Rick and Morty: Season 7 - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Rick and Morty: Season 7



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


​

Movie
Pandemic was basically spent by yours truly binge watching Rick & Morty over and over again while waiting for the coof plague to leave us along and we could come out and socialize with people once more. Unlike most of Covid content, Rick & Morty actually maintained creative integrity throughout the whole ordeal, pumping out some of the best years of the 7 season show during that 3 year (ish, depending on the state) period and even managed to stay afloat after the “foibles” of co-creator Justin Rolland came to light in the court system. Unfortunately season 7 was where he had to permanently part ways with his own creation, leaving a massive hole to fill as he voiced both Morty himself AND his grandfather Rick Sanchez, which meant that they had to re-cast the main characters and get them as close to the original sound of Rick and Morty as they possibly could. End result? They made some solid casting decisions, and outside of Rick sounding decidedly more nasally this time, they did a REALLY good job at making the new voice actors sound just like the original.

However, while most fans won’t really notice the voice changes except in passing, you will notice that this season was the first in several seasons that has suffered a loss of quality compared to previous seasons. It’s not that season 7 is bad or sub par, it’s just that it feels a bit rote and bland in comparison to what we’re used to. The episodes are funny and have spice, but there’s not a lot of serialized cohesion this go around. I mean, I loved the gangster war with Jerricky, and the fun of having Hugh Jackman on to lampoon himself was pretty stinking funny, but for some reason nothing really “stood out” this year. We loop back to previous seasons with Rick finally having to deal with Rick Prime once and for all, buuuuuuuut the real fun comes in the gruesome season finale that manages to be one of the better finales of the series despite being backed up by a “mid” set of episodes for the rest of the season.

Justin’s loss may or may not have affected the season’s quality, but needless to say that this is going to be one of those filler seasons that is mainly there for the occasional funny episode punctuated by a couple of real good ones (the mid season cliffhanger with Rick Prime and the season finale mostly). The gang are still getting in waaaaaaaaaaaaay more trouble than they should, Summer is still getting told to shut up, and Rick and Jerry both are finding a weird way to mesh as actual friends for once (literally meshing in the Freaky Friday Jerricky episode). All in all, it’s a fun jaunt that has continued for 7 years with an 8th on the way, so fans better buckle up for more craziness.




Rating:

Rated TV-MA by the MPAA




Video:

Yada yada yada, nearly identical to the previous season, yada yada yada. Yeah I know, the record is still broken, but I still can't see any major difference between this season of Rick & Morty and previous seasons, so this is gonna be a rehash. A single BD-50 houses all 225 minutes of the show and it looks REALLY great in HD. the show doesn't stretch the limitations of the art style, and stays well within bandwidth limitations due to the simplistic animation aesthetic used. As such, the image maintains a crisp, clean and well defined image that doesn't suffer from banding or crush ala most Warner animatmed TV shows (or movies like stuff from the DCAU). Blacks are deep adn inky, with a a ton of neon shades for the primary color palatte of the series itsef. Simply put, fantastic looking image.





Audio:

Utilizing a DTS-HD MA 5.1 track instead of a Dolby TrueHD mix I find the audio roughly the same quality as previous seasons as well. Dialog is crisp and clean in the center of the room, and the swooshing of Rick’s spaceship, or the blasting of energy beam weapons sizzle from around and behind the listener with a wonderful use of the surround channels. I’d pretty much say this was a near reference track except for the fact that I feel the bass was a LITTLE weak for what we’ve seen of the show so far. It’s not incredible, but certain door slams and ship crashes feel a bit softer than I remember, and could have used some mild punch in the low end to really make this track near perfect. As such it’s simply a “good” mix.







Extras:

• 10 Inside the Episodes (Featurettes) – Take a deeper look into each of the ten episodes from the season.
• Directing Unmortricken (Featurette) – Jacob Hair walks us through the challenges of making one of the most ambitious and action-packed episodes in the series history, centered on the climatic showdown between Rick and his arch-nemesis.
• The Characters of Season 7 – A wide-ranging look at how the character team crafted this season's most impressive and challenging new designs. For example, how did the team create Jerricky, which consists of fusing two iconic characters together.
• Inside Season 7- A deep dive on S7's biggest story shifts and reveals, plus an overall look at the making of the season from the perspective of various members of the crew.

Final Score:
​

Rick & Morty has survived 7 seasons with a premise that would make most people think it would be canceled after 2-3 seasons. Even with the hiccup of Justin Rolland being forced to leave the show and recasting both Rick AND Morty, things turned out pretty decent. We’re definitely missing Rolland’s flair for the satire and his biting wit, but the show is still rather fun in spite of that. Warner’s Blu-ray release looks and sounds excellent, with a slightly boosted array of extras this year. As such, I”m going to give my default Rick & Morty recommendation “solid watch for fans” simply due to the fact that like many Cartoon Network shows, it’s an acquired taste.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Ian Cardoni, Harry Belden Chris Parnell, Spencer Grammer, Sarah Chalke, Kari Wahlgreen
Created by: Dan Harmon, Justin Roiland
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, French, DD 2.0, German DD 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, German, Dutch
Studio: Warner
Rated: TV-MA
Runtime: 225 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: March 12th, 2024

Recommendation: Decent Watch for the Fans