William Hurt was offered the role of Dr Grant but turned the role down without even reading the script, another actor to turn the role down was Harrison Ford.

The agents for the author of the book (Michael Crichton) circulated it to six major studio's, Warner Bros wanted Tim Burton to direct while Columbia had plans for Richard Donner to direct, Twentieth Century Fox intended it as a project for Joe Dante while Universal wanted Steven Spielberg to direct.  Crichton did not want a bidding war and instructed his agents to set a price on the film rights and allow him to decide on the director, after he interviewed everyone he agreed to sell the rights to Universal for $2 million dollars (before it was even published) and Spielberg was his first choice as director.  This was Richard Attenborough's first acting role in fifteen years.

The glass of water sitting on the dashboard of the car just before the T-Rex appears was made to ripple using a guitar string that was attached to the underside of the dash beneath the glass.  Sean Connery was wanted for the part of John Hammond but he too turned it down.

Any shot of a full dinosaur in the film is usually CGI, any scene where you see a part of a dinosaur is usually an animatronic model.  There was originally a baby triceratops scene where the kids ride it, they worked on this scene for an entire year but Spielberg cut it from the film as he thought it ruined the pacing of the movie.

Hurricane Iniki hit the island of Kauai during production and Fred Sorenson was one of the pilots who flew some of the crew away, he played the part of Jock in Raiders Of The Lost Ark, he flies Indiana Jones away from the natives at the start of the film.

Jurassic Park was the first film released to cinemas to use DTS digital sound.  A scene cut before filming began was to have featured Dr Grant and the children riding down a river and through a waterfall and having the T-Rex attack them. 

Juliette Binoche and Robin Wright were both offered the role of Dr Ellie Sattler but both turned it down.  Other actresses offered the role of Ellie Sattler are Jodie Foster, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Pfeiffer, Ally Sheedy, Geena Davis, Daryl Hannah, Jennifer Grey, Kelly McGillis, Jamie Lee Curtis, Julia Roberts, Linda Hamilton, Sarah Jessica Parker, Joan Cusack, and Debra Winger. 

Filming finished tweleve days ahead of schedule and on budget.  Velociraptors were much smaller than seen in the film, indeed they are considered to be more the size of a turkey but paleontologists have uncovered a 10 foot tall offshoot of the species called Utahraptors.

Film Plot

Scientists use the latest development in DNA technology to clone dinosaurs for a spectacular new theme park, but owner, John Hammond, needs Dr Alant Grant, Dr Ellie Sattler and Dr Ian Malcolm to sign off on the idea or his insurers will shut the park down, unbeknown to Hammond, one of his employees, seeking finanical gain from a rival company, has tampered with the park's security system and the dinosaurs escape forcing the visitors to fight for their lives.

Who will survive against the might of the T-Rex or the cunning intelligence of the Velociraptor, will anyone escape Jurassic Park alive!

Positives

Jurassic Park takes its story from a very good book, it alters things but always to good effect, the storyline builds up slowly and we get to know the characters and when the dinosaurs break loose we are able to identify with the protagonists as they attempt to keep from being the dinosaurs next meal, if we disliked the characters then the film would fail, now that doesn't mean that everyone will like the children in the film, they do scream a lot, but i'm sure you will at least like one or two of the characters, if you don't like them then maybe you will like the actors who play the characters, my point is that the film succeeds on a basic level because the script gives us normal people who we can root for, i have seen far too many films featuring obnoxious characters that are dispatched by some unknown "killer" and you end up not caring, think about how many horror films feature poorly written characters who listen to heavy metal and have a screw the world attitude, stereotypical they may be but too many films feature such people, thats why i enjoy films like this which feature likeable people who have strong personalities.

I think Jeff Goldblum is much better in this film than in the sequel, he plays the oddball better than the hero and is more likeable here with much better dialogue, his explanation of the chaos theory where he flirts with Miss Dern is fun, the speech where he talks about always being on the lookout for a future ex Mrs Malcolm is amusing when you consider he has been married twice and also dated ( after this film ) Laura Dern for two years, you can see the sly glint in his eye and he is relishing those lines of dialogue.

Sam Neill brings a lot to this film, from subtle mannerisms seen in his eyes and face to the way he voices his dialogue, i find he brings much to the role of Dr Grant, his chemistry with Laura Dern is good and Spielberg gets a great performance from him, he had made some big movies prior to this but starring in a huge summer blockbuster like Jurassic Park can only be good for your career, and bank balance.

John Williams composed an iconic piece of music for Jurassic Park, as soon as you hear it you recognize it, it is sorely missed from the sequel but returns for the third movie, it can be quite subtle at times, the closing moments when the helicopter leaves the island and we see the birds flying is an example of that, a beautiful scene to end a film and the music really enhances the mood and atmosphere of that scene.

John Hammond, as played by Richard Attenborough, says in the film that he is a perfectionist, his character is often likened to Spielberg, who is also a perfectionist, i think his direction on this film is flawless, you can see he wanted to bring something unique to the screen, stop motion dinosaurs were not good enough, he wanted realism that only CGI could provide, without that level of realism, Spielberg would have passed on the film, i can think of very few directors who can entertain and make great movies the way that Steven Spielberg can, he will go down in history as one of the greatest film directors of all time and i think he made Jurassic Park into a very good film, it would have been a poorer film in less capable hands.

There isn't much CGI in this film but it blends well with the animatronic models, i think the CGI is more effective in this film than some of the movies made today, which, in my opinion, overuse it.

 Negatives

Some people may find the children a little annoying as they tend to shriek and scream during some of the more frenetic dinosaur attack scenes, personally i thought they were ok and did a good job with the material given to them but its worth mentioning as not everyone will share my opinion.  The main theme may be a little overused, though i still enjoyed it.

I did not like the packaging for the Jurassic Park trilogy, i think it will damage easily, its already showing signs of wear and tear, and i would prefer individual cases for each movie.

Image Quality

Transfer quality is good in some scenes but drops to just average in other scenes, i saw mild halos in some scenes which are visible around high contrast areas of the image, sometimes it's subtle and at other times it stands out more, the most detailed moments of the film are scenes where film grain is prominent.  Universal have applied digital noise reduction to some scenes and fine detail drops during those moments, some of these scenes contain halo's and i think this is due to edge sharpening being applied in order to compensate for grain reduction.

Long distance and medium camera setups exhibit some degree of edge sharpening to varying levels and show grain reduction also to varying levels, closeups seem much better although i still noticed the odd halo, there is also a little gate weave during the opening credits, thats not really an issue, the halos visible on some scenes are an issue.

I do wonder if the first dinosaur scene and some of the edge halos is due to how it was put together, actors were shot against a green screen, and the Brachiosaurus, trees and scenery were composited in separately, maybe this early CGI was soft and they felt they needed the scene to be sharpened up for its cinema release, well if that is the case then why does the next scene with Jeff Goldblum in the car contain an edge halo around his shoulder, that is not a scene containing CGI or green screen work, this all points to Universal applying edge sharpening to some parts of the transfer.  I have written to Universal asking for more information and enquired whether edge sharpening is standard practice for Universal releases.

As i say above, i felt the scenes which had the most film grain, were the scenes which also looked the most detailed, these scenes are also the moments which other sites have criticized as being "too grainy" and i should say that just because you see a little film grain does not mean its actually all there and intact, i felt that some scenes in the film had mild grain reduction applied and these moments also contain edge enhancement, it should be noted that its normal for scenes shot at night to contain more film grain than scenes which were shot during the day.

Steven Spielberg is seen discussing the film in extra content which is new to this particular release, the latest information points to this being a new transfer from a brand new film scan, why then is there no mention of this on the box artwork and why would Mr Spielberg approve a transfer with edge halos, a few questions to ponder but so far no answers.

Below i include two images featuring edge halos where i thought grain reduction had taken place and where i considered the detail levels to be poor, i also include two screencaps with film grain where i thought detail levels were good, view the screencaps below and judge for yourself, bear in mind that film grain in motion looks far more natural than as seen in these pictures.

View some additional blu ray screencaps from Jurassic Park by clicking here.

Sound Quality

Jurassic Park was a reference soundtrack back in 1993, i have always considered it to be excellent, i don't know if the mix was altered when they made it 7.1 but it just does not seem as powerful and as rich as i remember it, at times it is very good, but i was expecting a better sound mix, more bass, a richer musical score, more dynamic range, an airy quality to it all, it seems to me that the problem lies with the dynamic range being a little neuteured and the 7.1 re-mix has lessened the dynamics of the original soundtrack, now when i talk about dynamic range i mean the difference between the quietest sounds and the loudest, too often you will find they re-mix and lessen the range and thus the difference between a whisper and a t-rex roar could for example be 25db less than originally mixed, it can seriously affect the sound quality.  I expected to feel the bass but only heard it, it didn't seem as deep as i remember it being.

I do like many elements of the sound mix, take a listen to the scene at the beginning of the film when the velociraptor is transported to the island, it grabs a guard and you hear some nice sound effects from your rear, front and center speakers and the subwoofer kicks in for some additional bass weight, during the Gallimimus stampede you hear individual sounds on your rear and front speakers and the bass is deep and powerful

The Velociraptors feeding on the cow, is a frenzy of sound design, with all your speakers getting a good workout, the first appearance of the T-Rex disappointed me, maybe its the rose tinted glasses, but i always thought the bass was very deep during that scene, it didn't seem so deep here, though i did feel, that the attack on the car that follows this scene, did sound good, and the speakers all got a good workout.

I expected this to sound better, it does sound very good at times, i question the dynamic range and the richness of the sound quality, i wonder if its a little compressed, my memory of how this should sound may be affecting my judgment, there were a few occasions when speech was slightly hard to make out, but that was due to the cast members mumbling their lines, and its probably an intentional part of the mix, the thing is, i have recently watched The Lion King, it was released just one year after this, it sounds phenomenal on blu ray, the music score, richness of the soundtrack, and dynamic range of that film sounds absolutely fantastic, i was not as impressed by Jurassic Park, and i should be, i feel the sound mix has far more potential than what is offered on this blu ray.

Final Thoughts

It has been a long wait for Jurassic Park on blu ray, and i'm a little disappointed in both the image and sound quality, the image because there is some digital noise reduction applied, and edge sharpening to compensate, and the sound because i think the mix has been neutered and compressed, just because you see lossless on the label don't for one moment think you are always getting a bit for bit identical to the master sound mix, you are not, too often you get alterations, dynamic compression happens when they re-mix for near field environments and to my ears it affects the overall sound quality on this release.  John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) says he spared no expense while talking about his theme park, unfortunately, i think Universal all too often go cheap with their releases and think a small application of DNR or EE can make something look better, my opinion on this release is that i think its just average, although its better than most Universal back catalog releases, so that is something to cherish.  This is actually the first Steven Spielberg film on blu ray that has disappointed me, i hope its the last to disappoint me.

This blu ray is by no means a disaster, but in my opinion it's less than it could be, if all you want is picture quality that is better than the DVD, then this release will satisfy you, if you crave a release that looks like film from beginning to end, then you will be disappointed.  Universal should not be adding edge enhancement or DNR on their blu ray films, their new releases look very good, this only happens with their back catalog titles, i wish it would stop, most people don't notice edge enhancement, if they did spot it, it would drive them crazy.

Jurassic Park 4 is in the pipeline, Jeff Goldblum and Sam Neill may be reprising their roles, as Dr Ian Malcolm and Dr Alan Grant, its rumoured that Laura Dern may also come back as Dr Ellie Sattler, i'm not sure if i like that idea, maybe they should start afresh with a new script, have Lex or Tim Murphy, now all grown up, appearing in the new film, still, its early days and not much is known, other than the fact that Spielberg seems to think the script is very good, mind you, didn't he tell the press that the script for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was great too, but his true feelings were shared by Shia Lebouf and Harrison Ford, and that is, they thought the script was crap, hopefully it really is a good script, and i look forward to seeing it sometime in 2013, maybe Universal will revisit these films in 2013, it will be the 20th anniversary and i expect the movies to get individual releases outside of a boxset.

David Newman composed the music score for this film, his father composed the music score for the 1956 live action version of which this edition is partly based upon. The Parisian bridge on which the final confrontation between Rasputin, Dimitri and Anastasia occurs is the Alexander the third bridge and is named after the real Anastasia Romanovs grandfather after his state visit to France in the 1870's.

The drawing that we see the Empress holding when she and Anya are reminiscing is a reproduction of the real picture that Anastasia had drawn for her father in 1914. The portrait in the ballroom of the whole family includes a dog, this dog really existed and was a spaniel named Joy, this dog belonged to Anastasia's brother, Alexei, it was found alive at the house where the family were killed.

Anastasia also had a dog and it was called Jimmy, unfortunately it did not survive the Russian revolution.

This was the first feature film from 20th Century Fox's animation division. The music box featured in the film actually existed and was given to Anastasia by Marie Feoderovna for her thirteenth birthday although it was silver with a ballerina on top.

Rasputin's real name was Gregori Efimovich and he was the Romanov's advisor and Tsarina Alexandra's trusted confidant, a rumour suggests he told the Tsarina that he was about to be assassinated and that if one of her relatives killed him then all the Romanov family would die within a year, in the film there is a reference to this featured in the song "A Rumour in St Petersburg" an old woman tells Dimitri to buy Count Yussupov's Pyjamas, Yussupov was the prince who along with other noblemen killed the real Rasputin.

