Enemy Mine DVD? (1 Viewer)

[jim.vaccaro]

I've always enjoyed this movie, and I see the current DVD was released in 2001. Does anyone have any comments on the transfer quality?

 

[Ray_R]

I remember renting this from NetFlix back in 2003 then I rented it again late last year. The current watching was on component and the earlier was through composite. This DVD is dual layered and anamorphic to boot. Excellent film like quality with great amount of film-grain too! Looks simply beautiful and most likely also will when it eventually gets to High Definition disc media, due to the resolution. You could see details in everything, even looked like the film was shot a few years back instead of over 20 years ago.
I heartily recommend this. Even has the original 4.0 sound, I think...
Hell, it's a film I wouldn't even mind owning on DVD, albiet as a Special Edition though. It's originally from a short story of which the title escapes me and which is a remarkable close book-to-film adaptation. Go for it.

[url=http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/1796/enemymine1986dvd3tt.th.jpg] [/url]

 

[jim.vaccaro]

Great! Thanks for that detailed response Ray. It's about $10 a deepdiscountdvd.com I'm going to pick it up along with Ice Station Zebra.

 

[Ray_R]

If you're planning on buying for great deals, you might as well go for www.dvdpacific.com
Great prices for great DVD's.
^Shameless plug.

 

[Lord Dalek]

It's a very early Super 35 film (the first under that name I believe) so expect some heavy grain.

 

[Mike_Richardson]

It's a decent DVD (16:9) but the sound is kind of a mess...if memory serves the 2.0 surround track is miles ahead of the 4.0 mix.

 

[TonyD]

thats gonna give some people eye strain

btw here's a direct link to the title

http://www.dvdpacific.com/item.asp?ID=3109


didnt they create their own language for this movie.
gossett and quaid that is.

 

[Joseph Bolus]

If you're a Costco member, they had it for $8.99 a few weeks ago ... It was in a bin with Journey to the Center of the Earth at the same price. I grabbed Journey (and could not get over the superb presentation); so now I'm sorry I didn't scoop both up.

 

[Cees Alons]

Ray, I believe you may be thinking of Blade Runner (which is adapted from a short story with a different name).

But Enemy Mine is based on the novel Enemy Mine, by Barry B. Longyear, published in 1980 (and read by me that same year ).
It's one of the very few books of fiction and fantasy which have won both the Hugo and Nebula awards. It won the Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novella presented in 1980; it also won the Locus Poll for Best Novella and ("on the strength of this early promise") the author won the John W. Campbell Award that year as well (heavily promoted by no less than the elder Isaac Asimov)!

The author wasn't very pleased with the film. Although I agree that it seems to under-emphasize some of the specific points of the novella, I like the film very much. Especially Louis Gossett Jr. is fantastic.

Jim, just make sure you don't get the cut version (the original runs 108 mins., I believe). If I remember well, the cut version misses, among other footage, the "song" by Jeriba Shigan.


Cees

 

[Steve Christou]

Yep, for years here in the UK we only had the cut down 89min version of Enemy Mine. A very good sci-fi film directed by Wolfgang Peterson, excellent performances by Dennis Quaid and especially Louis Gossett Jr as Jeriba Shigan. I'd love to see an extras packed dvd re-release of this film one day.

The concept of mortal enemies trapped somewhere together and gradually joining forces to survive has been used before on film and tv, notably John Boorman's Hell in the Pacific starring Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune. And I remember an episode of the tv series UFO having a similar theme too.

 

[jim.vaccaro]

I just checked and the version I ordered is 108 minutes...you had me scared there for a minute.

 

[PeterTHX]

I don't think it was Super35, but anamorphic Panavision.

In any case when it's run on TV (and the old LD & VHS) it was heavily cropped.

The DVD has both 4.0 (70MM) and 2.0 (35MM) mixes. Rather than a mix down, they are different mixes (different music cues, etc).

 

[andySu]

Peter THX

Well I have two versions of this Sci-Fi adventure on PAL laserdisc and the DVD version, the biggest thing I’m always looking for on DVD is sound, the film had an exclusive 70mm presentation did it not? And if so why 4.0, that would mean the sound format would be somewhere along the lines of Dolby format 41 and 42.

The mix is somewhat different in terms of sub bass extension, where I had to make some minor changes to the playback of the film, which only took me a few minutes, I had to judge what part of the bass needed a boost over the three-screen channels, and the singular monaural surround!

The centre mix was free from music, in certain parts of the film, surrounds where only active when called upon, that the whole point of discrete sound.

There was a rather funny tapping or thumping sound on the “surrounds” towards the closing credits, which stopped about 1-½ minutes in!

