Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Just watched this on Blu. Wow! Without a doubt, this is the BEST that this film has ever looked or sounded. The framing is finally correct as well. Warner just hit another one out of the park and across town.

Thanks for the review. I'm looking forward to this one.

Hey, Eric, by any chance do you have or have you seen Young Frankenstein? That's my other favorite performance for GW, and I'm wondering how Young Frankenstein looks on blu...

I haven't seen Young Frankenstein on Blu, but I have heard that it looks pretty good.

The positive comments are nice to hear, but a bit surprising, since it's my understanding that this is the same transfer as that done for the HDDVD, which came in for some criticism.

I cannot speak for the HDDVD, as I did not buy anything in that format, but Wonka had always been either really grainy and muddy, or in the case of the 2001 dvd, good in parts and not so good in others. As people on here know, I can be very picky when it comes to transfers, and I'm stating emphatically that Willy Wonka on Blu-Ray is beautiful.

I've seen windowboxed credits before but I think they've gone a little too far on this one. The credits look like they appear within about a 2.00:1 ratio. I guess it's not a big deal, but it's kind of offputing.

Otherwise I'm really happy with this release.

When comparing with the anamorphic widescreen dvd (the one that we all fought so hard to get) I was surprised to see how much had been cropped on that release. They must have just took the pan and scan version and cropped off the top and bottom. It's not even just that it was cropped, but it was cropped so unevenly (about a fifth of the picture was missing on the left side, and quite a bit from the bottom. But on the right side and top the cropping was barely copped, if at all). But you probably all know this already. It just really surprised me. It's like they decided to just crop a transfer they already had just to shut us up, rather than give us the real deal.

But it's all water under the bridge now, we have this fantastic blu-ray.

I re-watched this last night, and the windowboxing is not as severe as I thought it was. This is the best that Wonka has looked on television, and probably the best it has ever looked.

 The best it has ever looked?  Better than the release prints in 35mm - I don't think so.  It looks just fine on Blu-Ray, but not the best it's ever looked period.

I projected the 35mm prints. They were muddy, lacked detail, and the color was drab and ugly. Yes, this is the best it has ever looked.

Pleased with the Wonka blu-ray.  Did have a question about the framing though, as on one of Jack Alberston's lines in the Golden Egg room it cuts off his head almost down to his nose while he's speaking.  Is that the correct framing?  It's been years since I've seen it on the big screen, but I don't remember that being that way.

Ben, by the way, the Young Frankenstein blu-ray looks terrific.

I compared the shot of Jack Albertson to the dvd and it is tighter at the top of the frame on the Blu-Ray. The dvd cuts off most of Mike TeeVee in that shot, and Charlie from the neck down. I think the dvd was framed too high. Since Albertson and Ostrum both had a line in that shot, it is imperitive that both been seen and I think the Blu-Ray accomplishes that. Also, it doesn't cut Albertson off from his nose on my monitor, rather his forehead.

Cool.  Thanks Eric.