Blu-Ray Review: INDEPENDENCE DAY

Mike LoManaco

Professional Review by Michael LoManaco, 07/05/09; Region 1 (U.S.) Release Tested


Studio Name: 20th Century Fox
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Disc/Transfer Information: Widescreen 2.35:1; 50GB Dual Layer
Video Codec: AVC @27 MBPS
Tested Audio Track: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Director: Roland Emmerich
Starring Cast: Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum


EARTH. NICE WHILE IT LASTED.



LoMANACO'S PLOT ANALYSIS:

Ahhh. The annual analysis and retrospective recalling of 1996's Independence Day. What would a Fourth of July be without Roland Emmerich's wildly polarizing tale of Earth being invaded by tentacle-like aliens and our efforts to fight back with Star Wars-like resilience and none other than Cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid) to save us from total domination? That's a tough question, because hardly a 4th passes that I do not throw this seminal "corny classic" of sorts into a source deck of some kind -- well, now it's a Blu-ray player, but taking into consideration the fact that I have purchased this title on every format it was launched on so far, it can almost be said that I am a "fan" of ID4. Please...don't throw hot water on me!

Yes, I actually have bought this title first on VHS with the special holographic cover that came off due to weak glue material, then it was the so-called "Limited Edition" DVD (which was only "Limited" because it came with a money offer inside towards Emmerich's The Day After Tomorrow which was in theaters when the Limited Edition ID4 came out) and have since sold that for the Blu-ray version. But let me make something clear before we delve further: I made a sort of self-promise to my inner child when the new high definition formats arrived (which included HD DVD) that I wouldn't rebuy everything in my massive DVD collection just to own it in 1080p, and that I also wouldn't "blind buy" an old title I owned in HD incase the results were less than stellar in the video department; since making that promise, I have done it four or so times already. Christmas Vacation, Con Air, Independence Day, Batman Begins and Superman Returns were all re-bought on Blu, forcing me to sell my DVD copies, but perhaps Superman and Batman don't count since I received those as gifts. How did my broken promises to myself turn out? The only title I wasn't "burned" on (that is to say, I was not disappointed with the BD video transfer compared to the DVD) was Con Air, which ended up looking gorgeous in 1080p -- at least compared to the original non-anamorphic standard DVD. But I'll get to why ID4 burned my **** in terms of a blind-buy switch to Blu later in this review.

What hasn't been already said about Emmerich's Independence Day? It's widely criticized and usually lies amidst a thick, syrupy layer of negative commentary since its theatrical launch some 13 years ago. Indeed, its moments of cheesiness get staggering at times, and the dialogue in certain parts can make you almost wish the aliens had taken us over and erased humankind out of embarrassment. Yet at its heart, it is still a blueprint of sorts for brainless, fun, summer entertainment -- the stuff home theater excitement is made of. Since its launch, many summer action blockbusters continue to target ID4 as their basis and goal in terms of scope and magnitude, and say what you will about it -- it still plays back viciously in a home theater, whether it be in THX-certified Dolby Digital or DTS-HD Master Audio. But we'll get to that.

As I mentioned, Emmerich's ID4 has become a staple in my yearly 4th of July viewing schedule, and no matter how dripping-with-cheese the lines are exhibited, it's just such a cool flick for this time of year. I have to admit, I am an Emmerich "closet fan" of sorts; I actually liked The Day After Tomorrow and even The Patriot, both of which I own on DVD, The Patriot being in Superbit edition. To go into the things that went wrong when he tried to craft a serious period piece in The Patriot is simply too difficult in that this is a review of Independence Day, but suffice to say, Roland's history is a little hazy there. You know what really brought Independence Day down more than its ineffective special effects or embarrassing performances by Randy Quaid and most of the cast? It was the switch to Star Wars-like sequences when the American pilots were duking it out in the air with the mini alien space craft; I mean, Lucas did it already -- did Emmerich need to try and copy this?

