. This is nice for those who want to hear Peter Cullen say about two or three more lines as Prime, and hear Frank Welker as Megatron for a bit. Bumblebee narrates some of it. Sam and Agent Simmons sound nothing like their respective actors. Starscream's voice here is quasi-G1-esque - I like it!

However, Beginnings is as far as I can tell only available with the single-disc edition of the movie. So if you pick that up, no special features for you.

As I understand it, purchasing the film as Sears nabs you a LED flashlight or some sort. Sadly, this is about as unique as store-exclusive extra objects go if you're Canadian, and I don't even know if this applies to Canada as well. I did not see it today when I looked.

Future Shop has 2 steel case editions, one with the Autobot logo (Protect written on bottom), and the other with the Decep logo (Destroy). This is the same package as the 2-disc special edition. Only thing different is the packaging.

In the end, if you have to pick one, I think you're best off choosing between the Wal-Mart, and Future Shop editions, depending on whether you'd like a sweet looking black steel case as well as "Making-of" featurettes, etc, or a nice little semi-cartoon of about 20 minutes' length. Overall I'd say the Best Buy gift set is a waste of time for us Canucks, unless you want pics of the characters and a 3'' Titanium readily available anywhere else.

Has anyone in Canada even seen the Sears LED flashlight bonus?[/b]