Just as suggested in the film, the real Anastasia loved playing practical jokes. Advance screening prints for the film were codenamed The Train.

Film Plot

When the shadow of revolution falls across Russia, the royal family's youngest daughter barely escapes with her life. 

Years later, Anastasia and a band of heroic companions must battle the evil Rasputin, his sidekick Bartok the bat and a host of ghostly minions in a headlong race to reach Paris and reclaim her rightful destiny……and solve one of the greatest mysteries of the twentieth century!

Positives

The early parts of this film have some really good animation and songs that helped pull me into the film, the latter parts of the film have some exciting action scenes and also the song, Once Upon A December, that's a fabulous musical number, if only the middle part of the film didn't drag so much, but, i'll leave my comments about that for the negative section of this review, i liked the musical score composed by David Newman for this film and i also felt that Anastasia had good atmosphere and was well written.

The voice acting was of a high standard, i liked Meg Ryan as Anastasia, John Cusack as Dimitri and Christopher Lloyd who played the evil Rasputin, i thought Angela Lansbury stole the show with her voice performance as, The Dowager Empress Marie, she of course is no stranger to voicing animated characters having done the voice for Mrs Potts in Beauty and the Beast.

As i say above i felt some of the animation was excellent, the scene where Anastasia leaves the orphanage has snow falling and its beautifully animated and looks superb.

 Negatives

I felt the middle section of the film was not as good as the beginning or end, even the animation seemed worse, approx 40 minutes into the film, they are in a forest region and some of the background drawings looked poor to me, shorty after this i felt the start of the dream sequence was also poor, this is really minor criticism, it's just that some of the animation is excellent but then some scenes look to me to have a fall in standards, i would have liked the whole movie to have the same high standards but i felt consistency was lacking.

Animated films tend to simplify stories and keep away from controversy, considering that this is based on a true story, i would have enjoyed a harder hitting animated film but at the same time i do recognize that they are aiming these films at a younger audience and the film cannot get too dark as it would alienate the core viewers they are marketing the movie at.

The blu ray cover art could have been better, take a look at the image at the top of this review, i would have preferred they had used that artwork.

Image Quality

I saw very light film grain throughout the running time of the movie, its easier to spot during the opening credits, moments where the colour red is onscreen and some of the darker animated scenes, i also thought i saw in a handful of scenes some minor halo's around characters, i do not believe this to be edge enhancement sharpening, i think its a result of compositing the animated characters with the backgrounds, i personally didn't consider this a problem and think this is exactly what you would have seen at the cinema, just like Disney with their CAPS system, this film used digital inks and paints, so what we see on this blu ray release should be an accurate reproduction of the intended look for the movie.

Don Bluth films tend to have a darker colour palette, a more earthy tone to them, of course that is not a bad thing, i tend to like the animation on display here, it's different to Disney, you can see the same look in another Bluth production, The Secret Of NIMH, so while Disney colours tend to be bright and shiny, the colours in this film are more subtle and not so saturated, the actual look of the animated characters remind me a little of how Disney used to draw characters in their classic films, as an example, Sleeping Beauty, which was made in the 1950's.

During the boat scene i noticed a tiny bit of colour banding in the sky background, it's a small niggle and i have to say that it's not something which bothered me too much, if only blu ray had 12 bit colour or higher then banding would be a thing of the past, banding happens when you get abrupt changes of the same colour, and, although it affects live action movies, it can especially affect animated films if care is not taken when the title is produced for blu ray, you'll tend to notice it when natural gradients like sunsets, dawns or clear blue skies are shown.

This film uses some early CGI, the flying horse at the end of the film is CGI, it's not that impressive compared to some of the CGI out there but for me it worked fine, some people may find it to be a little dated, there are also some other moments in the film that are CGI such as the music box, it doesn't really blend in that well with the animation but at the same time it didn't take me out of the film, as stated above i think what Fox have delivered with this blu ray release is representative of the cinema look.

Sound Quality

During the revolution scenes at the start of the film, and the scenes which follow with Rasputin on the ice chasing Anastasia, there is an active sound field and you can hear music, dialogue and sound effects playing through all the speakers, shortly after this moment we see a grown up Anastasia leaving the orphanage, she finds a playful dog in the snow and sings the song, One Step Out Of Time, for me, that is the musical standout of the entire film, the animated visuals match up superbly with the song and it sounds superb, if you take a listen to the song A Rumor in St Petersburg you hear the entire town burst into song and the rear speakers come alive, all the speakers come to life when the musical numbers play and it sounds wonderful.

I thought the runaway train sequence as it heads towards the broken bridge was impressive, some good use of all the speakers and although the bass was never truly deep it sounded good, i also thought that the scene at roughly the 72 minute mark in the clock tower with Rasputin and Bartok sounded great with very nice individual sound directionality through all the speakers and good bass from the lightning and thunder, the final confrontation with Rasputin and the flying horse at the end of the film is another example where all the speakers are used, i should add that the rear speakers are mostly used for ambience, sometimes i could hear individual sounds on one of the speakers such as a door slamming or a dog barking.

Dialogue was always easy to hear and sounded good, no matter how loud the rest of the soundtrack was you could always make out the speech in the film.

Final Thoughts

The story of the Russian revolution is a fascinating one, i find it interesting that the British royal family, in particular King George V, could have saved the Tsar and his family but he refused them sanctuary, Nicholas the second was shot multiple times and his family bayoneted and shot in the head, it's to the shame of the British royal family that they looked after their own interests, In 1979, the bodies of Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra, three of their daughters, and those of four non family members killed with them, were discovered near Sverdlovsk by amateur archaeologist Alexander Avdonin. In January 1998, the remains were identified as Nicholas II and his family (excluding one of the sisters, and Alexei). The identifications by separate Russian, British and American scientists using DNA analysis concur and were found to be conclusive.

In July 2007, Sergei Pogorelov, a 46 year old builder who spent free weekends looking for the lost Romanov's, discovered bones that belonged to a boy and a young woman roughly the ages of Nicholas' 13-year-old son, Alexei, and a daughter whose remains also never have been found.  On 23 August 2007, prosecutors reopened the investigation surrounding the deaths of the Imperial Family.  On 30 April 2008, DNA tests proved that bone fragments exhumed in the Ural Mountains belonged to two children of Nicholas II, son Alexei and daughter Maria.  On 1 October 2008, Russia's Supreme Court ruled that Nicholas II and his family were victims of political repression and should be rehabilitated.

No film version has ever accurately told the real story of what happened in 1918 to the Tsar and his family, i have seen the 1956 film version of Anastasia, that versions screenplay is partly re-used here, both film versions have their faults and are not quite as rivetting as i believe they could be, but, nevertheless i was entertained, and the original film did get me interested in researching the history of the Romanov family and the real story of the Russian revolution.

I think the animation in this film is not up to the same standards as some of Disney's output of the 1990's, but, i still enjoyed it, in particular i felt that the musical numbers and voice acting was of a very high standard, there is a lot more to animation than just Disney, i recommend people check out Stduio Ghibli as just one example of a different type of animation, you will be pleasantly surprised and may even find your mind opening up to a whole new world of animation that you never even knew existed.

The original opening to The Lion King was going to be a quiet dialogue driven sequence but Hans Zimmer,who composed the music for the film, made two versions of the opening scene, Disney were so impressed with his interpretation of the circle of life they changed the intended beginning to what you now see in the film.  The film was dubbed into Zulu for it's African release.

Many people thought they saw the letters sex in a scene where Simba collapses on the cliff after talking to Timon and Pumbaa about stars, the dust that flies off the cliff actually formed the letters SFX, an abbreviation of the special effects team that worked on that part of the film.

The movie was originally titled King Of The Jungle and was going to be about African lions living in the jungle, it then dawned on the production team that lions do not actually live in the jungle, the phrase King Of The Jungle is still used on certain t-shirts sold in Disney stores.  The wildebeest stampede took Disney's computer graphics department almost three years to make. 

The film plot is loosely based on William Shakespeare's Hamlet, that story is of a young Prince from Denmark whose uncle takes over the Kingdom and marries the Queen ( Hamlet's mother ) after killing the Prince's father who was King.

When Mufasa tells Simba about the great Kings of the past if you look at the stars in the wide shot you can see Mickey Mouse, also in that scene Mufasa explains to Simba that the stars are old Kings and you can see the constellation of Leo ( The Lion ) in the sky.  The team who worked on this film were supposedly Disney's Team "B" with Team "A" working on Pocahontas. 

Several characters names are based on Swahili words;
*Shenzi: Barbarous/Uncouth/Uncivilized/Savage
*Sarabi: Mirage
*Rafiki: Comrade/Friend
*Simba: Lion/Courageous Warrior
*Nala: Gift

This is the second film in which James Earl Jones and Madge Sinclair perform together as an African King and Queen, they were King and Queen of a fictional African nation in the Eddie Murphy comedy film, Coming To America.  There is controversy about certain elements of the film bearing a resemblance to a 1960s Japanese anime tv show called Kimba the White Lion.

This was Gregory Peck's favourite animated film, he also considered it one of his top five all time favourite movies. More than one million drawings were created for the film, this includes 1,197 hand painted backgrounds and 119,058 individual coloured frames of film. The main locations in the film are modelled after Hell's Gate National Park in Kenya.

When you take into account worldwide box office figures then The Lion King was the highest grossing film of 1994, it was the second highest grossing movie in the USA in 1994 after Forrest Gump. Nala's mother is called Sarafina but the name is not used in the film, it appears on merchandising, including trading cards originally issued at Burger King.

Film Plot

Scar seeks to dethrone Mufasa and kill Simba, the heir to the throne, using a pack of hyenas he plots and deceives until tragedy occurs and young Simba is tricked into thinking he killed his father, fleeing for his life, Simba is exiled, years later he encounters his one true love, Nala, they head back home to confront Scar and fight to end his reign as the lion king.

Positives

The voice cast all did a wonderful job, i especially liked James Earl Jones who voiced Mufasa, although i will admit that having not that long ago watched the Star Wars films i kept expecting Mufasa to say something about Obi-Wan or tell Simba that the force is strong in him, just in case you don't get me i should add that Mr Jones also did the voice of Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy. 

I didn't realise that Matthew Broderick did the voice of the adult Simba, he did a good job here, of course everyone will recognize Whoopi Goldberg who voices Shenzi the hyena, you might be scratching your head about who is the voice of Scar and saying to yourself and those around you that you know who that is and the voice is strangely familiar but you can't quite get the name out, Scar is voiced by Jeremy Irons and he has some delicious dialogue, the bad guys ( lions ) always get the best lines, at least in good movies they do.

The action scenes in this film are so well done, i can imagine it's all in the storyboarding and that's how they got this all down to perfection, but until you watch the movie, you will never understand just how good it comes together, i think its the pacing that makes the difference, knowing when to edit the scene and cut it down is where this film succeeds, the blend of music, dramatic storyline, a really good script with talented voice actors and Disney at the top of their game all combine to make this such an enjoyable viewing experience.

The scenes between Simba and Nala when they get to know each other again as adults is tender and i found myself enjoying it a lot, i guess it's the sentimental person in me, i find myself gettiing wrapped up in the story, i know not everyone sees it that way but to me a good story that is told well is worth my time no matter the medium, it could be a book, a tv show, a play or a film, if it grabs me then i'll watch ( or read ) it and enjoy it a lot.

 Negatives

You need to go online to access some of the extra content which was found on the last DVD edition release, i bought the 3D edition which also contains a normal 2D blu ray version, a digital copy and a DVD edition of the movie, my feeling is that they could have ditched the DVD and digital copy versions and put all the extra content on a third blu ray disc, oh and just in case you are wondering, nope i did not watch the 3D version, i don't have a display capable of viewing 3D, its nice to know i have the disc though and can view that edition in the future.

I did wonder about a few scenes where the animation seemed a little harsh, for example about eight minutes and twenty seconds into the film we see a young Simba run to his sleeping parents, i thought the animation of Mufasa looked a little harsh, thats the exception rather than the rule and apart from a few other scenes i thought the image quality was superb.

Image Quality

From the opening moments of the film i knew i was in for a treat, the image quality on this disc is superb, colours are especially strong, take a look at the scene near the beginning of the film as the antelope jump through the mist of the African plains and a young giraffe is seen stepping out into the glare of the blazing sun, colours come across so well on this release, from blue skies to red skies, it all looks so good, i have seen some online criticism about the colour of the lions, they look good to my eyes and certainly seem to me to be the intended look, i think sometimes people are comparing the colours of a DVD edition to a blu ray edition and you really shouldn't do that because more often than not the DVD edition will be the wrong look.

I thought the elephant graveyard scene had some fabulous animation with smoky dust visible in the air as the young lions are pounced upon by the hyenas, obviously some of what you see in these scenes is computer animation mixed with traditional animation but it works so well.  The musical number, I just can't wait to be King, featured bright and psychedelic animation which reminded me a lot of a sequence seen in Dumbo, it wouldn't surprise me if that was the intention of the Disney animators who are well aware of their prestigious history.