 

[jim.vaccaro]

Watched this yesterday....the surrounds seem overall less active in 4.0 mode, but when the do kick in you really notice them. Of course, the 4.0 had a tighter center channel and more overall oompf to my ears, but the 2.0 wasn't bad either.

 

[andySu]

Jim

There have been similar mixes like “Broken Arrow” where all the sound effects and dialogue, where focused on the centre channel.

 

[andySu]

I have decided to the definitive Dolby Stereo 4.0 surround report on this Robinson Crusoe, film about an astronaut and alien marooned on a desolate planet.


The surrounds on Enemy Mine, I remember seeing the trailer to this on the Aliens VHS PAL tape around 1986, and thinking wow I’ll have to see this one. Over the years you tend to gain a little more knowledge about trivial matters and films on how there made and what there presentation was like!

The music is totally different on this region 2 DVD, totally, where shape crashing musical notes hit in the other version of the film, this happens at [2 minutes 47 seconds] now if you have the old VHS tape or the laserdisc check it out if you don’t believe me.

(PA) All personnel to battle stations. Prepare to launch. This is not an exercise.

Side 1 chapter 2, and Clocking in at [2 minutes 38 seconds] with a low end rumbling on the PAL laserdisc and down at 40Hz, which plays fantastic via the Lucasfilm THX sound system, this low end is no existent on the region 2 DVD?

The sound of the alarm can be heard on the (monaural surrounds) until the spaceships leave, where the surrounds go mute, and low level spaceship flyby with a bit whoosh! Then goes mute once again, until there’s another flyby of spaceships and the “Dracons”

Region 2 DVD chapter 3 and clocking in at [4 minutes 06 seconds] where one of the (BTA) spaceships gets blow to peaces! The music on the surrounds remains mute! All of Maurice Jarre, score is now on the left and right fronts, kind of a long way from those big epics like Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, hay, where it will be surrounding in a big spectacle!

Where Davidge, hits the Dracon, spaceship with one hit to its side, the ship flyby onto the surrounds, score still remains on the left and right fronts. With Davidge, spaceship exploding at [5 minutes 41seconds] on the surrounds and then fading quickly! (monaural surrounds) remain low key in this film, and if it is Dolby format 42, where in the hell is the (Baby Boom) track?

Still no surrounds at [8 minutes 30 seconds] but if you want to give your home cinema an edge like mine does, and you what the surround loudspeakers to be constantly active, it’s real easy and it works wonders when the discrete monaural surround or split-surrounds cuts in!

Firstly you’ll need a Dolby Pro-Logic decoder, and some RCA phone leads, and most importantly you need to be running separate amplification has all those AVR units are simple useless when it comes to inventive imagination.

Chapter 5 and clocking in at [13 minutes 45 seconds] the cascade of rain just comes poring down, along with some rolling thunder, it’s a bit of a pity there no split-surrounds. When the Dracon, goes under the water, the surrounds go mute, until it cuts to the exterior of the open where the rolling thunder and rain continues, until the scene dissolves into the next scene where the surrounds once again go mute.

Now back to the surrounds, if you want them active all the time and it only takes a push of the button to make it so! You will have to re-plug the fronts left and rights, and send there outputs into the Dolby Pro-Logic decoder separate, and send the (outputs) left and right front to (stereo mixer) you will only need one of the surround outputs from the Dolby Pro-Logic decoder.

Place it in line 3 on the mixer. Now for the discrete surrounds from the AVR decoder send the left and right surrounds outputs to line 1 and line 2 on the mixer, and set the pan pot for line 1 to the left, for line 2 set the pan pot to the right, this will create stereo, for the monaural surround output from the Dolby Pro-Logic decoder set the pan pot to the central position. This will keep the signal equal and will send it to left and right surrounds.

Now if you want to balance the surrounds, use (pink noise wideband all channels) this takes a bit of skill to get it done right and patience as well.

Now my home cinema is just running Dolby Digital and dts 5.1, with THX, with centre back surround and height surround, this is done though the separate use of a Dolby Pro-Logic decoder which has been re-plugged onto the discrete surrounds.

Chapter 6, and clocking in at [22 minutes 35 seconds] Maurice Jarre score cuts in on the surround, well his score has been a little absent for a while on the (monaural surrounds).

Now if I have completely lost you here, welcome to my world!

 

[andySu]

I have been looking into the involvement of the surrounds for the past few years now, and have discovered there is also a signal that is between the fronts left and rights and the surrounds where the individual signals meet. This happens on films like E.T., Hollow Man, Goldeneye, Saving Private Ryan and Flight Plan. It’s like the sound in E.T. where the 4x4 truck suddenly pulls up down the left side in the room, and partly on the fronts as well, more a less at the same time, where phase and frequency have similar properties. I have developed a technique where this signal can be sent to middle surround loudspeakers, and it’s all in the mix!