Okay, so the plot was thinly plausible up to a certain point, and frighteningly so: On a Fourth of July weekend throughout the world, gigantic city-sized ships show up over some of Earth's largest cities, launched from a massive mother ship of sorts that orbits our planet from space. I am not convinced that this could not happen, and I'm actually frightened that one day -- perhaps not in my lifetime -- we will actually be visited or even invaded by hostile life forms because humans are arrogant enough to believe we are actually alone in this galaxy. And so Emmerich's suggestion here is not completely implausible...but then we're introduced to the film's characters who introduce implausible elements into the mix: We have Jeff Goldblum (probably the best actor in this lineup in terms of his performance in the film) as a satellite descrambler of some sort in New York City who stumbles onto the alien race's secret messages they're imbedding in Earth's satellites inbetween visiting his Jewish father (Judd Hirsch). We have Bill Pullman who plays the U.S. president, and it was hard to take that seriously after watching him in Spaceballs and While You Were Sleeping. Robert Loggia ("Frank Lopez" from Scarface) turns in a performance as the president's right-hand general, and then of course we have Will Smith who steals all the scenery in this and saves it with his witty humor as the American pilot called into duty to counter-attack the aliens (along with his squad of Black Knights, of course). Randy Quaid makes an **** of himself once again as Russell Case, a drunken pilot living in a camper with his dirty, white trash kids who dumps pesticides on crops from a plane for a living. Quaid's character had a run-in with these aliens in the past, in which he was abducted. Explains so much.

Emmerich starts things off with a bang, showing the massive saucers arriving over New York, L.A. and Washington and immersing the cities in clouded terror; at the White House, Bill Pullman's president character is given information from scrambling, panicking Pentagon staff and Loggia's general character that the massive object in space has broken off into smaller pieces, thus the city-sized ships that are dispatched to hover over Earth's major cities. It is assumed the aliens were here before, based on Quaid's abduction backstory and the fact that Area 51 in Nevada has ownership of one of the "baby ships" from this fleet, and so they must know which of our cities are the most populated. The SETI foundation in New Mexico first gets signals from the approaching mother ship, which makes its way over our moon and into Earth's atmosphere, and in New York, Goldblum discovers the reason the planet has satellite disruption is because the aliens are using our satellites to embed a secret code amongst the attacker ships over the cities.

INDEPENDENCE DAY REVIEW CONTINUED BELOW...

Mike LoManaco

INDEPENDENCE DAY REVIEW CONTINUED...

While panic begins setting in and the major U.S. cites are fraught with rampaging evacuations, Goldblum's character and Hirsch drive to Washington, where Goldblum is desperate to locate the president's press secretary, who happens to be his ex wife (Mary McDonnell). In a completely implausible sequence, Goldblum gets into the White House -- where the president and his cabinet are preparing to watch a "welcome wagon" helicopter dispatched to offer friendship greetings to the alien ship over Washington -- and asks McDonnell to confront the president because he knows they're going to attack in a matter of minutes. Based on Goldblum's assessment, the president orders an evacuation of the White House but that's after the welcome wagon chopper is blown to bits by an attack from the alien craft's green laser rays. It's clear these guys aren't E.T.

Of course, Air Force One just barely escapes the aggressive attack on the White House and Washington itself by the ship, taking off just in time before being thrown into a fireball, and it seems the attack signal which Goldblum's character predicted worked perfectly as all the ships around the world begin blowing up the cities they're covering. Back in L.A., Smith's stripper girlfriend (Ms. Vivica A. Fox) who's **** didn't look that good in her silk panties as she danced onstage at her club, has taken her kid and they're dog, Boomer, and escaped the city as Smith gets called into action for a counter assault on the ships. Actually, Fox's fat **** looked like bags of ricotta cheese as she danced around the stage -- not a stripper whose crotch I'd dump 20 bucks into. But I digress -- as Smith and company prepare to attack the ship over L.A. they discover that these massive alien crafts have a shield around their hulls, much like in Star Trek and so their rockets and missiles can't penetrate them. I appreciate Emmerich's desire to tell a "revenge" story here, that is, having the U.S. forces strike back at the aliens for what they did to our cities, but with borrowing themes from Star Trek and then Star Wars after mini alien ships fly out of the bigger ones and engage the U.S. troops with green laser beams, the whole thing started to get silly. Now, Smith and his Black Knight squadron are dodging and fighting mini alien ships that also boast shields and shooting green rays of light, and it really does begin to feel like any battle sequence in any of the Star Wars sagas. That's precisely where I believe Emmerich went wrong. But it sure does make a fun home theater ride.