The black levels looked good and accurate, shadow detail was very good, overall i thought that detail levels looked fantastic and some of the shading seen throughout the film was truly impressive, i should mention that there are moments in this film which resemble the old multiplane camera look of some of the Disney classics, i thought that look as used in this film was most impressive and there was a real sense of depth to the image, i didn't see any real issues that bothered me, thankfully no edge sharpening was present, this film used the computer animation production system, usually abbreviated as CAPS, that system captured at 2K and digitized the process of using paints and inks in animated films.

Is that film grain i see at around the 67 minute mark when Simba talks to his ghostly father in the sky and for a few scenes after this, a welcome addition to a Disney animated film.

Sound Quality

The start of the film features a classic scene set to music as the animals all come to see the new lion cub and the circle of life song plays, there is some good rear speaker to front speakers sound directionality of birds as they fly high in the sky, a little while after this listen to the thunderous bass of the footsteps of the elephants, the whole opening song is reference quality and is sure to be used for demo purposes by some people for showing off their home cinema equipment.

The wildebeest stampede makes good use of all the speakers and has deep quality bass, it's an exciting moment, the sound mix during this scene aids the visuals and draws you further into the movie, the music score during this scene is important and it sounds excellent.  Dialogue was always easy to make out against the other sound elements in the mix and i consider this a reference quality soundtrack.

Hans Zimmer has composed some amazing music scores during his film career but i consider his score for The Lion King to be some of his best work, his music is powerful and it really brings the animation alive and gives emotional depth to the film, on this blu ray release the music sounds richly detailed, take a listen to the scene where Simba looks to the night sky and talks to his father, an emotional moment and Zimmer's music is just perfect and adds much, the film feels more epic in nature due to the score, a bad music score can bring down a good film, a good music score can enhance an average film, now if you combine a good music score with a good film then the end product can so often become great.

Final Thoughts

I used to consider Beauty And The Beast my favourite Disney animated film, but i like animals and i can't resist the storyline of The Lion King, it's now my favourite Disney film of all time, i think it has perfect pacing, likeable main characters, a good baddie and an astoundingly good music score and the songs are so memorable, i never tire of watching this movie and for those people who turn their noses up at animated films and call them cartoon's and refuse to watch them, well, thats their problem, they don't know what they are missing.

I enjoyed re-visiting The Lion King and watching it in high definition, i am slowly building up a new library of Disney animated films on blu ray and look forward to picking up Lady and the Tramp and Cinderella which are out next year, hopefully Aladdin will also be released, sooner, rather than later, i think Disney put in a decent amount of effort with these releases but sometimes they edge a little into revisionism, especially with their older classic titles which have some scenes which suffer from degraining and a smooth undetailed look to the optical multiplane scenes, indeed sometimes subtle effects are destroyed, films that use the CAPS system do not suffer from these issues.

Charles Bronson and Ernest Borgnine went for cigarettes during filming, they saddled up in full costume, side arms and all, and upon riding to the nearest town the pair were waylaid by a truck full of armed Federales who mistook them for bandits and held them at gunpoint.

For a film made in 1954, this film has a fast cutting rate, in about 94 mintes of action the movie contains about 1130 edits and transitions, this equates to an average shot length of just under 5 seconds. One of the first Hollywood productions to be made on location in Mexico, film making legislation in Mexico meant that a local director had to be involved on the film set in some capacity, though in this case he wasn't used.

Vera Cruz is sometimes referred to as the first spaghetti western due to it's influence on Italian directors such as Sergio Leone who went on to make the genre popular with his Fistful Of Dollars trilogy. Burt Lancaster was on record as saying that Gary Cooper objected to anything in the script that implied his character was anything other than good, indeed some scenes ended up being re-written due to Cooper's objections.

Gary Cooper was hurt when struck by fragments from a bridge that was blown up, the special effects team used too many explosives.

Vera Cruz was the first film shot in Superscope.  SuperScope productions were shot 1.37:1, and exploited for early wide-screen by doing a field enlargement at the matrix stage during the creation of dye transfer prints.  The image was cropped, losing quite a bit of the top and bottom, and then optically squeezed, with black side panels added at the sides, yielding an uncompressed image at 2:1.  Superscope was the fore-runner to the Super 35 film format that is in use for movies shot today.

Film Plot

Two daredevil mercenaries, Benjamin Trane and Joe Erin, travel to Mexico in search of adventure – and cold hard cash – during the 1866 revolution.  They get more than they bargained for when the wealthy and beautiful Countess Duvarre hires them to escort her (and a fortune in gold!) to Emperor Maximilians fighting forces in Vera Cruz.  The trail is fraught with danger, betrayal and murder…..and when Ben is caught up in the revolutionaries fervour, he and Joe find themselves at odds with the Mexican army – and each other!

Positives

Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster play off each other superbly, both of them have some nice lines of dialogue, for example;

Benjamin Trane: [looking to buy a horse] How much?
Joe Erin: $100… gold!
Benjamin Trane: That's mighty hard.
Joe Erin: So's walkin'!

The part shortly after the above line of dialogue has government troops arrive on the scene, at this point Burt is already on his horse and riding off, one of the troops shoots at Mr Cooper, he makes his getaway real quick, the reason he shot at him is then revealed by Burt, it's a funny line and is just one of many witty dialogue exchanges between the pair that makes this film so entertaining.

About halfway through the film there is a very good action scene where the Mexican rebels ambush the convoy as they want the gold for their cause, for a film shot in 1954 this is a very tightly paced action sequence, the end of the scene has an epic quality about it as we see Maximilian's troops and our mercenaries for hire escape across the large open plains of Mexico.

There is another exciting action scene to end the film as the rebels attack Maximilian's forces, this also leads to the conclusion of the film and a duel between Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster.  I won't reveal who wins but it's a classic way to end a film western.

The music score is by Hugo Friedhofer, he did uncredited stock music on many films (Gone With The Wind is one example) but also did the orchestral arrangements on movies like The Adventures Of Robin Hood and Casablanca, his score for Vera Cruz is good, it's not something you will hum or even remember after the film has ended but its still a good score.

I thought Sara Montiel who plays Nina in the film played her part well, she had some good scenes with Gary Cooper and an exciting scene when she takes charge of one of the wagons when escaping the rebel forces.  I thought George Macready had a very good cameo as Emperor Maximilian, the scene where he shows his marksmanship is excellent.

The film never outstays it's welcome, its just 94 minutes long, they could have padded things out but took the right decision to make a trim, shorter film that moves at a good pace.

The direction by Robert Aldrich is assured and competent, Aldrich would go on to make such well known classics like Kiss Me Deadly, The Flight Of The Phoenix and The Dirty Dozen, i think he is an underrated director who never really got the credit he deserved, of course now we can revisit all these older films and he is now getting some much deserved praise.

Negatives

I didn't particularly buy into Denise Darcel's performance as Countess Marie Duvarre, at times she was okay but i felt she was one of the weaker members of the cast. 

I would have liked to have seen an audio commentary from film historians or some extra content, all you get on this disc is the original theatrical trailer, it would have been nice to get some deleted scenes or behind the scenes footage, i imagine such footage would probably have been destroyed long ago and that's why it is not available.

Image Quality

The filmstock used in the making of this film did not have any anti-halation backing, this prevents any light from being reflected back through the emulsion from the rear surface of the base, or from anything behind the film, and causing a halo-like effect around bright points or edges in the image, thus there are many instances in the film where you get what some refer to as the "force field" effect, this results in halos seen around objects and people, this is NOT edge enhancement, its an issue which affects some older films. 

I saw some onscreen flicker around the 51 minute mark, it lasts a short while only.

It should be noted that this is a grainy film, detail is not always strong, what you get on this disc does represent the way the movie was shot, it cannot look any better than this, bear that in mind should you decide to watch the movie, indeed i will now give you a direct quote from film restoration expert Mr Robert A. Harris, these words can also be seen at Home Theater Forum.

"The field enlargement of the early Eastman (and occasional three-strip) stocks was generally not a happy occasion.  Eastman single strand printer functions, ie. fades and dissolves, along with title sections and dupes, are as problematic as normal, and this is what the film looks like, and looked like at release.  Dupes will have problems with grain, contrast and resolution, as the early duplicating stocks were less than stellar."

I am happy enough with this release knowing i am getting the film on blu ray without any studio techhead adding artificial "enhancements" and my score below reflects the transfer quality and not the actual image quality, this is not a film you will use for demo purposes to show off your home cinema but it is a classic western that has been faithfully transferred to blu ray.

Sound Quality

I was not that impressed with the sound quality of this release, it's a 2 channel mix and sound originates from your left and right front speakers, i thought speech was a little harsh at times, you could almost tell they had re-recorded some of the dialogue in the studio after the film was shot, i felt gunfire sounded quite poor and all the guns sounded the same, even some of the explosions sounded weak, the music score does fare slightly better, there is obviously no surround sound in this film and absolutely no front channel effects panning either, not that i expected there to be any, the mix is what it is and i accept it although i do wonder if they could go back to some of the original elements and improve upon it.

I know it is unfair to compare movies to one another but i watched Rio Bravo not that long ago and it hails from 1956, just five years after this film was made, that film was mono but sounded better, the gunfire had some bass to it, dialogue sounded better, i suppose my whole point of mentioning it is that i was disappointed with the sound quality of this release.

Final Thoughts

Vera Cruz has a strong cast led by Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster and even if you cannot put a name to some of the other cast members i am sure you will recognize Ernest Borgnine, Jack Elam, Cesar Romero and Charles Bronson, all of them are welcome additions to a fine movie.  Mr Lancaster's character is mean and tough and he has no reservations about striking a woman or shooting someone in the back, clearly he is the anti-hero of the film with Mr Cooper playing the hero, both actors bounce off each other so well that the film is elevated above what it might have been if the casting had been wrong, today's filmmakers could learn a lesson by watching these classic films especially when it comes to dialogue that is so often overlooked in favour of action setpieces or CGI eye candy.  Having said all that i do believe you can enjoy this film and also enjoy something like Transformers or Bad Boys 2, being a film fan means enjoying all types of cinema and not just being a so called film snob and turning your nose up at the "switch your brain off and sit back and relax" type of movies.

MGM are spending time on making new transfers for blu ray, they are not just re-using old masters and using digital tools trickery, they are making an effort, i appreciate that and wish other studio's like Universal would do the same, i love classic films and although Vera Cruz is often overlooked, i do believe it is a well made movie that should be seen at least once by all fans of the cinema. This release is actually very cheap to buy so if you love movie westerns or want to see how films used to be made then go rent or buy this.

Steven Spielberg was the first choice to direct the film but had to turn it down because he is a member of the directors guild and George Lucas dropped his membership over disagreements about screen credits being played at the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back, David Lynch was also approached to direct the film, he turned it down, they finally hired Welsh director Richard Marquand.

The Ewoks were originally supposed to be Wookiee's, its thought that the decision to change was to do with toy marketing. The Ewok language was inspired by the Kalmucks, a nomadic tribe living in Central China, Tibet.

The Millenium Falcon that you see used in this film was either a model or a matte painting, the full sized version that was used in the previous films was only seen in a sandstorm scene which ended up not being used in the final cut of the movie.

Emperor Palpatine was originally called Palatine after the name of a character in Taxi Driver, it was changed to avoid any legal issues, Palatine is also one of the seven hills on which Rome in Italy is built upon, the name Palpatine is never explicitly used by any of the characters in the original Star Wars trilogy and he is known only as The Emperor.

The movie was filmed under the fake title of Blue Harvest, that title is inspired by a Dashiell Hammett story called Red Harvest which in turn was the inspiration for Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo.

Endor is a village found in biblical Israel's territory of Isaachar where King Saul went on the eve of the final battle with the Phillistines and came across the witch of Endor.  Endor is also the Elvish name for Middle Earth in The Lord Of The Rings. Harrison Ford wanted Han Solo to sacrifice his life to save his friends, George Lucas disagreed with the idea.

As with the previous films you can hear the Wilhelm scream as Luke slashes an enemy with his lightsaber and they fall into the Sarlacc pitt and when an Ewok is killed by Imperial Walker fire.

The Huttese language spoken by Jabba The Hutt was inspired by the Incan language of Quechua. George Lucas fired Gary Kurtz before production began, some sources claim he quit, the reason being that Kurtz disagreed with the way the script was written and the assertion by Mr Lucas that audiences didn't care for the story but that they came for the spectacle.

Film Plot

The Emperor has taken command of a new, under construction Death Star, protected by a power generator on the forest moon of Endor, the rebel alliance have given Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca and Luke Skywalker the task of destroying the generator, once done the rebel fleet can move in and take out the incomplete Death Star and the Emperor in one fell swoop.

One Jedi Knight will rise and one will fall and once more there will be balance in the force.

Positives

I liked the Rancor battle at Jabba's palace, this is the first time we get to see Luke using his Jedi mind trick skills and we see on the desert barge how his lightsaber skills have greatly improved from the last film, oh and Princess Leia in a metal bikini, i think thats a great scene in high definition, what more can i say.  George should find some deleted scenes of Leia in her bikini and put them back in the film for the next release.

