Flash Gordon - Silver Anniversary Edition (5.1/DTS) (1 Viewer)

[RickardL]

My 'Flash Gordon - Silver Anniversary Edition (5.1/DTS)' has
shipped from Play, should receive it on Monday...

Flash Gordon: The Movie - Silver Anniversary Edition (5.1/DTS)
New DTS Audio & Dolby Digital 5.1
Limited edition steelbook packaging
Audio commentary from director Mike Hodges
Audio commentary from actor Brian Blessed!
Interview with director Mike Hodges
Original 1940s serial: episode 1 of 'Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe'
Photo slideshow
Original Queen theatrical trailer
Widescreen 2.35:1 Anamorphic
http://www.play247.com/play247.asp?p...2&title=705477

Edit: I'll post my own opinion on the disc when I get it,
here is the only review I have found so far:
http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=58604

 

[Mark Oates]

Momentum have only provided preview copies to selected sites - DVDTimes being the only one I've heard of myself - but in an age where some PR companies provide watermarked preview copies along with threats of legal action about use of unauthorised imagery, I'm not that surprised.

DVDPopcorn have just shipped my personal copy, so notes may be compared during the week.

UPDATE: Sat 8th Oct - Disc arrived early. The case is a thing of great beauty, although the disc has to be extracted carefully because the liner tray has one of those evil Scanavo-style hubs (an inner ring surrounded by grippers with no give for popping the disc off).

The Movie: Can't discern a lot of improvement over the old Momentum print, but it's a nice colourful anamorphic OAR transfer. It comes with DD5.1 and DTS sound, which unfortunately sound slightly reedy compared with the old transfer's Dolby Surround track. The sound is a lot more dynamic and louder in DTS especially, but the whole thing lacks grunt.

The extras: There's the theatrical trailer as before, an interview by Canal+ with Mike Hodges about the making that's quite interesting, and a photo gallery full of pictures of Sam Jones (a disappointment as I'd rather have pictures of Melody Anderson and Ornella Muti). These are made up for by cracking yak-tracks by Brian Blessed (in roaring luvvie mode, bless him) and Mike Hodges. Extras are rounded off by a stonking print of episode one of Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe, which beats the crap out of the old PD prints currently available.

Come on, Universal, reclaim the Flash Gordon franchise when you release Stephen Sommers version - let's see a legacy-style box set of restored serials and this picture and maybe some busts of the characters by WETA, eh?

 

[Dave Mack]

Is this version pitch corrected? being a HUGE Queen fan, when I got the last R2 version I was unpleasantly surprised by the audio last time. PAL speedup usually doesn't bother me too much but with Freddie's voice being as high as it is naturally the extra 4% REALLY made it sound weird.

And I also think the previous R2 transfer was a bit washed out looking contrast-wise IMHO. How does the new one compare?

Thanx! d

 

[RickardL]

Couldn't say. I even made an effort and played my Queen CD
with Flash at the same time and switched back and forth.
Different mixes though.
But then again, I can't claim that I would notice difference
in pitch at all, never encountered it...

I don't have any previous DVD version so I can't compare but
I think the picture looks fine, minimal print damage,
good colours, no ringing, nice detail.

I did notice something in the film which I never recall
seeing before and that is just before Zarkov's ship
enters the vortex (at 16:15 or 15:16, can't remember..):
there is a rectangular field around the ship which follows
it's movements. It has nothing to do with the DVD or transfer,
it is just a visible part of a special effects shot.

I did notice similar fields around the TIE fighters
attacking the Millenium Falcon in Star Wars 1, R1 version.

 

[Mark Oates]

As far as I recall, and I don't claim to be an expert, it's an old trick called "garbage matte" to make bluescreen process shots easier to mount. Rather than setting up an enormous bluescreen area behind a model (and lighting it) when the model might only be a dot in the distance, a smaller bluescreen was put behind the model and the action filmed. Then in compositing, the material inadvertantly filmed at the same time as the model was hidden from view by an animated (or static) matte that only roughly followed the model, overlapping the proper bluescreen filmed behind the model. Frequently exposures made a noticeable difference between the garbage matte and the bluescreen, which were printed into the final effect used in the film. Tons of stuff from that 1977-1987 era (Star Wars, Star Trek, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers etc.) had odd moments like that.

It may have been made more noticeable by the contrast settings of the transfer, which does strike me as slightly faded.

 

[Mark_Wilson]

I noticed the matte on the R2 French dvd and the HD version, too.

 

[Mark Oates]

Frank Van der Veer headed the opticals team on Flash. He wasn't working with anything like the state-of-the-art kit that ILM had, and the effects have that old-Hollywood dodgy air about them. Van der Veer also did photographic effects on Towering Inferno, King Kong (1976), Orca, Logan's Run and even Star Wars. Which might explain a lot...

 

[Joseph Burns]

Any word on the R1 release? Digital Bits' rumor was lean... I'm so stoked this is finally getting issued!
Great news about the original serial ep; here's a second that we get a box of new tranfers on those as well.

Some of my last genre holdouts (I just can't count non-anamorphic transfers anymore) are finally hitting the shelves.
Dune: Extended (we'll see just how different that is from the "Not-So Special Edition airing on SciFi) on its way, Aeon Flux (the show, not the new movie) on 11/22, and Flash - AAaaah!
Now I need a new tranfer of This Island Earth, anamorphic of The Abyss, Twin Peaks Season Two - no, I guess there's still a few. Well, nothing like my list a couple of years ago! Donner's Superman II and Blade Runner: Definitive are the only top-tier ones left; everything else is smiling at me from the shelf.