Once most of Smith's Black Knight squadron is wiped out, Smith himself gets into a nasty chase with a single alien mini ship that he ends up out-maneuvering and causing to crash in the California desert. In a rather humorous sequence of the film, Smith opens the hatch to the smashed alien craft (after he safely ejects from his doomed plane and lands via parachute) and gets the first glimpse of the alien invaders with their huge heads and massive tentacles. With a knockout punch to the face, Will exclaims "welcome to Earth!" and then "now that's what I call a close encounter..." as he drags the unconscious alien through the desert under his parachute. At this point, while Pullman's president character contemplates launching nuclear weapons at the alien ships in Air Force One above, Smith runs into Quaid and a whole gaggle of escaping motor homes moving through the desert. Their next stop? The top-secret military installation known as "Area 51" outside Las Vegas, Nevada.

Emmerich would have us believe that the U.S. president doesn't know that Area 51 even exists...but can this really be true? I'm voting no; Pullman's character, amazed that this underground bunker and science lab is real, is introduced to the strange Dr. Orkin, played by Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Data" (Brent Spiner) who has been heading up the investigation into these aliens for 15 years. In fact, the scientists of Area 51 have a few in containment from previous crashes on Earth. Learning of their vulnerabilities and physical structures, Pullman is advised that they communicate through some kind of telepathy. The huge cobra-like heads of the aliens are actually a front of sorts, peeling back to reveal their metallic-looking tiny faces and bodies, but when Spiner and his crew of doctors are attacked after attempting to perform experiments on the creature Smith captured in his aerial assault, the alien kills Spiner and uses his body to communicate to the president and his staff. When Pullman makes a peace offering to the alien, he learns of their true intentions on Earth: Destroy all mankind and devour our resources, to then move on to the next planet and do the same; it seems water and air to live are the same specifications these aliens require.

Pullman's decision to then nuke the ships fails, as the ships withstand even the blasts of a nuclear arsenal. It's only until on July 4 when Goldblum, in a drunken fit, figures out a way to give the mother alien ship a computer virus that will cause the shields to fail on all the other ships -- the only problem is that the only way to get this virus into the mother ship is to fly the captured aircraft from the '60s (that's in Area 51) out of Earth's atmosphere and into the mother ship itself, where the virus can be loaded and a bomb can be set to destroy the mother ship. How are they going to do this? Well, remember when I said much of ID4 gets extremely implausible? Emmerich really reaches here in that Smith's pilot character assumes he can maneuver this old ship enough to fly it in outer space, no less, while Goldblum seems to know enough about the ships that he can get the virus into the aliens' "computer" system in the mother ship. The whole notion is ridiculous, but I will say this -- on the "Limited Edition" version of the DVD, there is an extended cut of the film that really adds nothing, but there's a sequence that's hinted at in which Goldblum learns a bunch of things about the crashed ship from Brent's character, so I guess it can be assumed that Goldblum gains some information about the alien craft. But the Blu-ray version of the film does not come with this branching option for the extended cut. We only get the original theatrical version here.

So, after proving with a Coke can test that Goldblum can successfully get the ships' shields to drop with this virus, he and Smith get into the old captured mini alien craft and fly it out to the mother ship, where they are brought in on some kind of tractor beam. Meanwhile, on Earth, it seems the aliens are preparing for their next wave of final attack, and it's up to Smith and Goldblum to install that virus and get back to Earth before there is no more Earth; because most of the U.S. military has been wiped out, volunteers with flying experience are needed to make this last ditch effort to defend the country against the aliens. This includes Randy Quaid, who only dusted crops in a prop plane prior to this (with some Vietnam experience too). In an absolutely ridiculous stretch by Emmerich, the president himself gets into a fighter plane and prepares to lead the amateur squadron against the aliens in the final battle! Can all of you imagine Obama doing this? Can you, really? :rolleyes:

Back on the mother ship, Goldblum and Smith have uploaded the virus successfully, but they're facing another obstacle now in that the alien leader seems to have caught onto what they're doing as their ship is locked in place and they can't escape. Fearing they're doomed anyway, they launch the explosive device they equipped the ship with before leaving Earth and that seems to break them loose. Again, Emmerich would have us believe that Smith is such a seasoned pilot, he can once more outrun the attacking dozens of mini alien ships that follow them towards the outer door of the mother craft. Of course, they escape (this all being done in an alien space ship no one on Earth knew how to fly) but back over Area 51, while the ships' shields have been dropped thanks to Goldblum's virus, the weapons from the U.S. planes just can't do enough damage to the alien ship. That is, until in a ridiculously embarrassing end sequence, Quaid's character decides to fly his plane directly into the path of the main weapon beam the aliens are preparing to fire down on Nevada -- and that seems to be the answer of how to destroy the ships. What? Is Emmerich kidding me? Cousin Eddie from the Vacation films saves mankind, and wants us to believe that this redneck idiot screaming "Hello, boys! I'm BAAAAAAAAAAACK!" as he sacrifices himself by flying into the main weapon is what destroys these ships? Apparently so, as this sets off a chain reaction explosion, ripping open the hull of the ship and eventually getting it to crash into the desert -- Loggia orders the method in which to destroy these ships be sent to squadrons all around the world via Morse code (being that there is still no satellite function due to the alien attack). I still can't sleep well at night knowing Cousin Eddie saved the Earth from alien domination.

If you can look beyond the idiotic implausibility outlined above, there are still things Emmerich didn't tie up in this...are we to believe that if these alien beings, which were so strong, angry and aggressive, came to Earth before, now they were defeated in an attack, that they wouldn't return to find out what happened to their brethren? And what about the fact that almost every previously inhabitable location on Earth has been reduced to smoldering rubble? Where are these survivors going now?

What do I know...I asked the exact same thing after the Northern Hemisphere was frozen solid in Emmerich's Day After Tomorrow when it ended...:rolleyes:

INDEPENDENCE DAY REVIEW CONTINUED BELOW...

Mike LoManaco

INDEPENDENCE DAY REVIEW CONTINUED...

VIDEO QUALITY:

Okay -- let me sit down, get buckled in and prepare for my onslaught here, because I know it's coming. I have said this since my very first experience with Independence Day on Blu-ray, and although I seemed to be in a massive minority, I still need to stick with my initial evaluation -- this 1080p 50GB 27 MBPS encode just doesn't look that good to me. Every time I watch ID4 on my Blu-ray Disc, I try and find something that will change my mind, but I don't. It's one of the reasons I have completely stopped blind-buying older titles to replace my DVD versions with because I feel I got burned on this one; from the very opening shot of the mother ship flying over the moon towards Earth, there's an horrendous amount of grain in the image. It litters the sequence that closes up on the astronauts' plaque on the moon. But that's not the worst example -- as the panic sets in during the opening Pentagon sequences, the noisy grain can be seen again, distracting to the point that I would go as far to say my Limited Edition DVD looked cleaner in these shots.

There are definitely positive traits of this transfer -- the outdoor sunlit shot of Goldblum and Hirsch playing chess in a New York park looked gorgeous, clean and sharp as a tack in 1080p. You could make out the threads in Hirsch's sweater; but to be fair, this scene looked absolutely awesome on standard DVD also as I recall, and the Blu-ray may have nudged this effect perhaps slightly higher. Another example of this parallel is when Smith is leaving in his red Mustang for his base in El Toro; Fox's kid is inside the car, and as Smith gives him fireworks to play with (real smart move for a kid his age) you get a sense of the absolute tactile punch of the clarity here -- where the red of his car was always stunning on DVD, it's extra-stunning here with lush and rich greens in the foliage behind Smith and Fox in the scene. But a thick layer of film grain appears to be a reappearing problem in the transfer -- I have had this debate with many who have snapped back (when I originally reviewed the title) that "it's supposed to look like that" or "the grain is logical and appropriate" but in many of the sequences, this grain is just plain excessive. Other reviewers have agreed with me, and I can quote those references if need be, but one particular scene that stood out in this way was a sequence involving Adam Baldwin's character in the Area 51 bunker. As the aliens are preparing to attack the bunker, towards the end, a ridiculously heavy, staticky swarm of noisy grain litters the screen and really takes you out of the experience -- film grain to preserve an original presentation and artistic expression is one thing; this was completely unenjoyable.