The final Death Star space battle is exciting, it features some magical effects work, i enjoyed it much more than the space battle at the beginning of Revenge Of The Sith, this one flows better, you actually feel there is an epic large scale battle taking place and it looks better than ever on blu ray, i think the precise modelwork used in this film is a dying craft that in time will sadly disappear forever to be replaced by CGI.

I think Mark Hamill matured a lot between the first Star Wars film and this one, if you take into account there is just six years between them then it's actually quite astonishing how much older he looks, he was so fresh faced in the original movie, i think he does well with the material given to him, i feel that the character of Han Solo lost most of his edge in this film, not surprising really since he is supposed to be in love with Leia and a more morally upright person and at one point he wasn't even going to be in the film, i think i would have liked it better if he and Chewbacca were piloting the Millenium Falcon instead of Billy Dee Williams and they make an heroic sacrifice to destroy the Death Star and Leia thinks they are dead only for a tear filled happy ending as they reunite, by keeping them together i think it removes some of the drama that could have been in the film.

Despite my feelings about the introduction of characters to sell toys, this still has the feel of a Star Wars film.

 Negatives

I'm not a fan of some of the changes George Lucas has made for the 2005 release, in particular i do not like the addition of Hayden Christensen at the end of the film, he replaces the older actor as a force ghost and appears next to old Obi-Wan and Yoda, it's my understanding that to become a force ghost it must be taught to you, Qui-Gon Jinn taught Yoda and Yoda taught Obi-Wan, so who taught Anakin Skywalker the skill to become a force ghost, no one did, he would not have that ability, even if he does have the ability, i could buy it more when we saw him as an older man, think about it, he becomes Anakin again by turning against the Emperor, therefore his older force ghost should be what we see.

I feel this was the film in the original trilogy which went a little too far away from the human element of the story, i felt the puppets in Jabba's palace and the Ewoks on the forest moon of Endor were a distraction and they seemed to be there so that Mr Lucas could make money from toy sales, i do remember reading that this was the film where George focussed more on the addition of things that could be marketed as toys and less time was spent on developing the characters and storyline, it feels a less mature storyline than The Empire Strikes Back.

The Jedi Rocks music scene has CGI additions that tend to stick out among all the puppets, it was fairly inoffensive to me but i think they could easily take the entire sequence out of the film and trim the running time and i wouldn't miss it at all. There is a scene where Lando talks to Han, Lando is about to leave in the Millenium Falcon and Han is going off on his mission to bring down the power generator, well the Millenium Falcon in the background is a matte painting, while it's a beautiful piece of art it looked fake to me,

Image Quality

I saw some frozen grain during a scene where C-3PO and R2-D2 head towards Jabba's palace on Tatooine, an early scene with the blue sky of Tatooine was bad, it was just frozen there and looked very unnatural, there was also edge enhancement halo's visible but i thought this was a minor issue, less of a problem than A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back, check out the scene near the beginning of the film when the Emperor and Darth Vader depart their shuttle and enter the Death Star, thats just one example of EE and the issue with halo's that have unfortunately been on all of the original trilogy releases.

There are moments in the film where there is softness, one character can be seen in focus and the other is slightly out of focus or you get scenes which have soft focus for the entire frame, thats intentional and should not be confused with digital noise reduction, there is a moment approximately 54 minutes into the film where the quality suddenly drops, the moment in question is when Han, Luke, Princess Leia, Chewie and the droids are approaching the Death Star for clearance to go to the forest moon of Endor, the issue continues until around the 58 minute mark, at this point they are on the Endor moon, i have no idea why that happens, resolution seems to drop off, detail becomes poor and everyone and everything seems slightly out of focus, i don't think its the way it was filmed since the issue is seen on several differently shot sequences during those 4 or so minutes, perhaps when they originally did the film scans in 2004 something went seriously wrong and its never been fixed.

Lucasfilm promised us that the lightsaber issues would all be fixed, well they haven't been true to their word, the moment when Luke reaches for his lightsaber and attempts to strike the Emperor only for Darth Vader to block him with his lightsaber is fine, they fixed that, we then get a lightsaber battle between Luke and Vader, you can clearly see a pinkish core to Vader's lightsaber with a red haze around it during much of this battle, it should be a white core with a red haze. Maybe one day George will finally once and for all fix the lightsaber issues.

The colours seemed good to me and i'm glad they resisted the urge to change things and give us the orange/teal look, so many older films are now getting just such a makeover, i think there may be a small issue with black crush causing some shadow detail to be lost in a few scenes, it's hard to judge how this film and indeed all the films in the Stars Wars trilogy should look since Lowry digital degrained all of them and then added in a thin layer of artificial grain, this was necessary to retain some of the film look but you get some issues like the aforementioned frozen grain, some issues are also added by sharpening up individual scenes, indeed they sharpened up individual elements within the frame, this is what causes all the films to have that slightly processed look and some unwanted thin halo's around objects and people, i can only imagine how good these films might look if they made new 4K scans from the original separation masters and then fixed all the matte lines and lightsaber issues and i believe they could even sharpen select scenes without adding halo issues.

There is a scene where Lando talks to Han, Lando is about to leave in the Millenium Falcon and Han is going off on his mission to bring down the power generator, well the Millenium Falcon in the background is a matte painting, while it's a beautiful piece of art it looked fake to me, still i can accept that and do not need CGI additions just to make things look better.

Sound Quality

When the Rancor moves it's footsteps you hear a tremendous amount of deep bass, it shook the room a few times and i thought it was just great, a little after this moment our heroes are sentenced to a slow agonising death in the pit of Sarlacc and there is some good exciting sound and John Williams fantastic rich music score playing during the action scenes which follow and wow at the bass when jabba's barge ship blows up is very deep, it shook my room it was that powerful, there is good surround sound with the bike speeder chase on Endor.

The space battle has some exciting front speaker to rear speaker sound and also some deep quality bass, take a listen to the end music score and you can hear the instruments play in individual channels across the front speakers, the separation of these instruments really help make it sound like the orchestra is in your room and it sounds rich and detailed. There are some good moments on the moon of Endor when you can hear the sounds of the forest and everything that is in it all around you.

I felt this was an improvement over The Empire Strikes Back, speech did not sound so harsh, the deep low bass had a bit more dimension to it and the music score sounded a bit richer and more detailed, overall i felt this was a more dynamic and detailed sound mix, i felt a little disappointed with The Empire Strikes Back but this was a return to form.

Final Thoughts

I feel this is the weakest of the original Star Wars trilogy, i think a lot of this is due to George Lucas deciding he would rather make lots of money from the toy marketing companies and thus we have a lot of muppet type additions to the film, in particular the scenes in Jabba's palace where there are countless puppets and the Ewoks on the forest moon of Endor, i have got used to these additions over the years but i do feel they weigh the film down.

There was a lot of fuss made in some quarters about the Nooooo line that Vader now speaks while watching the Emperor killing Luke with Force lightning, after listening to it i am glad to say it's not quite as bad as i had feared, Luke still pleads for his father to save him and the only small issue i have with the scene is that the Emperor would hear Vader's no and be ready for any attempt to kill him, in that context you would think it would play better if Vader was silent and took the Emperor by surprise.

I felt it was an appropriate ending but it might have had even more impact if George Lucas had taken up Harrison Ford's suggestion of killing off Han Solo, think of the power of such a scene and the emotional impact it would have had on Princess Leia and in turn on the audience who are watching, i feel Hollywood does not take chances and too often we end up with diluted storylines or in the case of Return Of The Jedi we end up with a film that promises much but ultimately ends up being an advert for some companies new toy range.

If only Gary Kurtz had stayed on and persuaded George to go in a more mature direction and finish the series on a high, now having said that, i do enjoy some of this film a lot, i feel there are some great moments in the film, scenes such as the Emperor goading Luke and trying to turn him to the dark side and the final all out space battle is fun but everytime the film gets serious it then reverts to a scene with furry Ewoks firing fake looking bows and arrows or a fishy looking character leading the rebellion assault on the Death Star, that doesn't work so well for me, it felt like this film was made to promote toys, i still enjoy the film but consider it along with Revenge Of The Sith to be the weakest entries in the Star Wars saga.

There were far more Wampa scenes in the original cut of the film, scenes were shot but cut out that included R2-D2 encountering one in the rebel base on Hoth and a scene where a number of Wampa's are lured into a prison within the complex, there was a scene filmed but never used which had Han, Leia and C-3PO running through a corridor, Han goes to take a short cut through a door with a sign on it but Leia warns him that the Wampa's are being kept in there, they run off but C-3PO rips the sign off the door in the hope that the stormtroopers will enter the room, they do and meet their fate. Cloud City was originally going to be an Imperial floating prison in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope.

Clive Revill is still credited as the voice of the Emperor in the credits but Ian McDiarmid has replaced him to bring everything into line with the prequels. George Lucas financed the $33 million dollar production himself using profits from the first Star Wars film and a bank loan, he did not want to share creative rights with a studio, he shared profits with all his employees to the tune of $5m bonuses.

The writers and directors guild tried to stop The Empire Strikes Back being released due to the fact they did not agree on the screen credits being put at the end of the film, they only allowed it on Star Wars because they thought it would flop, after they failed at stopping the film's release, they then fined George Lucas and Irvin Kershner, Mr Lucas paid all the fines himself and then dropped his membership of the MPAA and both guilds. Carrie Fisher stood on a box for her love scenes with Harrison Ford as she is about a foot shorter than him.

The Wilhelm scream can be heard two times in the film, once during the battle on Hoth as a rebel soldier and his laser gun dish explodes and again right before Han is going to frozen in the carbonite as Chewie, in a fit of rage, throws a stormtrooper off the ledge. Boba Fett is never referred to by name in this film.

Irvin Kershner taught George Lucas at the University Of California's film school, Kershner didn't like the first film, he considered it trashy and he originally had no interest in directing a sequel, Lucas won him over and then Kershner spent much time pushing the writers into humanizing the characters and developing them more.

The bounty hunter dressed all in white is named Dengar, his backstory is that he was once a fierce rival of Han Solo's and was badly beaten by him, he vowed revenge and has been hunting Solo for some time and the mechanical bounty hunter is named IG-88, and is an assassin droid with a disassemble on sight bounty of its own. On Dagobah, after R2-D2 is spit out of the swamp, when Luke picks him up he says, "You were lucky to get out of there." In the original version he says, "You're lucky you don't taste very good."

The Imperial AT-ATs (All Terrain Armoured Transports) were inspired by the walking machines in War Of The Worlds.

Film Plot

The Rebel Alliance Death Star victory has been short lived and they find themselves hiding out on the ice planet of Hoth while the Empire sends probe droids to the far flung reaches of the galaxy in their quest to find the rebels and finish them off once and for all.  So begins an epic journey and guided by the spirit of Obi-Wan, Luke Skywalker is taught the ways of the force by Jedi Master Yoda, and the Millenium Falcon is hunted half way across the galaxy by Darth Vader as he seeks to lure young Skywalker to the dark side.

A vision of a city in the clouds and his friends in pain will see Luke Skywalker battle Darth Vader, lightsabers will clash and allegiances will be tested as the Empire strikes back.

Positives

I consider The Empire Strikes Back to be the best written film of the entire Star Wars saga, i put this down to Lawrence Kasdan and Irvin Kershner, Kershner in particular because he wanted the characters to be more human so the audience can empathize with them, he and Kasdan worked well together and its obvious that George Lucas had faith in them both, its only on Return Of The Jedi when dollar signs from the toy marketing got in the way of the script that the series took a slight downward turn for the worst.

I like the additional dialogue with the Emperor and it plays very well, its a good addition and seeing Ian McDiarmid as the Emperor in this scene is a great improvement over the woman with the monkey eyes that they used in the past, this scene works best if you view the films from Episode I to Episode VI, it does not work so well if you view from Episode IV onwards.

I think the puppet work on Yoda is very good, there was talk of replacing the character with a CGI version but it apparently didn't work well with real live backgrounds, i'm glad they did not, i think this version works just fine as it is, Yoda is older and has been in exile many years, he moves slower, it's appropriate, i still get goosebumps when i view the scene where Yoda uses the force to get Luke's ship out of the swamp, Luke can't believe it and Yoda replies "That is why you fail."

The battle on the ice planet of Hoth has not aged a bit and its an example of what you can do with detailed model work, a great music score and fab film editing, it works beautifully.

Negatives

I really dislike some of the changes made by George Lucas to the original version, for example, Temuera Morrison's voicing of Boba Fett, there is now no menace to his voice, i'm not keen on Darth Vaders line where he says "Alert my star destroyer to prepare for my arrival", it just doesn't sound quite right and i don't even think it's James Earl Jones voicing it, i prefer the original line which was "Bring my shuttle", i also think the scene after this where Vader's shuttle arrives back on his star destroyer is all too obviously an unused scene from Return Of The Jedi, i think thats also an example of how lazy they were in adding a scene intended for Jedi back into Empire, certainly with the digital tools they now have they could make it look better.

