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A Few Words About While we wait for A few words about...™ Cloud Atlas -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

Michel_Hafner

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I'm looking forward to seeing it again on BD. It was a bit long in the cinema. Watching it again maybe it feels shorter since the connections become clearer and the music has sunk in better. If you like the film and have never seen the one in my "avatar", which is a shorter precursor, then watch that one too.
 

Steve Tannehill

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The blu-ray and DVD release date slipped to May 14th, to allow for a European release.

The digital release (iTunes, Amazon, Vudu) will be April 30th. I have it preordered, I can't wait the two weeks to see the blu-ray, which I have also ordered.
 

Steve Tannehill

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I have watched the iTunes digital copy of the movie twice, now, and it holds up very well.
 

Dick

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Robert Harris said:
Had me pulling up film titles as I watched, seeing comparisons / parallels. Adrian Messenger, Bladerunner, Tron, Soylent Green, et al
Wow, that's a pretty eclectic group of films that you thought of after viewing CLOUD ATLAS, which I have not yet seen. I am intrigued as to how all of those titles correlate to this one. Look forward to the Blu.
 

JoshZ

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Dick said:
Wow, that's a pretty eclectic group of films that you thought of after viewing CLOUD ATLAS, which I have not yet seen. I am intrigued as to how all of those titles correlate to this one. Look forward to the Blu.
Half of those movies are name-checked in Cloud Atlas, which actually has a character quote the most famous dialogue from one of them.
 

Tino

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JoshZ said:
Half of those movies are name-checked in Cloud Atlas, which actually has a character quote the most famous dialogue from one of them.
And that line had me laughing out loud for a good minuteStill digesting..............
 

Citizen87645

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JoshZ said:
Half of those movies are name-checked in Cloud Atlas, which actually has a character quote the most famous dialogue from one of them.
And then followed up with more than just a famous line
, though that could be considered a nod to the Matrix as well.
 

JoshZ

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Cameron Yee said:
And then followed up with more than just a famous line
, though that could be considered a nod to the Matrix as well.
One of the themes I found interesting about the movie is that:

Most of the stories involve characters who try to better the world, yet the further we progress chronologically into the future, the more it seems that their efforts all fail. The 19th Century character becomes an Abolitionist, but slavery returns a couple centuries later. The reporter stops an intentional nuclear meltdown, but most of the world is eventually destroyed in an apocalypse anyway. History keeps repeating itself, and nothing anyone does seems to have a lasting effect on that.
 

Robert Harris

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As the new Blu-ray from WB is now available, a few more words are in order.

It appears that Cloud Atlas is a film-based production, 35/3, taken through a 2k DI. One of the things that's quite instructive to the novice viewer, especially in projection, is how much of a difference a DI, whether film or data based has on the final product.

One of the first places to look is the main title sequence. For decades main titles, unless a simple graphic, were dupes, and without high quality duping stock, the final results were generally less than stellar.

Take a look at the main title sequence even from a '60s production such as The Great Escape, and you'll see what I mean. The main titles may have originally looked a bit better, but we're probably now looking at something of sep masters, which means fifth generation. With digital clean-up this can look quite nice, but it's going to be soft -- very soft.

Compare that to a digitally produced set of main titles, a perfect example being Cloud Atlas, and you'll see that they're original, brilliantly sharp and perfect, with no generational loss.

Cloud Atlas may be an acquired taste. It's certainly no ordinary film. But to those who haven't yet sampled what it offers, I'm suggesting highly that you do so.

RAH
 

Colin Jacobson

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Dunno if anyone else will agree, but I thought "Cloud Atlas" offered possibly the most attractive live-action BD I've ever seen. Simply stunning visual quality...
 

Dick

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I haven't read the book. Regarding the movie, reviews here and elsewhere indicate that people are puzzling about the "meaning" of it. I think this is a film that "means" something different to each viewer, which is fine. For me, the film contained a message that each of us is responsible for everyone else, and that our individual actions impact those in the present and in the future. For me, there are cautionary points about the need for power and control over others - whether through religion, politics or social & economic status, and about the suffering of the others as a result. It seems a potent message and rather well communicated here. I like this film a lot
 

bryan4999

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I watched this blu-ray last night and loved the movie, which I missed in the theater. I am looking forward to finding the time to watch it again after I have absorbed it for a few days. It was a beautiful film to look at, so many vivid colors, which is a nice change since the style seems to have gone to a de-saturated, monochromatic look in so many new movies. I found it helpful to turn the captions on, it made it a bit easier to follow, given the brisk pace of most of the dialogue.
 

Brian McP

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I have a sneaking suspicion that like "Blade Runner", Warner Bros will make a ton of money off this picture in home video....it will end up going back into theatres as late shows....it will become a cult movie....and we'll all (hopefully) be buying the '25th Anniversary' box set with 5 discs (or virtual reality versions of the movie -- whatever's going in 2037....)
 

Winston T. Boogie

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I watched it over the weekend and will comment more on it later but I think the big issue many people will have with this film is how it quickly jumps from story to story giving some people trouble following all the different threads.

Personally, I liked that device in the film and for me it made things feel that much more interconnected which is one of the themes of the picture. I have never read the novel nor did I have any knowledge of what the film was about going in but I was able to follow the flow of it without an issue.

A lot of what happens is bang on (meaning pretty simple to catch) and things like "as one door closes another door opens" are reinforced with dialogue and visuals to create a flow that tells us how these people in different periods of history have influenced or created ripples that continue to have an effect on other people.

Early in the film there is an important bit of dialogue about how if God or a divine being created the world how much of it are we able to change and what is basically fate...or divine providence and unchangeable...and then throughout the film we watch people that do their best to change or control what happens often willing to sacrifice themselves for others...throwing out Spock's old Star Trek bone of "the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few or the one."

It is a very ambitious film and for that I sort of think that ambition should be rewarded but I can see how some people will have an issue with this film. It is an event film no question about that and it is an attempt to make an epic.

One thing I will say is that Tom Hanks really chews the scenery here and is pretty over the top in most of the roles he plays. I can see why they cast him but I do think they may have been better off going with somebody other than Hanks. I'm not saying he is bad in the film but he certainly provides enough ham to make a lot of sandwiches.
 

RobHam

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I'm late the party with this one.

Cloud Atlas was given a very limited cinema release in the UK, and I didn't get to see it. The BD was finally released on Monday and I watched it earlier today.

If ever there was a movie-buff's film, then this is it - it references loads of different films, some obliquely and some directly (Soylent Green, and Blade Runner amongst them). I thought the writing was of a high standard for the majority of it with perhaps some lapses when it attempted comedy. It took a good hour before I started to "get" the nature of the overlapping stories, and by the end I was totally immersed in the film.

The visuals are amongst the best I've seen on Blu-ray - jaw-dropping at times.

This is one I'll re-watch fairly soon to better appreciate the story, and to be swept away again by epic film-making at its grandest.

What I don't understand is, having spent >£100M on this movie, why was it apparently abandoned at the marketing stage by the studio?
 

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