In my opinion, Independence Day didn't have to be one of those titles you double dip on to replace a DVD copy; I suppose if you don't own the title, go ahead and get the Blu-ray, but no matter how many times I watch it, I can't get past some of the softness and noisy appearance of this transfer. Some professionals have said this is because Fox used an inferior digital compression scheme for films around this era, including Fight Club and some others; whatever the culprit, I feel I could have held on to my Limited Edition DVD and been satisfied.

AUDIO QUALITY:

Here's another avenue for debate; all the previous Region 1 DVD releases of ID4 came with a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix, albeit THX certified. It was difficult to judge that track -- sometimes it appeared as though it was thundering, at other times, it seemed lacking, as if Fox could have done so much more with it. This is a film that demands tactile audio, but as the years passed, I came to appreciate the aggressiveness of the standard Dolby Digital track on the DVD. At the time of the title's initial DVD release, Fox wasn't really behind DTS as they are now, so DTS fans were left with this "mere" Dolby track; the Blu-ray, on the other hand, has been swept up in Fox's high definition frenzy of equipping almost every release with DTS' new codec, Master Audio. Unfortunately, my system does not have the capabilities to process Master Audio, so these tracks drop back to a core DTS signal. Still, all the Master Audio-equipped titles I have ran through my system at core DTS have sounded Earth-shattering nonetheless and so I cannot wait to experience them in true Master Audio once I can make the player update. The only title, to date, that I was a bit disappointed with wearing a Master Audio track has been Quantum of Solace.

Running its core DTS stream stripped from the Master Audio track, Independence Day's dynamics were all there -- where the LFE boom which accompanied the opening logos and initial scenes were rumbling in Dolby Digital on DVD, here they're punched up even more. The sonic shock from the bass hits during the opening scenes is dramatic, drowning out the cues around them. As the mother ship enters Earth's atmosphere, the LFE rumble is alive and menacing; the real prowess of this track, though, comes during the alien battle sequences in which they're flying around trying to take out the U.S. fighter planes. There's so much directionality and scope to the soundstage, it really makes for a fun ride -- every time Will Smith's plane ducks below a rock or an alien ray beam shoots from its ship, the effects engulf you in the proper channels, creating a seamless soundfield. This is what a good, properly executed action soundtrack should be experienced as. Dialogue, as it was on the DVD, is a bit low compared to the other action, and can get overwhelmed when explosions are taking place amidst the conversations and such, and there is still a tad bit of that "old" sound to the mix -- as if you can tell this was from a film of mid-1990s Hollywood. This may be due to some re-purposing of the soundtrack from old stems for the new Master Audio mix, but it's not really distracting.

But constant surround activity and wall-rattling bass are what really make this track stand out; you can almost ignore the illogic and implausibility of the plot once immersed in the soundtrack of ID4. Watch your master volume control when the ships attack simultaneously around the world -- as the Empire State Building and the Capitol explode into fireballs and debris gets thrown at you from all sides, your speakers will respond with fury...a fury unfortunately not enjoyed by neighbors if you have any, as I do. :banghead::mad:

The length of the initial attacks on the major cities really give this track room to shine -- the breaking of glass, concrete and steel explode around the soundstage as fire engines, cars, pieces of buildings and people are hurled into the surround channels in a startling fashion, and this sonic assault goes on for awhile. By the time the sequence ends with a tunnel in L.A. crumbling from an alien attack while cars and trucks are flung every which way as Fox and her son and dog escape into a service closet, your breath is taken away as the following sequence depicts a crushed Statue of Liberty floating outside of Manhattan, allowing for an aural recovery of sorts.

LoMANACO'S SUMMARY:

How can I really summarize this; I mean, you're either an ID4 fan or you're not. Some call it incredibly cheesy -- and it is in some parts -- and critics won't even mention it on their lips, almost throwing Roland Emmerich into a virtual pot of boiling hot water for making this. It's still a "cheesy action classic," right up there with cheese gems like Commando, Fast & The Furious and Emmerich's own Day After Tomorrow. I will continue watching it every year on the 4th.

LoMANACO'S RECOMMENDATIONS:

I know I am going to be strung up from the rafters and burned like an innocent Alabama child at a KKK rally for re-standing my ground on this, but I don't think the Blu-ray release of Independence Day was that stellar -- and it's a shame for the very reason I personally double dipped on the title, which is because I assumed an action epic like this would probably benefit tremendously from the higher bitrate. It's not terrible along the lines of, say, 88 Minutes, but it's definitely not spectacular looking for most of the run. I know fans of film grain and preservation in film will argue this until two people are dead and buried in the ground, but the amount of grain in many of the sequences on this disc borders on excessive; it appears as static in one scene in particular it becomes so aggressive.