I don't think they should have removed the scene near the end of the film where C-3PO falls into all the wires after the Millenium Falcon's hyperdrive finally gets fixed, they took that out and put it into Star Wars: A New Hope, i don't know why they did that, it makes no sense as it worked perfectly well in Empire and it seems ridiculous to me to take a scene from one film and put it into the other. You would think Darth Vader would remember C-3PO as after all he did build him, still thats an issue with doing prequels to older films and not a fault with this film.

Image Quality

I noticed frozen static grain was visible on the Hoth planet scenes, i also noticed it a little on the white backgrounds of the walls in Cloud City, just like in A New Hope it seemed to be more noticeable on scenes with white backgrounds, as mentioned in my other review, this is a result of Lowry digital totally degraining the original films and then adding back a small amount of artificial film grain, nowadays it can be done without any issues, just see what they managed to do with Alien and Aliens, there is a scene when Luke escapes from the Wampa's lair and he is walking through the dense snowy landscape, you can see the frozen static grain onscreen and it looks ugly and it is intrusive. It may be on other scenes but these are the moments that stood out to me.

I saw a little edge enhancement on some parts of the film, its noticeable on Darth Vader's outfit in some scenes, when you consider the source of the transfer then i thought this film mostly looked as good as it could and ever will barring a new film scan, i felt there was less sharpening applied to the film and this is perhaps due to the fact that we have a different director of cinematography and there is less softer lensed scenes than the original and thus George Lucas feels less of a need to sharpen things up.

I noticed in one scene that the Millenium Falcon was see through as it tried to escape an Imperial Star Destroyer and in another scene i noticed blue matte/plates visible on the T.I.E. fighters as they chased the Millenium Falcon away from Cloud City near the end of the film, that particular moment stood out to me and briefly took me out of the film, i'm surprised they didn't fix it for this release, i remember a similar issue used to be visible when the T.I.E. fighters chase the Millenium Falcon into the asteroid field, that issue was fixed for the 2005 DVD release and it looks good on this blu ray version.

The colours seemed less saturated on this release than A New Hope, that has me thinking that maybe they used the Technicolor print as a guide when they made the Episode IV master and that's why it's colours are so saturated, just a theory, i think the lightsabers look good in this release, Luke's lightsaber has the white cores and blue haze and thats how it should be.

The removal of the film grain and replacing it with artificial grain is a contentious issue for me and i would rather they keep the original film grain intact, in my opinion i feel this could look better, but at the same time, i have to acknowledge its better than the previous DVD release, and likely to be better than any high definition television screening due to using higher bitrates and of course the fact that the television screenings will almost certainly use the exact same approved masters as this blu ray release, i would say if all you want is an upgrade over the DVD edition then this is worth a purchase, those looking for a perfect transfer are unfortunately out of luck this time around but its a reasonably decent release.

There is a slight blue push to the planet Hoth, i think this is intentional, the cooler tone suits that segment of the film well, there may also be a bit of black crush going on, i am uncertain if this affects every scene because i didn't feel any important details were being lost, it might well be that George Lucas decided to change black levels and wants it to look like this.

Sound Quality

This is a very good soundtrack, the beginning of the film has Imperial probe droids sent out from a star destroyer, they go off on all directions into space and you hear one from the front speakers fly past into the rear right speaker, there are a lot of front to back discrete effects just like this in the entire movie, the bass is also deep and in plentiful supply during the battle scenes on Hoth and various other moments in the film but i didn't think it was as well controlled as in A New Hope, in Episode IV there are many scenes with the Millenium Falcon which had wonderful bass, i didn't feel it was as good in this film, it was deep in places but to my ears it just sounded a little less refined.

Just like the bass i also felt the speech was a little harsher sounding and not quite so crisp and detailed, it was good, it just wasn't as good as what i heard on A New Hope, that surprises me because in all previous releases i have found Episode IV to be the weakest of the Star Wars soundtracks, now it's very strong and one of the best, i should add that i also felt the music score was also a little bit harsher sounding than the original film, don't take that to mean bad, it is not, it's good, its just not as good as A New Hope.

Early on in the film when Han goes in search of the missing Luke and the blast doors are closed we hear Chewbacca roar and about the same time as this the blast doors shut and there is deep bass heard, in another scene the Millenium Falcon is chased through the asteroid field by T.I.E. Fighters, a small splattering of asteroids comes towards the Falcon and you hear the sound of these going from the front speakers to the rear, it sounds really good, another scene near the end of the film has our heroes being pursued by stormtroopers, Lando provides cover for the others as they enter the Millenium Falcon and a stormtrooper fires a shot which hits the Falcon, the impact of the shot provides some nice deep bass.

Final Thoughts

I consider The Empire Strikes Back to be the best written film of the entire Star Wars saga, as mentioned above i put this down to Lawrence Kasdan and Irvin Kershner because they made the characters real and human and so the audience can empathize with them, he and Kasdan worked well together and its obvious that George Lucas had faith in them both, its only on Return Of The Jedi when dollar signs from the toy marketing companies got in the way of the script that the series took a slight downward turn for the worst.

The Empire Strikes Back has many exciting action sequences but never at the expense of character development, it works so well because its not forced, look at the last Indiana Jones film as an example of how a movie can be made with no heart or soul, in that film the characters plod from A to B and their motivations for doing so are highly dubious, in this film the characters have a reason for what they do, when Darth Vader says to the Emperor, "If he could be turned, he would be a powerful ally" he does so because he does not want Luke to be killed but he is also secretly plotting to kill his master who in turn is plotting to make Luke his new apprentice, they never need to spell this out to us, in some of the movies made today they feel the need to explain everything as they think wrongly that the audience is too dumb to read between the lines, some might say its an issue that affects the prequels too.

This film never fails to entertain me, the first two original Star Wars films are fantastic, i hope that sometime in the future i can give George more of my money and upgrade this release with a better transfer, perhaps by that time 4K projectors and televisions will be a reality and George will make new 4K scans of the original trilogy and The Phantom Menace, its likely the 2K shot digital films would upscale perfectly well so it could happen, i hope it does, i'd buy the set all over again, i think George likes people like me.

Alec Guinness said that the making of Star Wars was a bad experience for him, on the other hand George Lucas has claimed that Mr Guinness enjoyed his time on the set. The Wolfman has been replaced in the Cantina scene with a CGI creation.

This film features the Wilhelm Scream, its a stock sound effect that was first used in the 1951 film Distant Drums. There is a Hammer horror film connection that links the original trilogy and the prequels, Peter Cushing was in the original Star Wars and Christopher Lee was in the prequels.

Most of the stormtroopers are left handed because the weapons were constructed that way, in a real weapon the magazine is on the left side and this means the grip has to change making it appear that they are all left handed. Studio executives were originally unhappy that Chewbacca had no clothes.

TIE fighter stands for Twin Ion Engines, modelmaker Joe Johnston, who later became a film director, came up with the acronym. Its a term not spoken by any characters until the sequels came out. Only 40 cinema's originally agreed to show the film, distributors 20th Century Fox threatened to take away screening rights to The other Side Of Midnight if they did not show Star Wars. As it turned out, The Other Side Of Midnight only took 10% of the revenue that Star Wars earned.

On the first day of filming in Tunisia, the country experienced it's first major rainstorm in 50 years. When the film premiered in Japan, the ending was met with total silence, this was considered at the time a great honour but Fox film executives didn't realize this and thought they hated the movie.

Carrie Fisher's breasts were taped down as the costume did not permit any underwear to be worn, she later joked "As we all know, there is no underwear in space."

World War II dogfights were the inspiration behind the battle over the Death Star and former fighter pilots were employed as technical advisors.

The inspiration for R2 D2 comes from the film Silent Running, in that movie there are three droids names Huey, Dewey and Louie, Universal pictures who distributed Silent Running actually sued Twentieth Century Fox for copyright infringement, Fox counter-sued over a film called Pilot which bore a resemblance to Star Wars, after this they both settled the case out of court.

There is a scene in the film where Obi Wan ( Ben ) leaves the others to attempt to shut down the tractor beam on the Death Star, Chewbacca can be heard growling something and Han Solo replies "Boy you said it chewie," although you never find out what he says there is footage backstage that reveals he said "The old man's gone mad."

James Earl Jones originally received no billing for the voice of Darth Vader, this was at his request as he claims he didn't want to be typecast, more likely he didn't want to be associated with science fiction as he regarded himself a serious actor and sci-fi before Star Wars became a hit was considered low class in the 1970's, from 1997 onwards he is credited in Star Wars for his voice work. George Lucas briefly considered Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune for the part of Obi Wan Kenobi, Akira Kurosawa's magnificent classic The Hidden Fortress was an inspiration for Star Wars and Mifune was the lead actor in that film.

Profits from Star Wars saved studio Twentieth century Fox from bankruptcy. George Lucas received $175,000 and 40% of the merchandising rights, studio executives did not think the film would make money from merchandising, it went on to make a fortune. The opening famous Star Wars crawl was co-written by Brian De Palma.

The word Jedi is derived from the Japanese words Jidai Geki, the translation is period adventure drama, in Japan thats a show set during the samurai days. The skeleton that C3 PO passes at the beginning of the film is meant to be a Krayt Dragon, the artifical skeleton was left in the desert after filming and during the making of Star Wars: Episode II – Attack Of The Clones it was discovered that the skeleton was still there. You can hear Obi-Wan make a pretty bad impersonation of a Krayt Dragon in the film to scare off the Tusken Raiders.

Film Plot

The Jedi Knights have all been eliminated and the Empire now rules the galaxy, a small group of resistance fighters known as the rebel alliance have stolen secret plans to the ultimate weapon. the Death Star, a battle station that can destroy whole planets, in attempting to escape with the plans, Princess Leia is captured by Sith Lord, Darth Vader, she sends a distress signal via droid R2-D2 who along with C-3PO is sold to the farm which young Luke Skywalker calls home, upon finding the hidden message for help, Luke seeks out Ben "Obi-Wan" Kenobi.

Obi-Wan, Luke and the droids find transport and unlikely allies in Han Solo and the Wookiee, Chewbacca, they are forced into a situation where they must rescue the Princess and save the universe but time is running out as the Death Star heads to the secret rebel base with the intent to crush the resistance once and for all.

Darth Vader will once again face his old master, Obi-Wan, and Luke Skywalker will give the rebel alliance new hope.

Positives

I think the skill of the people who made the models in this film will live on forever, there is something far more engaging about the effects work on these older films than the prequel trilogy, now i enjoy the prequels but i think CGI is sometimes too fluid and our eyes and brains pick up on the illusion far more than when a great model is built and used, where digital can help is with the removal of matte lines and taking out wires and the simple things like that.  I do think the landspeeder scenes benefit from the digital makeover.

I had forgotten just how entertaining the first Star Wars film was, the plot is simple enough but the characters are engaging and come across as human, its a basic plotline but it works and fulfills its premise with a nicely written story, i don't necessary think the dialogue is great, indeed at times its stilted but the actors pull it off, i think the fact they have real sets around them helps, the actors in the prequels must have had a far more difficult time of it due to acting against nothing but green screens and only partially built sets, i think having such a well known and great actor like Alec Guinness in the cast could only have helped aid the performances of the actors around him.

I had forgotten just how good the music score is in this film, while those films using club music as a soundtrack will age, it is films like Star Wars which use classically composed music that will remain timeless, i have always preferred an orchestral soundtrack to one which uses bass heavy club music, i can appreciate the work that John Williams put into this film and the wonderful work of the orchestra in creating this piece of music.

I actually think the new Death Star explosion is great, it works, the original was poor, that doesn't mean i don't think the original should be released, it should be, but i can appreciate some of the digital additions and that is one which works very well as does some of the new digital scenes in the Death Star battle.

The confrontation between Obi-Wan and Darth Vader takes on a new significance when you have viewed the prequels and especially Revenge Of The Sith, Obi-Wan is now older and less agile, Vader is more machine but its a great scene and one of the highlights of Star Wars, i always look forward to this scene when i watch the film.

Negatives

With regards to the Han/Greedo scene, Han should be the only one who shoots, at least its getting closer and closer to how it should be with each new release, this revisionism of a key moment in the film has been talked about for almost fifteen years now and no doubt will continue to be talked about for another fifteen years, the problem for me is that Han Solo is a mercenary, a man who puts money and proft before others, he would shoot you in the back without thinking twice, this slight change now makes him more of a good guy too early in the film, it affects the end scenes in a dramatic way, thats how i feel about that change.

R2-D2 can fly in the prequels, now he can't, hardly a fault of the original films that George Lucas chose to give him booster rockets and the ability to fly in Attack Of The Clones but still it bugs me and i think Mr Lucas did not think this through, perhaps his rocket boosters no longer work, i suppose i can use my imagination and believe that is the case whenever i watch the original trilogy. Obi-Wans Krayt dragon call sounds like a demented old man with diarrhea, not a good change, maybe they should just go back to the original sound.

Some of the digital additions are unnecessary, R2-D2 hiding behind digitally added rocks, the creature walking by the camera as Obi-Wan and Lukes landspeeder is stopped by stormtroopers, such tweaks are not really needed and detract from the film rather than help it.