I call this COS (Cross Over Surround) it has nothing to do with the use of an active X over frequency dividing network system, although active X over units do sound better than passive models.

So, you see, I have my head deeply in the surrounds and there’s still plenty of more magic to play with.

If you turn the surround all the way up during the moments where the space battle takes place, you can hear some very faint sounds, also there is a considerable amount of hiss, now I will not advise you to practice this unless you what to knacker you’re surround loudspeakers, and it’s quite pointless as this signal really doesn’t work well, setting it all up with wideband pink noise and setting the levels for equal balancing of (75dbc) at the sweet spot is quite sufficient enough.

Chapter 19 and clocking in at [98 minutes 34 seconds] there is a queer knocking sound that sound like a it’s been produced with a sound generator it has slow heartbeat sound, kinder like the tennis game on the old Attire game consoles of the 1980’s. I’m not joking if you don’t believe me disconnect your fronts and listen out for it, or place you ear right up close to the surrounds, don’t worry there will be no musical score suddenly blasting out, the surrounds remain mute now over the end credits, but it’s this strange tapping sound, or what ever the hell it is the mixers must have been drunk or stoned out of there minds when the did this!

Chapter 15 and clocking in at [99 minutes 15 seconds] the pulsing beating sound, slows down to around and has one beat per second!

Chapter 15 and clocking in at [99 minutes 44 seconds] the pulsing beat gets a little louder, don’t worry too much, it takes a trained ear to pick out little things like this, at [99 minutes 49 seconds] the beating pulsing sound fades and disappears at 99 minutes 50 seconds] surrounds remain muted for the rest of the duration of the end credits.


Your probably wondering how many surround loudspeakers I’m using in my home cinema, x8 JBL control 1 at the present time, with five JBL control 5 for the fronts, and a single JBL 4645 for sub bass extension and LFE.1.


When it comes to surrounds you have to do it probably and it involves the same amount as a (cinema) this configuration is two JBL control 1 for the sides two placed evenly apart at the centre back, and flanking them on the left and right is another set of JBL control 1, these are used with (monaural surrounds and split-surrounds) the centre back surround is only engaged when I chose to, if I where to use it with Enemy Mine, the surrounds are only fixed to one point in the room.

This makes it less impacting, with the Lucasfilm THX turned on, there is whooshing sound, this is produced from the right surround, where the circuitry is putting the signal though a sea saw motion like effect.

With six surround loudspeakers playing with Enemy Mine, I’m really surrounded, none of this dipolar nonsense, and I have tried bipolar loudspeakers and they just fall flat on there faces, expense at the cost of poor specifications!

Note, the side and back half of the surrounds are on the B switching on the Marantz 1030, with sides on A switching. Centre back surrounds is one of the Marantz 1050 with front centre, and the second Marantz 1050 running the left and right fronts. This is soon to be upgraded with a slight modification.


So final conclusion, what do I think of the surrounds in Enemy Mine, great when they become active, but that’s what you get for moneys worth I’m afraid.

I must say I do like the opening of the film and eerie musical score, over that beautiful colourful nebula in the far reaches of space!

It’s wonderful being single, I have got a lot of time on my hands to investigate the surrounds, if you where to fix the surrounds to the back and sidewalls using a thin piece of wood to attach it to, where also this piece of wood extends downwards towards the wooden floor where it slots into the flooring, will send a little extra low frequency.

Not that I have tried it, but if you place you hand on the surround loudspeaker, you well get what I mean! I might look into it, it will be a bit difficulty to pull off, especial near the widow and the centre back surround, you see I’m more adventuress than you know, I will explore this feature, perhaps I will discover a way around it, always look at the surrounds in 3-diminsion!

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Enemy Mine was originally a novella of about 60 pages by Barry Longyear (I read it LONG ago -- well before the movie came out). Longyear and David Gerrold later expanded it into a full-length novel that was partially based on the screenplay.

It's been a while, but I remember enjoying both the story and the film. An SE would be nice.

Say, didn't SNL spoof this movie just recently? The Jack Black episode, maybe? I remember being surprised at a spoof of such an old flick that wasn't exactly a blockbuster!

 

[andySu]

Aaron

Hmm, a special edition would be very nice indeed, and may they can figure out a way to produce a really good six-track Dolby Stereo Digital mix for the DVD, yeah, lets have some (Baby Boom) in it!