It it better than the DVD version(s)? Sure -- the scenes that looked excellent on DVD now look super excellent; but I am not sure if that warrants a replacement. In many outlets, this title is expensive, and I cannot recommend a double dip if you already own it on DVD. If you don't own it already, by all means make the Blu-ray your first foray into Roland Emmerich's "cheesy masterpiece."

Just remember that you're not watching Star Wars when Will Smith's plane dukes it out with the invaders and their little ships...;)

AsSiMiLaTeD

It's still one of my all time favorites. I'd have to think a bit on making the top 5 list, but it makes the top 10 list easily for me.

danz1906

Great Movie-Great Sound!!!

Mike LoManaco

Thanks for responding to the long review, guys! It took me awhile to write that!

Indeed, it does have great sound but I'm not too sure about the picture (on BD) as I indicated in the review. :eek:

AudioGenics

i enjoyed the movie.

do you think there will be a sequel

Mike LoManaco

I also wanted to add this to the Audio Quality analysis portion:

And oh yes, I almost forgot -- there is an extreme example of how to do kinectic surround material the right way during the scene when Adam Baldwin's character fires his gun at the Coke can inside Area 51...the resounding pinging of the bullet and then the can as it fires around the soundstage and into the appropriate rear channel is jaw-dropping, as is the wallop of LFE that accompanies the bullet hitting the spacecraft's shields. Amazing audio work.

Mike LoManaco

joseph.v.chen wrote: »

i enjoyed the movie.

do you think there will be a sequel

Have you only seen it once Joseph?

No, I don't believe there will be a sequel; they probably would have worked on that by now. I did say though that the ending leaves a great deal of loose ends that you need to suspend your disbelief on.

ESavinon

I want my 5 minutes back .
This is a horrible movie that i love to play just to show off my home theater.
I learned the hard way too not to blindly buy a replacement blu-ray.
My last burn was with Stargate The movie. What a horrible transfer!

wingnut4772

My favorite thing in the movie is Bill Pullman's speech before the assault. It's awesome.

AsSiMiLaTeD

The speech by the President is the best ficticious speech by a president in any movie. I've seen lots of movies try to capture the same 'emotion', but all them fall short of the ID4 speech.

zombie boy 2000

I still get a kick out of the fact that alien space ships use steering wheels. Except reverse is forward to our makes and models, and visa versa.

wz2p7j

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

The speech by the President is the best ficticious speech by a president in any movie. I've seen lots of movies try to capture the same 'emotion', but all them fall short of the ID4 speech.

Totally agree about the Prez's speech. Just gives you a lump in your throat.

Also agree about upgrading older DVD's to Blu-ray. I've done it on several movies and just wasted my money. Talked to a friend of mine over the holiday weekend and he has reached the same conclusion. A lot of those older titles just don't transfer over that well. I "upgraded" Predator to BD, for example, totally grainy and a waste of $$

Chris

Mike LoManaco

ESavinon wrote: »

I want my 5 minutes back .

Are you referring to my long review, Savinon? How dare you!! :eek:

Just kiddin'; but did it really take you only five minutes to read?

This is a horrible movie that i love to play just to show off my home theater.

I think it's just plain old fashioned brainless fun; but it indeed plays back great on a home theater! I mean, you can run this on a $99 HTiB from Costco, and the dynamics and surround energy are STILL there...it's amazing...

I learned the hard way too not to blindly buy a replacement blu-ray.
My last burn was with Stargate The movie. What a horrible transfer!

Absolutely agreed, Sav...the studios WON'T be getting my cash again for a rebuy of a DVD title; I also got burned with Halloween...:rolleyes:

Mike LoManaco

Keiko wrote: »

iD4 is a true story. It really happened. I know because I was there. Here's proof!

Is that really you, Keik? Where was this taken? Outside area 51 or in Roswell?

That's some review Mike! Y'all have heard about the "Missing Time" phenomenon? This review explains it. :eek:

Sorry -- I just got so wrapped up in trying to explain my thoughts on the title after watching it the other night; I promise y'all will get your time back!