Image Quality

Star Wars was shot on 35mm film, the filmstock used was not the best and it was a softer lensed film, deliberately so as George Lucas wanted it shot that way, many years later George regretted shooting the film so soft, he wanted a sharper image, Lowry digital were given the job of improving the look of Star Wars, they degrained the entire film and then added some fine film grain back in, they also sharpened up selected scenes at the request of Mr Lucas, they claimed they could sharpen film images without adding edge enhancement, for a guide on edge enhancement click here.  They were wrong, edge enhancement halo's have been added in to some parts of the film, for example check out Darth Vaders first appearance in the film and the black outline of his suit, check out some of the rock backgrounds on Tatooine, it is not noticeable during the darker moments of the film such as scenes in the cantina at Mos Eisley space port and during the final space battle against the Death Star, I consider this a minor problem but it is there, usually its very mild but some moments stick out to me.

There is a shot where Obi-Wan is in his home talking to Luke, i felt that scene had a lot of good detail, the attack on the Death Star also looked good with plenty of fine detail, with regards the lightsaber controversy i would say what bothers me is that Luke has been given Anakin's old lightsaber, it should have white cores and a blue haze around it as it does in Revenge Of The Sith, it does not look the same when he is using it on the Millenium Falcon, thats an inconsistency with earlier scenes and the whole saga and they really should have fixed this.

When Han and Luke are on the Death Star i felt their faces looked a little red, perhaps too much saturation going on, i'm not sure, maybe it was just the lighting that gave it that look, i felt that the black levels, contrast and brightness all looked good and i didn't feel there were any important details being lost due to these levels being wrong but its been a while since i saw the film and some reports suggest black crush going on so bear that in mind, i actually felt the colours were very good, the best i have seen them look on a home presentation of this film.

There are occasional moments in the film where frozen static grain is visible, one shot showing C-3PO walking through the desert of Tatooine was bad, some other shots affected by this include the white walls of the spaceship in the opening battle scenes and a shot shortly after Obi-Wan and Luke enter Mos Eisley space port, i didn't notice it in any other scenes but i could have missed it, this problem is a result of Lowry digital totally degraining the film and then adding back some fake grain to aid the film look.

Sound Quality

I think they have done a lot of work on the sound mix for this release, it sounds massively improved over the old DVD edition, they have also fixed the reversed rear channel issue that affected the aforementioned release.

The orchestral music score now sounds better than ever, i could hear separate instruments across the front soundstage, take a listen to the fanfare which greets our heroes before they get their medals, you can hear the trumpets on the right channel at the beginning of the scene, now listen to the end music as the titles play, i have never heard the music sound so good as it does on this release.

Speech used to sound harsh to me, it now sounds much better, dialogue is much improved and easier to make out, there was only a couple of instances early on in the film where i detected a slight harshness to speech but even then i think those moments were an ugrade on what we have heard in the past, i am so pleased with the improvements made to the sound for this blu ray edition of the film.

As the Millenium Falcon escapes from Mos Eisley you hear deep bass as it takes off, same again as they go into lightspeed, many of the Falcon scenes have deep quality bass, after the escape from the Death Star there is a brief battle with T.I.E. Fighters and it sounded really great, the final space battle over the Death Star has some nice discrete individual surround effects, indeed the front to back soundstage during that battle sounded excellent and it also had good quality bass, i felt the sound mix for this scene was much improved over any other home edition i have heard, music, effects and dialogue were mixed together better and all blended seamlessly to make an exciting and involving soundtrack.

There is a nice bit of surround sound as the blaster is fired by Han Solo in the garbage disposal unit on the Death Star.

Final Thoughts

This is far from a perfect release, ideally they would have gone back to the original separation masters and then added back in the digital effects that George Lucas now wants in this movie, with todays film scanners this would have been a massive improvement and the image would look far more film like, i feel that for such a prestige release they should have put the effort in to make brand new film scans, relying on 8 year old masters with some baked in issues is never wise and its going to be at least  2017 before we get to see a better release of these films.

They should not have used the Jabba The Hut scene in this film, its unnecessary because of the Greedo scene, the CGI also looks poor with Han Solo "walking" over Jabba's tail coming across as awkward, it would be better if they had included this scene as a deleted extra, its just redundant to have a scene which basically repeats information already told in the story.

I would like to see the original trilogy released without alterations, in fact lets use the technology and give us all the different versions, give us the 1977 version of Star Wars, give us the 1997 editions, the 2005 editions and now the 2011 editions, please everyone by going the extra mile and make sure all the different sound mixes relating to each year is included, this would make it the ultimate set, they could use seamless branching for the 1997, 2005 and 2011 editions but due to colour timing issues would probably need separate discs for the originals, it could be done though, who knows, as i mention above in the last paragraph it might be that in 2017 for the 40th anniversary we get all these options.

There is a choice you can make with this boxset, buy it and enjoy Star Wars again or hold off and register your complaint about the originals not being included by not buying the set, i have no problems with such decisions, i knew this set was using old masters and decided to buy anyways because i think the DVD editions have their own issues and this is at least going to be the best these films have looked in the home, if all the films had looked like The Phantom Menace then i would have not bought the set, that one is especially bad, this release has issues but its nowhere near as bad as The Phantom Menace looks, i can't wait until 2017 so i bought this set and so far i'm glad i did and thats despite the issues i now point out.

The lizard that Obi-Wan rides is Boga, thats the name of a soft drink in Tunisia and just happens to be the place that stands in for Tatooine. George Lucas toyed with the idea of using old footage and digital technology to re-create Peter Cushing as Tarkin, the idea was scrapped due to the stock footage having deteriorated too much. During Anakin's battle with Count Dooku, the imprisoned Palpatine was originally going to shout that Dooku paid the Tusken Raiders to kidnap and torture Shmi Skywalker, Anakin's mother.

Liam Neeson filmed a cameo as Qui-Gon Jinn that was never used, it was to be a scene featuring Yoda meditating on the secret asteroid base just before Bail Organa informs him of Obi-Wans return with Padme.

The original cut of the film ran for nearly four hours with the opening battle/rescue running over an hour. The Wookiee army scene has 10 men in Wookie suits, they were repositioned multiple times and the shots then combined in the computer to make it look like there were far more.

A young Han Solo was originally slated to make an appearance and would have been seen living among the Wookie's on Kashyyyk.

Steven Spielberg helped design some sequences during pre-production, mainly because he wanted some experience of using new pre-visualization techniques developed by Industrial Light and Magic for his remake of War Of The Worlds, Spielberg's work can be seen in the climatic lightsaber duel between Obi-Wan and Anakin.

Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen trained for two months in fencing and fitness for their epic lightsaber fight sequences seen at the end of Revenge Of The Sith.

Gary Oldman was to be the voice of General Grievous, he pulled out because actors who do not belong to the screen actors guild were in the film and Oldman is a member of the guild.

The movie was shot using Sony HDV-F950 high definition camera's and the HDCAM SR digital video format, George Lucas had been working closely with Sony since the mid nineties on the development of a digital camera that could give acceptable image quality for making films.

General Grievous has breathing problems in the film, these are explained in an episode of The Clone Wars animated series, that episode see's Grievous fighting Mace Windu who uses force grip which crushes the cyborg's chest panel, Grievous still gets away with his apparent kidnap of Palpatine and this of course sets up the scenario seen in Revenge Of The Sith.

This is the only Star Wars film to get a PG-13 rating in North America and a 12 certificate in the UK.

General Grievous is trained in the Jedi ways due to the fact that when he was constructed he was given the blood of a Jedi Master who had a high midi-chlorian count.

The sound of General Grievous coughing is in fact that of George Lucas, he had developed a cold during production and recorded it and used it as the cough, he also features as the blue skinned Baron Papanoida who can be seen just outside the entrance to Palpatine's private box at the Opera house.

C-3PO utters the very first words in the original Star Wars film way back in 1977 and he also has the last words in Revenge Of The Sith in 2005.

Film Plot

A massive space battle takes place over the skies of Coruscant as the war between the Republic and Separatists continues, Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, and Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, lead a rescue mission to free Supreme Chancellor Palpatine who has been kidnapped by the cyborg, General Grievous, and is now held prisoner on his command vessel, Skywalker and Kenobi board the vessel and once more face Count Dooku in a battle to the death while Chancellor Palpatine looks on and goads Anakin to kill Dooku.

The clone wars are nearly at an end and soon a new galactic empire will be formed and order 66 will be invoked, the Jedi will fight for their existence and the Sith shall have their revenge.

Positives

After the space battle we get a couple of enjoyable lightsaber duels, all the time this is happening we have John Williams fabulous music score playing, he has always delivered the goods when it comes to epic music scores, classical in every sense of the word and the music fits well with the images onscreen, i enjoyed some of the interplay between Obi-Wan and Anakin during these early scenes.

I enjoyed the lightsaber duel later on in the movie between Obi-Wan and General Grievous, there was also a pretty good chase sequence leading up to the actual duel, full of CGI but it entertained me nonetheless.

The scene at the opera where Palpatine tells Anakin a story about how Darth Plagueis used the force to create life and then his apprentice killed him in his sleep, although he never actually says it straight out, we know he is talking about himself and that this means that at some point just before his death Plagueis was responsible for the creation of Anakin, he was then killed by Sidious who at this point was training Darth Maul, this whole speech tells us so much and we can speculate that perhaps the Jedi have become lazy and a little arrogant in believing good will always truimph over evil.

I thought the scene where Mace Windu takes some Jedi to arrest Palpatine was a highlight of the film, we see just how dangerous a Sith Lord who is cornered can be, all the while he is thinking two steps ahead and allowing Windu to dominate him, look at the scene where he breaks the glass window, he is thinking ahead, when Anakin arrives his plans are complete and we as the audience know there is only going to be one outcome, its one of the better scenes in the film.  It was nice to see the Wookies homeworld and the return of Chewbacca ties this film in with the original.

The end duel between Obi-Wan and Anakin plays out on the volcanic planet of Mustafar, its quite spectacular and John Williams has composed a nice bit of music for this scene, i also enjoyed hearing Duel of the Fates again as Yoda and Darth Sidious battle each other.

When Order 66 is invoked we see Jedi on different planets being killed by clone troopers, some of the images during those scenes was powerful and beautiful to look at.

Negatives

It's been a while since we saw an extended space battle in a Star Wars film, sure The Phantom Menace had a small scene at the end but the last film to feature a really epic battle was Return Of The Jedi in 1983, the one featured in Revenge Of The Sith is in my opinion boring, it just didn't do it for me, i felt it lacked excitement, its not a large scale battle as such, it focuses on Obi-Wan and Anakin's attempt to get onboard the vessel holding Palpatine, it bored me though, i hate to say that, i enjoyed the lightsaber duels that followed much more than this space battle, for me Return Of The Jedi still has the best space battles in the entire Star Wars saga. I think the modelwork of Jedi trumps the CGI spacecraft of Sith.

I didn't completely buy the way Anakin turned to the dark side, i felt it was too quick, i think the script was a bit heavy handed and poorly written in explaining the reason that Anakin chose to go to the dark side, perhaps if they had been more subtle and some of the scenes leading up to this moment had been written better, then i could have accepted it easier, when you take the film series as a whole and the fact he had been getting close to Palpatine for over three years since the last film ended then i can just about buy into it.

Tell me i am hearing things, a Wookie makes a Tarzan sound during one of the battle scenes on Kashyyyk, simply awful joke and it spoils the scene.

Obi-Wan is easily overcome by Count Dooku in this film and yet we are supposed to accept he has improved his Jedi skills and also that he can take on Anakin at the end of the film and beat him, i know they needed to use that plot device so that Palpatine would push Anakin closer to the dark side but i feel they should have kept him occupied by perhaps giving him another fight which leads him off the main part of the bridge, how this scene was scripted and filmed was problematic for me and i felt it was cheap, lazy and convenient.

Further to the above i feel using the plot device of Padmé dying and linking it with his grief over the way his mother died was a good one, it made sense and its something that Palpatine could use to push his buttons, no problem with the actual concept, my problem is the way the script was written, it felt a little basic and forced, if the script had been a little better then it would have worked but it felt like they used a sledgehammer to put this point across, some of the dialogue where Anakin tells Padmé how he is not going to let her die was excruciating, that dialogue felt childish, Anakin has been training to be a Jedi for many years now, he would be more mature, yet they wrote a script that gave the character immature and childish lines, he still threw temper tantrums, i couldn't buy into this, his training and experience of war would have took such behaviour out of him, Palpatine would have needed to be far more resourceful to turn him to the dark side, i just feel the script should reflect the fact Anakin must now be more mature than we last saw him in Attack Of The Clones.

Natalie Portman didn't have that much to do in this film other than stand around and spout some pretty poor dialogue, i felt her character was mostly underused, i felt they made Padmé weaker in this film. Darth Vader shouting Nooooooooooo at the end of the film, i don't think it works very well, its an example of the heavy handed script i discussed earlier, some may argue the scene is a Frankenstein's monster type of moment, i certainly agree that these films have dialogue and idea's that are inspired by films made in the 1930's and 1940's and i get all that, i just thought that particular cry of noooo didn't work so well in this film, i think one quieter no would have worked better.

Image Quality

They used improved digital camera's for this film and it shows, the detail levels are higher than seen in Attack Of The Clones and they have added a very fine grain over the image which helps make it a little more film like than its predecessor, this grain does help give the perception of even more detail in the image.

