All 4 "Airport" Films From Universal -- Coming February 10th (1 Viewer)

[David Von Pein]

Anybody ever see this Region 2 version of "Airport" (released in January 2002)? Was this version in Enhanced Widescreen?

Nice cover, IMO. ......

 

[Roger J]

Thay all pre-date the wide spread use of Dolby Stereo.

I suppose that would depend on how one defines "widespread". Dolby Stereo was introduced in the fall of 1975 with the release of Lisztomania. The first film with a Dolby Stereo soundtrack with encoded surround channel was in the spring of 1976 with A Star Is Born (Streisand).

Airport and Airport 1975 pre-dated Dolby Stereo but '77 and The Concorde: '79 could have been released with Dolby Stereo soundtracks, but these were sequels so I would suspect Universal simply cheaped out on the soundtrack production.

BTW, I have had a look at the new "Terminal Pack" and can say the transfer for Airport looks to be the same that was given to Goodtimes for the previous widescreen version. The transfers for the next two sequels look noticably better than the older non-enhanced versions with Airport '77 looking very nice indeed. The Concorde: Airport '79 may well be the weakest of the four with widely variable quality of elements throughout. One shot will look "okay" then the following shot will be soft and grainy with washed out color. Certianly watchable if you are a fan of the movie, but not a great looking disc.

As for the DTS track on the Airport disc, the source master for the multi-channel mix is rather dated with limited fidelity. What track one listens to will make no difference.

Formatting for the set is disc one a DVD-14, dual layer for Airport on one side and a single layer for Airport 1975 on the flip. Disc two is a DVD-10, single layer on both sides.

Despite the shortcomings in these presentations, all four films with 16:9 enhanced transfers in a single package for $24.98 retail qualifies as a stone-cold bargain.

 

[Paul Linfesty]

Airport was a Todd-AO production intended for 70mm release, therefore had a 6 track master.

The rest were never intended for 70mm release, and therefore carried mono optical tracks. Thay all pre-date the wide spread use of Dolby Stereo.

While true the sequels were relased in mono optical only, AIRPORT had some 35mm 4-track mag stereo prints released, and there was no technical reason why II-IV couldn't also have included these.

Interestingly, the AIRPORT ads in both the LA Times and San Diego Union claimed the movie featured "8 track stereo" during the exclusive 70mm engagements.

 

[Benjamin.D]

Has anyone gotten a copy of the soon to be released Airport Terminal Pack? If so, any thoughts on it?

Ben

EDIT: Was not aware of previous posts.

 

[Roger J]

BTW, I have had a look at the new "Terminal Pack" and can say the transfer for Airport looks...

Careful of the snakes.

 

[David Von Pein]

Careful of the snakes.

"I know every inch of the 707! Take the wings off this, and you can use it as a tank! This plane is built to withstand anything...except a BAD PILOT!!!"

 

[Randy Korstick]

Good news about Airport 77. The Goodtimes transfer was horrible. The darkest transfer I have ever seen. Even with Contrast cranked to 100 you can barely make out whats happening in many of the darker underwater scenes. The VHS released by Universal was much better. Will be looking forward to the new transfer.

 

[Stephen PI]

John Stockton:
The GoodTimes version of the original Airport was transfered from 35 MM source, hence the 2.35:1 ratio. I am hoping for the new release they go to the original 65 MM Todd-Ao sources and give us the film in its original ratio of 2.21:1 .

John, this to me is the most important question. I remember seeing "Airport" in London in 1970 and the 70mm print was spectacular.

 

[Roger J]

I have had a look at the new "Terminal Pack" and can say the transfer for Airport looks to be the same that was given to Goodtimes for the previous widescreen version.

As a point of clarification, the aspect ratio of the original 65mm negative would be 2.21:1, however, 35mm scope reduction elements would be 2.35:1. Since the vast majority of people that saw this film theatrically saw 35mm prints, this DVD transfer should be considered correct. I would also have hoped for a new transfer from a 65mm source, but I'm sure Universal would simply not spend that kind of money on a film they obviously feel belongs in the bargain bin.

 

[Stephen PI]

They struck a new 70mm print a couple of years ago, and I was hoping that this may have been an indication that they did a 65mm telecine also.

