A Few Words About A few words about...™ Lonesome Dove -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Robert Harris]

I missed Lonesome Dove when it was originally broadcast, and attempted to view it on the Artisan DVD release, but failed to get past the first half hour, as the image quality was not up to snuff.

The new Genius release makes up for past transgressions in a far higher quality with a nicely rendered 1.78 AR image that seems to miss nothing that would have been a part of the original flat version. The film appears to have been protected for 1.85.

There is little rationale to put production dollars into effects and action that will not be viewed by an audience any larger than 35", the higher end norm for the era. Those dollars have obviously been used for high impact set pieces.

Because of that, I made a decision early on that to run Lonesome Dove on a large screen would do it a disservice. At 50" a few effects begin to lose their visual currency, but as entertainment Lonesome Dove continues to work the magic that has won audiences for the past two decades, and this new Blu-ray release will undoubtedly make fans happy.

I was hopeful that there may have been some documentaries more recent than those as originally released, but we are left with what appear to be original standard definition material from old masters, which may be the only way that they exist.

Recommended.

RAH

 

[norrisMc]

Thanks Robert.

I was impressed by this on blu-ray, even though I know that there is some controversy over the "changes" from fullscreen to widescreen (even though Dove could have been shot widescreen!).

Powerful, engrossing and touching storyline, superb acting by an all star cast, beautiful scenery, and Diane Lane in hi-def. What more could you want!

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

I actually think it works quite well on a large screen. Looking past a few shoddy optical effects in a TV production is no harder for me than forgiving unsophisticated effects in vintage films. There are not that many of them, although the storm sequence during Part One is pretty egregious.

When I viewed this, I watched the first three parts in two marathon sessions over two consecutive evenings, but I actually put off watching Part Four for over a week. I did not want it to be over.

Regards,