Check out the scene around 29 minutes in where Anakin wakes up from a nightmare, Padmé goes to comfort him and they then talk, she is wearing a metallic blue negligee with pearl jewellery at the top, the colours on this really stand out against the dark background of the scene and there is lots of fine detail evident in both medium and closeups of Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen, black levels looked spot on too.

I always thought the Mustafar scenes suffered a little on DVD, well they look excellent on blu ray, the reds of the lava come alive and the detail is so much more impressive, as Anakin and Obi-Wan fight we see a shot of a volcanic waterfall that they are heading towards, the camera pans down it, Obi-Wan jumps to safety, as does Anakin and what follows is a fight scene on the red hot sea of lava, i was impressed by how clear, detailed and beautiful this scene was on blu ray.

At the 1H 15 minutes and 37 seconds mark i thought i spotted some frozen grain on the light red walls behind Anakin, the reason i'm not marking the films image quality down because of it is that i consider it an isolated incident, you can see what appears to my eyes to be frozen grain patterns on the wall and then beneath that is moving grain, strange really but its not something that plagues this release, if you have hyper sensitive eyes you may spot more of this than i did.

If you read my review of Attack Of The Clones you will notice i mention the contrast and give some examples from the DVD and Blu Ray editions of the film, well i have checked this film out carefully and i think the contrast is fine on this release, colours look spot on to me and as intended by the film makers, you really should not look at your old DVD and use that as a guide to how this film should look on blu ray, they are using the original digital files for this release and its much closer to what the image should look like, on these prequel films the lightsabers look superb, i'm hoping this trend continues with the original trilogy. I would have to say that i think this is the best transfer of the prequel trilogy.

Sound Quality

I felt the sound mix on Revenge Of The Sith could have been better, i felt that The Phantom Menace and Attack Of The Clones had a more dynamic mix, better use of the surround channels and deeper quality bass, i felt this film was a little lacklustre with it's sound mix not being up to the same standard as those two films, it's not bad, indeed in places it can be very good, it's just not as great as i had expected it to be considering the amount of onscreen action we see taking place, i really think the bass should have been deeper and had more impact than it did and i felt there should have been more use of the individual surround channels. For large sections of the film i felt the bass was unusually lacking.

The opening moments of the film have this great bassy low end rumble and you get another deep bass moment as the ship Anakin pilots breaks in half, the moment that follows as he tries to land the ship on Coruscant seemed lacking in the bass department, now don't get me wrong, there is more to a good sound mix than low end bass, you just expect it to be there based on the previous two films, the lightsabers do not sound as meaty either, they also lack the bass of the first two films, there are numerous scenes in the film where i thought it should have had more surround sound and better bass and i had hoped this film would get a re-mix for the blu ray release, it has not, it sounds like it is the same mix used on the DVD edition, better quality in lossless form but the same mix, maybe i have been spoiled by the mix for The Phantom Menace and Attack Of The Clones but this sounds weaker to me and it should be as good.

I felt that even the wonderful music score was not as dynamic as the previous two prequel films, it sounds good, but it should sound great, they seem to have downplayed the surround channels and bass for this sound mix, either they didn't have the time to really mix it properly when it came out in 2005 or they decided the story was strong enough and a sound mix that gives your speakers a workout was not needed, they were wrong as the script isn't strong enough to take your attention away from the fact the sound just isn't as good as the two films that preceded it, i feel they have wasted an opportunity to fix what i see are issues with this soundtrack.

Final Thoughts

I must admit that when i first viewed this film several years back that i enjoyed it immensely, this repeat viewing has changed my opinion, i feel its one of the weaker entries in the Star Wars saga, visually its impressive, sonically i felt it was a letdown, script wise i felt it should have been better, a handful of scenes involving Anakin should have been re-written, i also don't get why these films always seem to get dumbed down with silly jokes, this one has a Wookiee making a Tarzan call, thats just plain dumb and tells me that George Lucas needs to reign himself in and make better creative decisions, i get that its his sense of humour and some will find it funny but it doesn't fit with this particular film.

I was so looking forward to this, based on a previous viewing i had the rose tinted glasses syndrome of thinking it was a great end to the prequels, i was wrong, yes it ties up loose ends, and yes there are several individual scenes that work but when you take the film as a whole then i feel it fails, is it possible they could give us a lightsaber duel in these Star Wars prequels where someone doesn't do backflips and just uses it like a sword, just a minor criticism as i still enjoyed the lightsaber duels.

Not a bad film, a few revisions of the script and maybe even cutting down some of the scenes and adjusting the pacing and it could have been a very good movie.

The Tatooine garage in which Luke kept R2D2 and C3PO in the original film was rebuilt for the movie, although only the foreground was rebuilt, the background was digitally added later, you can also spot Lukes landspeeder sitting in the garage.

Attack Of The Clones was the first film to have an on location film shown once a week, this feature was a success and other films went on to do the same thing. The Jedi archives are modelled on the Trinity college library in Dublin, Ireland.

Samuel L Jackson who plays Mace Windu asked for a purple lightsaber in the film as it's his favourite colour and George Lucas agreed to the suggestion. This was the first Star Wars film to feature a fully CGI generated Yoda. In the execution arena fight scenes, Padme's gun makes the sound of a .44 Magnum, this is a direct reference to a sound effect accidentally left in the original movie when Princess Leia shoots over a chasm.

There is a scene where Anakin has a conversation with Padmé just before he goes in search of his mother, the camera pans to their shadows as they talk and Anakin's shadow resembles that of  Darth Vader, this was not a special effect but rather a coincidence. Katie Lucas ( George's daughter ) appears as a purple Twi'lek in a nightclub scene.

The character Aayla Secura was not written by George Lucas, she first appeared in the nineteenth issue of the Dark Horse comics Star Wars: Republic series in part one of Star Wars: Twilight. The scene in which Jango Fett bangs his head on a partially open door ( after his fight with Ob-Wan ) was intentional and a reference to a scene from the original Star Wars film where a stormtrooper accidentally bangs his head on a door.

The clone troopers rifle design is based on the German MG-42 machine gun.

Every single clone trooper in the film is computer generated, motion capture was used to effectively enable this to be done. The planet Geonosis is taken from the Greek word used in ancient times 'gnosis' and means knowledge. The only Star Wars film to be released the same year as a Star Trek film, in this case, Star Trek: Nemesis. 

When Anakin is slaughtering the Tusken Raiders you can hear Qiu-Gon's voice in the background meant to be a sign that he tried to stop Anakin but failed.

According to Star Wars canon, the Tusken Raiders who kidnapped Anakin's mum did so after being paid by Count Dooku, Dooku did so on the orders of Darth Sidious who was trying to push Anakin towards the dark side of the force. Obi-Wan stares at a bronze bust in the Jedi archives library, the bust is Qui-Gon Jinn.

Film Plot

An assassination attempt on Senator Padmé Amidala's life leads to Jedi Knight, Obi-Wan Kenobi, investigating and discovering the creation of a clone army and a bounty hunter called Jango Fett who seems keen to not stick around and talk to Kenobi, elsewhere his apprentice young Anakin Skywalker is protecting Padmé but he is troubled by his forbidden love for her and visions of his dying mother.  On Coruscant the senate debates ever more wider powers for Chancellor Palpatine and the Jedi council led by Yoda fear the Sith have returned and that the dark side is clouding their powers of vision.

The shroud of the dark side has fallen…….Begun the clone war has.

Positives

This film has some very effective action sequences, the speeder chase at the beginning of the film is superb and the asteroid minefield chase is also exciting and edited together perfectly, the latter doesn't rely on music but has some nice deep bass, an inspired decision, it would have been all too easy to just have John Williams compose a piece of his wonderful music for the scene in question, i also enjoyed seeing the Jedi in a full scale battle at the end of the film.

Yoda finally uses his lightsaber, i enjoyed some of this but check out a negative below, still overall it was great to see little Yoda kicking some ass and showing us why he is a Jedi master.

I thought Natalie Portman had more to do in this film and she seemed to be more relaxed in her role, i'm probably one of the few people around who enjoyed the romantic moments and bought into it, i think she got better dialogue to speak and was having a lot more fun with the role.  Christopher Lee was superb, he brought real authority to the role of Count Dooku and the delivery of his lines was excellent, his lightsaber duelling scenes were a real highlight of this film.

Ewan McGregor takes centre stage as Ob-Wan Kenobi and i thought, just like Natalie, that he looked to be having a lot of fun, i think he delivers his lines perfectly and has studied Alec Guinness well, he was a huge fan of the original trilogy and you can see he relishes the opportunity to be a part of Star Wars folklore.

As with the previous film i also thought Ian McDiarmid played his part to perfection, he made me believe in the character and he epitomizes the less is more philosophy with his acting.

Negatives

I wish they had shot this on 35mm film as they had the previous film, i feel from a technical standpoint that they have made a mistake, to tie in with the original trilogy they should have used 35mm camera's for all the prequels, as is stands they are now lumbered with a 2K maximum resolution and should any future 4K format take off then this film will not benefit from it, oh for sure it could be upscaled and may appear slightly better but it won't be real detail, the film will forever be stuck with a lower resolution.

I feel at times that so much CGI during the end battle scenes makes the film resemble a video game, maybe if they had built full sized sets and had real stormtroopers it would have helped for those scenes, i just think that George Lucas should have been thinking more about how to tie the films in with the originals and how they were filmed, advancing the technology is fine, just do not do so at the expense of previously shot movies.

The Yoda lightsaber duel with Count Dooku was entertaining but some of Yoda's movements seemed to be a little too inspired by Sonic The Hedgehog, probably just a limitation of the CGI technology used at the time they made the movie, just a minor negative as i mostly found the scene fun and enjoyable.

I wish during the final moments of the film they had kept the bassy noise of the spaceships departing lower in the mix, the music score is effective and should dominate that particular moment instead of the other way around, its a small niggle but i feel its worth mentioning.

Image Quality

This is a huge improvement over The Phantom Menace, i did not detect any excessive use of DNR on this transfer, this movie was shot with Sony CineAlta HDW-F900 digital cameras, George Lucas worked with Sony to develop these cameras, i think what we have with this blu ray transfer is representative of the look the film makers were going for, for sure its smoother than if they had shot on 35mm film, bear in mind when watching this on blu ray that these cameras have a built in feature which allows for softening of the image, i believe they used this when making the film, i still felt i saw lots of fine detail, obviously closeups fare better than long distance camera shots but i was impressed by what i saw here.

There is a scene where Padmé and Anakin are on the transport ship to Naboo and the headscarf she is wearing has lots of fine detail that is clearly visible on this transfer, you can look at some very similar scenes in The Phantom Menace which are in my opinion poor and undetailed. For those reading this review and just wanting to know if its an upgrade over the DVD edition, its a massive upgrade.

I thought i saw a few shots with very minor edge halos, this could just be a result of green screen work and digital compositing the scenes with the backgrounds or maybe it's minor sharpening being applied because the scene was considered too soft because of a limitation of the camera lens that they used, as an example a brief shot where we see Anakin and Padme standing next to a stone wall and looking out across the lake, i really didn't consider this to be that much of a problem and as long as your display has the sharpness turned down and calibrated correctly then it will unlikely bother you that much. I have decided to put this on the reference list since i believe it looks as good as the cameras used allow.

I felt colours were accurate, no issues with lightsabers in this film, they look as they should, but thats the case with all the prequels. I have seen mention of a blue haze to some parts of the image, thats intentional and you see that around orbit of the planets and the outer hull of Obi-Wans spacecraft, thats not an issue as far as my eyes are concerned.

I have read some reports about the contrast being off in this film, it looks as it should, for example clouds are still present in one scene and if the contrast was raised they would be lost, if it was too little it would affect the brightness of the images, it looked correct to me, its worth remembering that sometimes people have pre-conceived idea's on things like contrast/brightness, some people think every film should have perfect black levels or colours, well film making is not like that, sometimes directors deliberately raise or lower the contrast, the brightness or the colours, especially in the digital age and not everything is supposed to look the same, skin tones would be affected if the contrast was off and i felt skin tones were fine, i think they are basing their opinion on the DVD edition, bad idea as that edition is too bright and skin tones are affected, check below for a quick comparison of one scene from the DVD and Blu Ray versions and note the clouds and blue sky on the blu ray edition, it is wrong on the DVD edition, too bright, the blu ray versions contrast looks correct to me.

Click here to check contrast on the DVD and Click here to check contrast on the Blu Ray.

Click here to check colours on the DVD and Click here to check colours on the Blu Ray.

Note in the contrast example above that the blue sky background is slightly lost in the DVD and clouds are also slightly lost and skintones are affected, then note in the colour comparison how the saturation is too high on the DVD, likely due to the contrast being wrong, check out the billboard advertising and see how it blooms and then look at the speeder lights, its clear to me the blu ray contrast and colours are correct. I will have blu ray screencaps from all six Star Wars movies posted over the course of the next few weeks.

Sound Quality

I used to consider The Phantom Menace to have the superior sound mix of all the prequels, i now have to change my mind, i think the sound mix on Attack Of The Clones is a little more refined, i felt this soundtrack had better discrete surround effects and the music score sounded slightly better to me, during the speeder chase i could hear individual instruments across the front channels and there was also some very good surround sound, the bass was very deep, the opening moments of this film as the spaceship comes into land is one i often use for demo purposes, i'm glad to say they have not altered the mix in any negative way, the bass is still very powerful during those opening moments and indeed throughout the film.