 

[Roger J]

I wasn't aware any work had been done on the Airport elements in recent years. For archival purposes, perhaps?

No matter, if Universal has struck a new print from the 65mm neg in the past few years, then a new telecine should have been done. Maybe when it comes out in HD?

 

[JonSpice]

I sent universal.com a order for 1 set, this time it will be coming from a studio instead of another.com distributor. My favorite "Airport 1975" Heston-Kennedy good pair up, including Karen Black.
__________________________________________________ ___
Update they were not-remasatered and not worth the money perhaps in HD-DVD, save your money on this one folks.

 

[Ken Martinez]

I picked this set up at Borders today and had a rough time of it trying to remove the dvds from the case. I pushed the center tab, but neither disc would budge. After much effort they finally came out. I thought the discs were going to snap in half.

Is it possible that damaged was caused trying to remove the discs? This is the worst I've had trying to remove a dvd from it's case. I'm tempted to return this set because of this problem.

 

[JonSpice]

I got my confirmation my discs shipped out February 9 from Universal Studios in the afternoon. Now I can see them in anamorphic, BTW anyone want to buy 3 LBX with the bigger bars or should I hand them out as birthday presents?

 

[Scott Hamilton]

I had a problem getting disc 2 out of the case also. I didn't have a problem with disc 1 however.

One thing I didn't expect on the set was The Trailers for all the movies (the 75 trailer was by far the best and not in full screen) this was a great surprise coming from Universal.

 

[Tony Scello]

I've bought alot of DVD's over the years and these 2 discs were the most difficult to remove from their hubs that I can ever remember. Pushing on the hubs did absolutely nothing to release the discs. I stuggled for a while trying to get them loose without snapping them in half. These cases must be the new digipaks with the "death grip" hub. I watched one of the movies last night and, thankfully, it played without problems. This appears to be a very nice set overall. It's nice to have all four movie in anamorphic widescreen looking as good as they do(though The Concorde:Airport'79 has the weakest tranfer of the bunch). You also can't beat the very low price (I paid $19.99). Thank you Universal!

 

[RickER]

My second disc did snap at the hub when i took it out. I spent a good 5 minutes trying to remove it. Back to Best Buy, got a new one. Still couldn't hardly get them out. Soooo, off to Kinko's to copy the art, and place the disks in a double Amery. Now all is good in my world. Ohh, by the way, last time i had this trouble was also with a Universal title, Battlestar Galactica, it used the same type of package. Only with that i had 6 chances of snapping a disc.

 

[David Von Pein]

I suppose the Airport digipack has the moronic type "walled-up" kind of disc tray?? That is: where the bottom two of the four "finger" slots are (for no reason at all) blocked by plastic, so as to disallow the user the opportunity to grab ahold of the disc from opposite ends, then twist & shout (er...turn) said disc until it's removed from its hub moorings.

I've found that the ol' "slide a finger underneath and move the finger around the top edges of the disc until the damn thing comes out" method works pretty well in most instances when encountering these ridiculous type of tray designs.

Perhaps these Airport discs are even too tight for this method to work either...I don't know. I'll have to wait and see.

Well...at least we shouldn't read complaints of any "floaters" on this
Airport release.

BTW...Glad to hear about the inclusion of the Trailers on this DVD release. (Wonder why, though, Universal didn't put this info anywhere in the specs? Not even on its own website. Curious. You'd think they'd *want* to include all the information possible. Trailers are a good selling point I would think. I like 'em included
anyhow. )

 

[David Von Pein]

Wonder why, though, Universal didn't put this info anywhere in the specs? Not even on its own website.

Follow-up ......

Just today Universal HAS decided to add the extra information re. "Trailers"
on its Airport page.

(Guess it was some big secret until February 11th, the day after its release. )

 

[Chad Gregory]

The first three trailers are pretty good. Airport and Airport 1975 are both non-anamorphic widescreen, '77 and Concorde are full screen.

The trailer for Concorde is horrible, I am assuming the movie is just as bad. It just flows along, no voice over, nothing. Very poor trailer, can't imagine anyone wanting to see the film after watching that.