Menu Madness

Navigate the Back to Earth DVD with these delicious screens.

5 June, 2009

It has become traditional on the 'main' Red Dwarf DVDs - those bonus-packed multi-discers - for the menus to be based on the ship interiors from the show. And the Back to Earth DVD is nothing if not traditional.

Once again authored by the fantastic team at Deluxe Digital, this two-set includes graphical recreations of the bunkroom (where, for each and every series, we have always located the bonus material) and diving bell. Though for the main menu, Back to Earth's effects whizz Mike Seymour combined the existing CG G-Deck with some live footage and some nifty new animation. Clever bloke.

Upon start-up a skutter trundles into the foreground and... well, gives you the finger. 'Disc One', y'see. He rolls away and we rack focus to the boys from the Dwarf - plus Katerina - firing up the dimension cutter.

Hitting Episode Selection will take you to the diving bell. 2entertain sent a photographer down to Shepperton to get pictures of both this set and the sleeping quarters, making the best of an extremely tight production period to allow Deluxe to accurately match the final shows. The sound effects, too, are suitably Dwarfy and atmospheric.

In a change from the norm, all the options appear in the foreground, rather than being built into the sets. Here the camera circles slowly around the bell behind the options... and brace for a surprise as massive squid tentacles burst into the set. (They're also used for nifty transitions, smacking the screen and wiping away to reveal the scene selection, leaving a brief, inky smear on your TV. Lovely.)

Meanwhile, over on disc two...

A two-fingered salute from Bob this time, since it's the second disc, and this time the move away from G-deck will take you into the sleeping quarters. Once again the camera cycles smoothly around the room in a full 360 turn with the options in the foreground - no more identifying the props to find the content you want! - and there are a few static sub-menus for some of the individual bits and pieces.

As you know from our previous update, there's a huge wealth of bonus content to choose from, but the centrepiece of disc two remains the two-part 'Making of Back to Earth' documentary - the latter half bringing almost 50 minutes of unseen documentary footage to your eyeballs.

Oh, but if you fancy a brief teaser of the cast messing about in the Signing Session featurette, Dave have an exclusive sneak-peak clip.

But where's the hidden Easter Egg this time?! We're not telling... at least not right now. But if you have the previous DVDs, now would be a good time to check out our Easter Egg Guide - amuse yourselves with some hidden extras until Back to Earth arrives.

Red Dwarf: Back to Earth is released on DVD in the UK on June 15th.