Lightsabers also retain their bass and sound great during the end battle scenes on Geonosis, i felt this was an exciting and powerful sound mix, it really aided the visual look of the film, the music score by John Williams can be fully appreciated with this release of the film and i think this is a very dynamic track that will give your speakers a great workout.

I was playing at near reference levels and i had no issues with hearing speech, this is at times an aggressive mix but its always well controlled, i recommend subwoofer calibration for films like this because if you make the mistake of having the sub volume too high then it will dominate your soundstage and your neighbours will likely come around and kill you.

Final Thoughts

I enjoyed re-visiting this movie on blu ray, i was more than a little concerned that the image quality would be poor and the sound mix might be downgraded, my fears were thankfully unfounded, i am pleased that there has been no excessive digital tinkering to the image, well apart from all the CGI effects work but that's a part of the movie and if you hate the prequels then you will likely complain about that particular side of them, its true that i often yearn for film makers to use more modelwork and less CGI, indeed in my opinion a combination of both tends to produce the best results, having said that i can easily get wrapped up in a film like this no matter how much CGI there is and it did not take me out of the movie, i enjoyed it immensely.

Do not read my review and think there is anything seriously wrong with this transfer, i believe its as good as the digital camera technology they used allows and as for the edge halos i mention, well they are very minor and do not affect the entire transfer, indeed its just a few scenes and the reason they are there is unknown and i have speculated some reasons, i think this release looks very good and especially so if you are viewing on a large projection screen as i do, this is actually one of my favourite Star Wars films, i think its better than The Phantom Menace, better than Return Of The Jedi and better than Sith, maybe even more entertaining than the original Star Wars, don't let people know i said that but its how i feel and i am always honest with my opinions and i never follow the crowd.

I just cannot understand the hatred some people have for the Star Wars prequels, i think that maybe they have rose tinted glasses with regards to the originals, to me the scripts for the prequels are probably as good and in places possibly even better than the originals, that includes The Empire Strikes Back, of course some people dislike the romance in this film, have they never experienced love and affection and feelings for someone or do they just want non-stop explosions and action scenes, who knows, i think taken as a whole you need all of it, you need the romance for what is to follow, action on its own would make the film less effective.

I am just so glad that this release looks as good as it can, my hopes are now raised for episode III and the original trilogy.

The special effects team studied NASCAR race crash footage as the basis for the podrace crash effects.

The Phantom Menace was the first film to be released with a Dolby Digital Surround EX mix, this adds a center back surround channel, the blu ray release retains this but the codec used is DTS. Natalie Portman's voice was digitally enhanced to distinguish it between Padmé and Queen Amidala. Phantom Menace is the name of a villian in the Flash Gordon comic books. Sofia Coppola has a cameo appearance in the film as a handmaiden called Saché.

They created the sound of the hovering battle tanks by running an electric razor around a metal salad bowl and then lowering the pitch. Keira Knightley plays Sabe, one of the handmaidens disguised as the Queen.

The name used by the Queen while in disguise is Padmé, it's the Sanskrit word for Lotus, Yoda means warrior in that language.

George Lucas first wrote a draft of Star Wars in 1972, a character called Mace Windu was in that early version, he never used the character for the original Star Wars but he did so on The Phantom Manace with Samuel L Jackson playing the part. Lawrence Kasdan turned down the opportunity to write the screenplay, many feel this is because Kasdan was unhappy about how Return Of The Jedi turned out and that he would have little creative control over the filming of any script he wrote in partnership with George Lucas.

Nearly all of the film was shot on 35mm film except for two scenes, these scenes are Qui Gon taking Anakin's blood sample and the promotion of Obi Wan to Jedi Knight.

The Wilhelm scream is used during the shooting of a guard in the hangar.

Film Plot

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, Jedi Knights Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi discover a plot by the trade federation to invade the peaceful world of Naboo, they rescue Princess Amidala and after escape are forced to land on Tatooine where they find a young boy called Anakin Skywalker, the force is unusually strong in Skywalker, on departing Tatooine they cross paths with a dark Jedi, a sith, barely escaping, they head to Coruscant where Yoda and the Jedi council sit and the Republic debate what course of action to take against the trade federation.

Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan along with Princess Amidala, young Skywalker and two droids called R2-D2 and C3-PO, must go back to Naboo and avert a war, once there they will face their greatest foe and fight an epic battle with a sith apprentice known only as Darth Maul, behind the scenes his master hides in the shadows, a Sith Lord, cunning and manipulative, he controls the trade federation, a phantom figure who seeks to destroy the Jedi and rule the galaxy.

Positives

The opening moments of this film are exciting, it builds the basic plotline well and i think the trade federation plot makes perfect sense, you have Darth Sidious ( called simply Sidious by one of the trade federation baddies) controlling things from afar and manipulating all around him, these prequels explain how he came to be the Emperor in the original trilogy and it satisfied me, i know that some people felt the plot was boring, i didn't, i enjoyed it and for me the film works as a piece of fantasy science fiction.

I think Liam Neeson really brings a lot to this film, i remember him from bit parts in films like Excalibur back in the eighties and he has come a long way, he has grown as an actor and got a lot better with age, he shows maturity in this role, i also think Ewan McGregor was a good choice to play Obi-Wan, he can handle the fight scenes and has got the Alec Guinness accent and mannerisms nailed down, Ray Parks plays Darth Maul, his voice was dubbed for this film but he doesn't have that much to say so it's not a real issue, i mention him because he is a trained martial artist and brings a lot of energy to the lightsaber duels, the way he moves is like watching a ballet dancer, you can believe he represents a real threat and can take on two Jedi at the same time. It was nice to see Natalie Portman here and Ian McDiarmid as Senator Palpatine is just great.

The music score composed by John Williams is perfect, i rate it very highly and it's pure Star Wars,  a very special moment is the three way fight scene between Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan and Darth Maul as his Duel Of The Fates score plays, the images fit so well with the music and that fight scene is the highlight of this movie,  it's such a well choreographed lightsaber duel. Ever since the original trilogy came out we have been waiting to see Jedi Knights at their absolute psychical peak fighting a Sith, sure the original movies had a pretty reasonable duel between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker but Vader was not at his peak, oh and the bass in those lightsabers, its delicious.

This film is a fantastic visual and aural treat, it's Star Wars, i really enjoyed re-visiting this film on blu ray.

Negatives

I think some of the negatives i would hold against this film are that George Lucas does not always get what i believe is the best possible performances out of the cast, i felt Natalie Portman suffered the most and she can act better than this, i put this down to the fact she has some stilted dialogue and also the fact that George is known for not really being an actor's director, i remember reading about a scene between Natalie Portman and Jake Lloyd ( Anakin ) in which he used different takes of both actors who were onscreen at the same time, he blended it together with digital tools, he thought Portman's best acting in that scene was in a different take to Lloyd's, now thats hardly a negative but i mention it because i think Mr Lucas cares more about the technology than the actors and i believe if CGI was advanced enough he would simply use it instead of live actors.

I know some people think Jar Jar Binks and the Gungans are awful caricatures and even racist, to me the voicework is at times slightly annoying and perhaps it does resemble the way we have seen slave workers from the deep south represented on film, perhaps the very fact that a black actor, Ahmed Best, was used for the voice and also supplied the framework for which the CGI animation was used is why some people are offended by it, i can see their point of view, of course the Gungans are also treated poorly by their human neighours on Naboo, maybe George was actually trying to make an argument against racism but handled it poorly in his script.

I think they should have built more sets and then added the CGI to the film, i think fully built large sets would have aided the performance of the actors, George should have tried harder to match the prequel look to the original films, i believe he captured the Star Wars essence but failed to fully match the look of the originals and perhaps thats why he keeps tinkering with the originals to try and match them to the prequels, i personally think its the wrong way to do things.

I still find the podrace commentators annoying as hell.

Image Quality

This movie was shot on fine grain 35mm film stock and used anamorphic lenses, as such there are moments throughout the film which are slightly out of focus and you get scenes where the central portion of the image is more detailed than the left and right, or in some cases where a character on the left side is in focus and the character on the right side is a little out of focus, thats just normal for anamorphic shot films, whats not normal is some of the edge halo's which are prevalent throughout the films running time, thankfully they are much milder than what was seen on the original DVD release, this is still a sign that a lot of filtering has taken place and the finer detail has been removed, edge sharpening isn't going to get that back, indeed i can't believe in 2011 that a prestige release such as this has edge enhancement, it makes the film look processed and not at all film like.

There is softness visible in many scenes where there is heavy CGI, this could be a limitation of the technology and this is where adding grain would help hide the issue, the fact grain removal has been applied actually makes it worse and the softness in these scenes sticks out more, now i'm not sure if those scenes were always soft in cinema's but i do think additional noise reduction has been applied and i thought it made the image very soft and undetailed in places.

As just one of many examples of edge enhancement, check out the night scene when Darth Maul lands on Tatooine, you can see a sharpened unnatural look to the rocks in the background, then check out the end of his first fight scene with Qui-Gon, you see him from behind watching with his lightsaber in hand as the spaceship takes off into orbit, the edge halo around his black outfit is all too obvious, there are examples like this which run through the whole film.

Its not all negative, i thought there was good quality detail in a handful of shots, these include closeups of the fighter pilots during the end space battle scene and some scenes with Senator Palpatine when he discusses becoming the Chancellor with the Amidala decoy, mostly though i felt there was a lack of fine quality detail, too many edge halo's and a positively unfilmlike look to the proceedings, thats not due to all the CGI and green screen use but i highly suspect it is due to some quite heavy handed filtering which has removed a lot of the higher frequency fine detail that exists on images shot on 35mm film stock, a compromised image and all because they wanted to eradicate the film grain.

I felt the podrace was one of the scenes which to my eyes seemed to look soft and filtered, another such scene was the Gungans fighting the robot army, now some of this may be due to the quality of CGI used but i still suspect the degraining job done by Lowry as the issue since it affects both real life humans and the CGI creations in the podrace ( and other ) scenes.

In the aforementioned Gungan/Robot army battle there is a scene at the beginning of the battle showing a field of grass, it's just before the battle droid transport vehicles appear at the top of the hill, the grass in that particular scene lacks any detail, it really is a mess, there are various other examples all the way through the film showing this lack of detail.

I think much of the problem is George Lucas wanting this prequel to look like the other two prequels which were shot on high definition digital camera's, unfortunately they still cannot degrain 35mm shot films without side effects and without removing detail, no matter what Lowry or Lucas claims, this film suffers as a result of degraining and then sharpening up many scenes, only a handful of scenes are left looking good. This is not good enough for one of the biggest blu ray releases to date.

Sound Quality

The DVD edition sound mix of The Phantom Menace, was for it's day, superb, apparently the Laserdisc edition was even better, well i got out my old DVD just to try and compare, it's difficult doing that as i believe the dts hd master audio mix is louder than the dolby digital 5.1 mix on the DVD, so i will just forego trying to compare and say that i thought the sound mix was very good, i was fearful they might try and re-mix this track and downgrade it, i don't think they have, the bass during the lightsaber duel is intact, it's also there during the podrace sequences, there are some nice discrete surround effects and the music score also comes across well, i enjoyed listening to Duel Of The Fates again during the end credits.

I also thought speech was clear and easy to make out, at least when played at near reference levels, the dynamic range seemed good, there are now more aggressive audio mixes out there but this is still a solid meaty track.  I don't think anyone will be too disappointed with the soundtrack on this blu ray, stay after the closing credits and take a listen to the THX trailer, the subwoofer blew much air out of its ports, that THX trailer has very deep bass, you might want to warn the neighbours before playing it.

Final Thoughts

I first saw Star Wars as a double bill back in 1980 with The Empire Strikes Back and i have been a fan of the film series ever since, i have always enjoyed the prequels and original trilogy, i consider The Empire Strikes Back to have the best script and indeed of the six so far made its my favourite, having said all that, i did enjoy The Phantom Menace, it has a standout Lightsaber duel and a rich music score, perhaps a little too much CGI at times but that's just George playing with his toys.

I have said all along that the four Star Wars films shot on 35mm deserved brand new film scans, after viewing this film on blu ray, i can say that is still the case, Lowry was interviewed back in 2005 and he said he thought George Lucas would return to him should they ever need to release the films in high definition, he thought the masters made were only intended for DVD, well George never went back to him, he obviously considers this release good enough for the masses, i have to disagree, i believe this can look much better, they could leave more of the film grain in and not apply edge sharpening, this would benefit the film and keep detail levels higher and avoid the viewer encountering the dreaded edge halo's.

In summary i can say i am actually disappointed with this release, i enjoyed the film, the sound mix was very good, the image quality was nowhere near as good as it could be, we as paying customers deserve better than this, it feels like a lazy release to just use an old 2004 master, especially since that master has obvious filtering which is robbing us of the finest detail and obtrusive edge enhancement, i feel this release is a missed opportunity and you must also consider the fact that THX is supposed to be a sign of quality. ( it isn't )