A Few Words About A few words about...™ Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[rolla]

I only saw Skull in the theater once with friends, but as soon as I walked out I wanted to get the missus to see it with me so I could get that 2nd viewing in ASAP! Unfortunately, it never happened, but that's ok because she just bought me a PS3 and I can't wait to get this on blu-ray!

 

[BrettB]

You might want to read this. Back around the time the film came out there were before and after pics of the jungle but I can't find them now.

I liked the gopher.

 

[Brent M]

I thought most of the jungle chase seemed CGI. Thanks for confirming it, Brett.

 

[JustinCleveland]

I would really like to pick up all four Indiana Jones films in Blu-Ray in a single package. Does anyone know if Paramount intends on releasing them in the near future? I, too, enjoyed the newest installment but don't want to get a single BD and have to pick it up again when the inevitable boxed set is released.

 

[TravisR]

I have no inside knowledge but I would guess it'll be a while since Lucasfilm own them (not Paramount) and they generally hold on to their catalog titles until there's alot of players sold. And whenever the rest of the Indy movies come out, I think there will be individual releases and a 4 movie set because they'll know that people won't want to rebuy the fourth movie again.

 

[rolla]

Well, I wouldn't be surprised to see a boxset in the next year if past practices are any indication. Lucasfilm seems to enjoy re-releasing things, IMO. Just look at the never-ending Star Wars releases.

 

[Dave H]

My guess is Lucas wants the Blu-ray owner install base to be bigger before releasing the originals. I still think these are at least two to three years away and maybe longer. It took six years for the DVDs to arrive. If it's true a fifth Indy is coming, they may not be out until then.

Of course, all just a guess.

 

[rolla]

Yeah, but not a bad guess.

 

[TravisR]

But the bulk of those are just repackagings of the same disc. There's been one distinct release of the prequels and two releases of the original trilogy and those are some of the most succesful movies ever made. American Pie and Halloween 4 have had more releases than Star Wars.

 

[rolla]

Very true. However, with Indy, they've already done two seperate boxsets for the first 3 films. What's to stop them from a 4th which would include the 4th film? Yes, I concede it's not the same exact practice as what has been done with SW, but it's still lame.

 

[Douglas Monce]

If you read that carefully you'll see that it says that KOCS has 450 effects shots in the whole movie. Thats only 100 more than the original Star Wars had in 1977. Thats not very many for a modern movie.

Doug

 

[Douglas Monce]

I think Crystal Skull is kind of Lucasfilm's test case for blu-ray. If it sells well expect to see more Lucasfilm product on blu-ray in the near future.

Doug

 

[Chris S]

I agree. Provided this release does well it will be hard for LucasFilm to not add Blu-ray releases this to their revenue stream considering the market is already saturated with both single disc and boxset versions of Star Wars and Indy.

 

[TheBat]

back in 1989 I was more excited about the new batman movie with keaton then indy 3. this year I was more hyped up for indy 4 then dark knight. I know that some do not like this new movie.. I liked it for many reasons. one was that it was harrison ford best movie in a while. the last 3 before this were just terrible.. so when you compare it to those.. then indy 4 is much better. I thought shia did fine as mutt.. a differnt role from transformers. it was also a fun movie and much better then either the stupid mummy films or even national treasures films. I look forward to getting indy 4 on bluray.

Jacob

 

[Brent M]

It's ironic that someone with a username of TheBat is more excited about Indy than Batman.

 

[TheBat]

that was when I was a batman fan.. died out after the forever and B&R.. and never really recovered.

Jacob

 

[Paul_Warren]

Came early as anticipated so saw the whole lot today.

PQ I would only give 9.5/10 not quite perfect as intentional grain is everywhere in the night scenes and first half of the movie. Spielberg loves the grain texture of film as opposed to digital so this is as good as his movies get until (if ever!) he uses digital cameras & film.

Audio is 10/10 reference quality. Very deep bass (had to turn down from the THX reference levels!!) and good directional effects. Ben Burtt demonstrates he is a master of sound design. This should be an oscar winning sound mix but as its a sequel not sure if it will be.

With regards to people talking about what is obvious CGI and hating on it (Prairie Dogs, Monkeys & Jungle) it all looked a lot more natural on Bluray and TBH the Prairie Dogs looked very real to me. The monkeys I noticed 1 quick cut where some of them in the background were not rendered with as much detail as the foreground but unless you were looking for it not that bad at all (the thing that compounds it is that the CG lighting was slightly oversaturated and needed more work to look natural).

The Jungle I cannot understand why people are moaning about as its a real location in Hawaii!! according to the Extras on Disc2 and almost the entire chase is not CGI but I admit looks like it due to the set background lighting choices made on location.

The extras are spread out over both discs and some of it has already appeared in low res on :: INDIANA JONES - OFFICIAL SITE :: but its all in HD here and some are longer. Best docs to me were the ILM & Ben Burtt ones (which are not on the official website) the rest were ok but mainly typical recent Spielberg DVD EPK level stuff with no real depth to them beyond the sound bite.

This movie is very solid and entertaining once you can adjust to the 1950's era Indy.

Spielberg hits it out of the park with his smooth shooting & editing styles. Ford is so natural in the part that you forget its been 19 years since TLC.

I hope that Indy5 comes sooner rather than later as there is just about enough mileage left for the years!!

 

[Jonathan Perregaux]

I would have knocked points off for not having "intentional grain." That the disc attempts to reproduce the film's actual appearance rather than presenting noiseless, over-processed data gives it bonus points. (See: Patton.)

 

[Xylon]

 

[Felix Martinez]

Ain't nothing wrong with grain.