The Day The Earth Stood Still - R2 Specs announced - and review! (1 Viewer)

[JulianK]

Fox UK has announced the release of five "classic" movies for March 3rd. These are The Day The Earth Stood Still, The Blue Max, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Breakdown and Q&A. You can read the details (and see The Blue Max sleeve) here: http://www.zetaminor.com/whatsnew.htm

The bad news is that the 70m documentary that was on the laserdisc isn't on the DVD! (This may change when the disc is released in the US, of course!)

You can read my review of the R2 disc here:

http://www.zetaminor.com/dvd/dvdreviews/day_tess.htm

 

[RobertR]

According to this info:

http://www.dvdplanet.com/product_lis...393&format=DVD

The Region 1 disc does have the doc and the other extras.

I would also hope that it would have a higher audio bit rate than 192.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Amen on the audio bit-rate thing. 2.0 DD sounds pretty lame at 192...up it to 348 or 448 (what one would use for normal 5.1 soundtracks) and it might start to compete wtih the sound-quality of traditional 16/44.1 PCM (which *still* isn't good enough to be considered the reference!)

 

[JulianK]

I'm hoping that the R1 version will have the documentary on it, too! It's bad enought that we have to pay about 60% more for our discs, without dropping bonus materials, too!

192kbps is pretty standard for stereo (some discs use 224kbps). 5.1 soundtracks are usually 384kbps or 448kbps. I found a 2.0 commentary track yesterday that was recorded at 96kbps (on the Angel Season 3 box set).

 

[Randy A Salas]

I have been watching the upcoming R1 DVD in preparation for an interview with director Robert Wise. It's wonderful finally to have this film on DVD. I'm just surprised at how slavishly it reproduces the 1995 laserdisc.

It's a two-sided disc. Side 1 contains the movie, commentary (Nicholas Meyer and Wise, as on the LD), newsreel, the theatrical trailer and THX Optimode. Side 2 contains the documentary (really just a string of interviews that eventually peter out after 70 minutes; everything Wise says is repeated on the commentary), image gallery and text supplements (including the shooting script)--again, as on the LD--a restoration comparison, and trailers for One Million Years B.C. and Journey to the Center of the Earth.

The film looks grand in its new restoration. Of course, the older restorations didn't look that shabby. Various examples of restorations through the years are included in the comparison, as on the other Fox Studio Classics.

It's a slight disappointment that Fox deemed that there was nothing new to say about this landmark film in the 8 years since the supplements were produced for the laserdisc. It's obvious as you're watching the interviews that they aren't recent, but Fox does nothing to indicate that that's the case. (Producer Julian Blaustein died soon after the interviews were done.) A new commentary track by a film historian or futurist--a la Criterion--or even sci-fi collector Bob Burns would have been a fun and worthwhile companion to the directors' commentary.

Finally, I'm still embarrassed for Meyer for thinking that Michael Rennie's entrance as Klaatu was really Lock Martin's as Gort--and talking about it as such for a minute until Gort finally enters. Then he corrects Wise, as if the director of the film had made the mistake.
:b