LOOKER DVD specs (1 Viewer)

Don May Jr. has been kind enough to post new information on the upcoming WB release of Looker over at the Mobius forums:


Looker discussion

I hope the extra footage from the tv cut is included somehow.

The fact that the first half of this film is so interesting (the zapper used on Albert Finney in his apartment is beautifully done) makes me all the sadder that the second half really sucks. Worth a rental for guilty pleasure purposes.

I remember years back someone said the TV version had an added sequence THAT EXPLAINED THE WHOLE MOVIE!

It would be a huge disappointment if this footage (which the Video Watchdog writer said explained and improved the movie) didn't make it onto the DVD in some form or another.

There are certain commericals on the air today that make me suspect the mind control technology used in the film is already in use!

I just had a chance to look at the disc tonight, so I'll give you all my thoughts.

VIDEO:
As good as it probably could be. The 2.40:1 anamorphic image is good, if a bit soft (probably more to do with the film stock than the actual transfer). Completely acceptable and quite a lot of fun to finally see in widescreen. Unfortunately, the widescreen image brings out many flaws in the actual filming, like boom microphone shadows, etc. Also, in reel two, for almost a full 20 minutes, there is a weird white dot that appears in the upper left of the film image that, strangely, seems to fade out during dark scenes and come out (annoyingly) during brighter scenes. The dot does not really move and just hangs there, in the picture. It looks as if it was some sort of optical artifact on the image but it "shouldn't" be, because it appears in many scenes in which there are no optical dissolves, fades, etc. It does, thankfully, go away after reel two is over, so maybe it was a weird printing error during the 35mm IP creation? One other thing I noticed was, right at the start of the end credits, before they "roll" upward vertically, you can see, at the VERY bottom of the film frame, a few pixels worth of the white text for the end credit scroll just sitting there, waiting to move up.

AUDIO:
The audio seemed fine. It was a standard two channel Stereo Surround track. No 5.1 remix here, but the audio gets the job done.

EXTRAS:

First things first... no extra TV footage included. The version of the film is the regular theatrical cut as far as I can tell, running a little over 90 minutes.

There is an "Introduction from Michael Crichton", produced, so it says, by Laurent Bouzereau. It's a few minutes long and comes off more like an aborted interview segment from a making-of featurette than it does an "introduction", but it's fine just the same. The weird thing is that it's presented in 4x3 letterbox, which is odd. The interlacing on this segment looked pretty grim on my Toshiba HD-A1 player. It probably could've been anamorphically enhanced, I would think, but it wasn't for whatever reason.

There is an audio commentary by Michael Crichton which was actually fairly entertaining. At first, I was dreading it a bit because of the monotone voice of Crichton... after about 5 minutes I was wondering if I would ever make it through the entire thing only because his "voice" was almost putting me to sleep. But, there are a lot of great production anecdotes to be had here, as well as some interesting observations by Crichton, so I was able to stay awake. There ARE frequent dead spots, but they never last more than a minute or so before he starts chatting again. He talks about things like how the DP would cook for people (he was a gourmet chef, too) he liked "that day" dinners in his trailer (if he didn't like you during that day's shoot, you'd just eat with everyone else and not him) ... how the first murder sequence was a pain to shoot because the set designer made a room full of mirrors... how the movie was originally going to be at Fox... how CONGO was in pre-production during 1980, but they couldn't make it then because gorillas were going extinct, how actress Susan Dey lamented shooting in the nude, etc. Some of his more fascinating discussion revolves around the technology implied in the film that has all become commonplace today... like the "card" readers in the doors, the full-body scanners (which are now used every day to motion-capture), the way advertisers test their commercials, and the whole plastic surgery phenomenon which is so common today, etc. Very much worth a listen.

The only other extra is the Original Theatrical Trailer, which is anamorphically enhanced, but looks pretty ragged. Also, I noticed the end titles on the trailer aren't in the proper NTSC "safe" action area. Tisk, tisk, Warner!

The menus are standard "static" non-animated ones, with a cool piece of music from the movie in the background on the main page.

All in all a good DVD of one of my favorite guilty pleasures from the 1980s. I am so happy that Warner put this out and, if you are a fan, you definitely need to pick this up.

Thanks for the review, Don.

I can't wait to grab this DVD, it's been over 20 years since I've seen this last and that theme song is still burned into my skull.

This was shown on HDNet Movies before anyone could record it. It looked pretty good in 1080i.

I want to see this film again. Too bad the extra TV footage isn't there.

Now all we need is the original cut of The 13th Warrior that Mike didn't like.

Hey, I never said I didn't like it...I've never seen it! I do like Jerry Goldsmith's score better than the Graeme Revell score that was in EATERS OF THE DEAD as it was called, though.

Would LOVE to the original cut though!

Looker (1981) is a Region 1 title which I've been meaning to get at some point, even though it's the shorter version. The international version of Then Came Bronson's pilot movie was released by Warner Archive, so I'm wondering if the longer TV cut of Looker could be released by Warner Archive, if it was available?