Mike LoManaco

wingnut4772 wrote: »

My favorite thing in the movie is Bill Pullman's speech before the assault. It's awesome.

Some people say the speech gave them goosebumps; I think it was a bit cheesy.

What's interesting about the speech, though, is that if you look closely enough, there's a strange and ironic parallel to September 11 -- after that happened, remember when Bush said something similar, that the world will no longer be divided as nations, but we would all come together to fight one enemy, which is terror, or some such ****?

Now, North Korea wants to bomb us, and we STILL haven't found Bin Laden, no matter how many caves we blow up...

How well we all came together, eh?

Mike LoManaco

zombie boy 2000 wrote: »

I still get a kick out of the fact that alien space ships use steering wheels. Except reverse is forward to our makes and models, and visa versa.

Yeah, Zombie -- good observation; I meant to mention that in the review...that was another ridiculous element Emmerich threw in there. We're to believe the aliens use steering columns -- designed for their tentacles, of course -- and that their ships come with leather seats humans would sit in? That MAY have been added by the Area 51 guys, but come on...:rolleyes:

Mike LoManaco

wz2p7j wrote: »

Also agree about upgrading older DVD's to Blu-ray. I've done it on several movies and just wasted my money. Talked to a friend of mine over the holiday weekend and he has reached the same conclusion. A lot of those older titles just don't transfer over that well. I "upgraded" Predator to BD, for example, totally grainy and a waste of $$

Chris

Chris,

Your feelings and observations, my good friend, are definitely justified. I have reached the same conclusion about older titles -- I'm keeping my DVDs from now on. There are a few that I REALLY wanted to upgrade -- such as CRIMSON TIDE and THE ROCK -- but you know what? The Extended Cut of CRIMSON TIDE on DVD which I have and the Criterion Collection version of THE ROCK both upscale nicely enough on standard DVD; I have to say, though, that I WAS surprised at another disc I blind-bought on Blu to replace a DVD, CON AIR: This film looked SPECTACTULAR on Blu-ray, and MUCH better than the original non anamorphic DVD. But it's the last time I do it; John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN looked awful too -- WAY too grainy and noisy with the wrong color scheme, too.

As for PREDATOR, that's always been a problem, no matter how many times Fox re-issues this title...I have the Collector's Edition two disc DVD set which came out a few years ago, with the DTS track, and some scenes look good while then suddenly the next few scenes will look like someone with a camera phone shot the sequence -- in particular, watch when Arnie falls into the waterfall towards the end...the scene looks like it was lifted from a photo proof or something it's so staticky. Even the opening Fox logo is LITTERED in grain; this title just never looked good. When I heard how poor the Blu-ray looked, I didn't even bother...

lightman1

Just go with the art of the movie. It's nice to pull yourself away from reality once in awhile.

BTW.. Mike(Keiko) .. You's kinda fluffy...:D

Mike LoManaco

lightman1 wrote: »

Just go with the art of the movie. It's nice to pull yourself away from reality once in awhile.

...and that was the entire essence of what I was trying to say about ID4; it really is a blueprint for brainless summer cinema. I just love analyzing a plot to death!

renowilliams

I agree with the assessment, that the audio seems good in spots and lackluster in others. Pesonally, I think the sound in U-571 was far superior, particularily the LFE.

IMHO



Tim

Mike LoManaco

renowilliams wrote: »

I agree with the assessment, that the audio seems good in spots and lackluster in others. Pesonally, I think the sound in U-571 was far superior, particularily the LFE.

IMHO



Tim

Hey Tim,

Thanks for your thoughts!

Well, U571 and ID4 were two totally different titles -- I suppose there are many tracks that surpass ID4 if you want to go that route, including Saving Private Ryan, War of the Worlds (remake) in DTS, etc...

Are you referring to the Blu-ray version of U571, or the DVD?

cnh

Mike LoManaco wrote: »

Is that really you, Keik? Where was this taken? Outside area 51 or in Roswell?



Sorry -- I just got so wrapped up in trying to explain my thoughts on the title after watching it the other night; I promise y'all will get your time back!

What's the matter with you guys can't you tell Michael Moore when you see him? It's a new documentary in the making about the Government....

see Keiko's pic above....am I right?


cnh