Visually stunning but disappointing remake with technical issues.
593749
First, unfortunately, a couple of technical gripes: (1) the only English soundtrack is TrueHD 5.1 which is usually decoded by our slightly aged but nonetheless excellent AV receiver as DTS. In this case we only got Dolby digital 5.1. (2)The playback of the Blu-ray theatrical version (we haven't watched the extended cut yet) freezes in two places on our LG BD660 player- resolved by rewinding & then replaying. (3) The lip-sync kept slipping - resolved four times during the film by stopping & then resuming playback. We have not encountered these problems with any other Blu-ray disks or DVD's so it can only be down to this disk. These problems significantly reduced our enjoyment of the movie so one star has been lost straight away.

Now, to the film. It is highly likely that anyone watching this is already familiar with the bare bones of the plot from the iconic Arnie version. Visually, this movie is stunning with incredible attention to detail in the soaring cityscapes, the interiors and the street shots with much of the atmosphere borrowed heavily from Bladerunner, the Matrix and even a soupcon of Firefly. The hi-tech special effects are slick and plausible and the whole environment is highly immersive but, of course, thanks to the above technical issues, the level of immersion is somewhat reduced. The story follows the original pretty closely and with frequent nods back to the `classic' version the whole experience is very satisfying but then, about twenty minutes from the end all hell breaks loose and the carefully crafted tension and narrative flow gets totally overwhelmed by lengthy set-piece action sequences.

The cast did their best but with little time devoted to character development (relying, I suppose, on prior knowledge of the Arnie version) they all came across as rather monolithic and the casting of two female leads who look almost identical was confusing to someone like me with appalling facial recognition skills. Poor old Bill Nighy didn't have any chance to bring his usual light touch to the proceeding and his bizarre Agent Smith accent was terrible.

We've now watched the Extended Cut but it isn't noticeably different apart from a few inconsequential scenes, it is only fourteen minutes longer than the theatrical version not the advertised twenty minutes and the alternative ending didn't look any different to us. Playback only froze once, however, but the sound still went out of sync.

All-in-all it was slightly disappointing; this potentially clever re-imagining of Philip K. Dick's short story just got a bit lost in itself and sort-of fizzled out. Shame.
2266869
I'm pleased with the clean up of picture quality of this set. The effects are better from the original Special Edition. However, ROTJ would look better if acid was on the film where the Jabba's Palace dance routine takes place. There's this ridiculous song, Animaniacs-styled animation and added actors who are clearly shot in another room. It ruins that film and one of the its best scenes far more than Yoda/Ewoks/GunGuns ever could have. It's the only added scene that blows it all and frankly, Jesus wept.

The extras include one great 2 hour+ documentary (which looks like WWII propaganda for George Lucas as a great dictator) and some dull trailers and ads for game systems and ILM.

On the commentary, Monotone voices repeatedly stress on each disc how things have never been done before, how it's like music, how high off coke Carrie Fisher was at the time, the inspiration and useless information like how sounds were taken from a California freeway. I lose respect when the people behind the curtain want to come out from behind it, for whatever reason.

The only shot that still needs work is the Jabba's Palace scene.
909929
This is a great movie and it's too bad that not one single decent copy exists out there.
I ordered this remastered edition in the hopes that it would look better than the Horror Express DVD I had bought a few years back. I was wrong, dead wrong. The copy looked as if it was not authentic, I was surprised it was being sold by Amazon-maybe I'm wrong, the reverse side of the disc was blue not silver. About after fifteen minutes into the film the DVD started to skip although there weren't any scratches on the disc. It wasn't my DVD or Blu-ray players, I have three DVD players and two blu-ray players and this thing skipped in all of them. From what I was able to see the picture quality wasn't very good. As it turned out the Horror Express DVD I'd bought a few years back and wasn't "remastered" looked and played a million times better than this crap. Please, don't waste your money, wait until some company releases a good, widescreen version DVD of this great film!
4482521
The stunning visuals are ruined by the jarring and incongruent modern musical score which is dominated by droning rock rhythms that fail horribly to sync with the motion on screen. I recommend watching it with the sound turned OFF, or accompanied by a Jazz CD from the era of the film. It is hard to comprehend why anyone would choose to mar this classical footage by paring it with such an inappropriate soundtrack. Modern music could have worked beautifully if it had been done with any sensitivity to the piece itself, and written to accompany and support the segments of the film.
3951696
This is a review of the quality of the Blu-ray disc, not the movie itself.

Ever since this movie was first released, it has become one of my all time favorite movies.  (Blade Runner is #1 on my list.)

This movie on Blu-ray was supposedly "digitally remastered."  This is one of the worst transfers to Blu-ray I have ever seen.  Most of the frames have so much noise, that each frame looks like a stipple painting.  (Stippling is a painting technique with a bunch of dots grouped close together.)

Bottom line, this Blu-ray quality was so bad that it was distracting enough to reduce my enjoyment of the movie.

It might be best to stay with a good DVD version of this movie until they release a better quality version on Blu-ray.
699335
A while back I purchased another remastered blu-ray set: the entire James Bond series. EACH and EVERY frame on those Bond films was painstakingly digitized in 4K, recolored, cleaned up, and downsampled to blu-ray format. And it shows - every scene is impeccable.

I expected the same with this set - and boy was I VERY DISAPPOINTED that when this set was remastered that only MOST of the scenes in an episode were redone, not ALL scenes. If you're able to watch this on a high-end television with a VIVID MODE (e.g. Sony Bravia Engine 6 or above or similar television with an extended, extra-bright palette available), this becomes quite apparent as about 4 out of 5 scenes are beautifully rendered and then suddenly an episode cuts to a scene that is grainy, dull, and has much less color and has artifacts present (hair, black spots, etc).  They obviously did this to save money on the remastering and it only affects scenes that either have words appearing on the screen, minor cut scenes less than about 5 seconds, or scenes where there is a lot of action. Having said that though, there are a LOT of scenes that fall into those last 3 categories so each episode is CONSTANTLY cutting back and forth between a remastered scene and a non-remastered scene of much less quality.

I was able to eventually work around this issue by putting my television into "THEATRE" mode which substantially dulls the brightness/contrast and gives each frame a much softer look. I'm able to tell if I look closely now but it's not the glaring SHOCK that it was watching these in a VIVID  mode. Overall I'm happy with the set (especially since I scored it on a gold-box discount), but still - they really should have gone ALL THE WAY with the remastering, especially on a set that's limited to 95,000 printings.
3912452
Great movie, poor transfer. They were obviously trying to brighten the colors, but they created a distracting banding effect. Also, for the 60th Anniversary I wish they had put the extra footage from the TV version.
102910
Strongly advise against buying this DVD due to its terrible visual quality (virtually unwatchable).  This is too bad, as it is basically a fun Arabian Nights fantasy flick, although it would have been better without the talking camels.

Hopefully a properly restored version will eventually be released at a reasonable price.

This is a region two disc, so naturally you need a region code free DVD player to view it.
612315
This release has some major issues with Santa clause is comin' to town....the video blacks out and restarts at a previous point..rediculous. The remastered video has had the color enhanced and looks great though. Mr Magoo looks the best of any version I have ever seen. The problems with Santa clause is comin to town are disappointing. I can't track down any contact info for classic media to report the issue so I have no choice but to return it. Annoying
741282
There are some stunning visuals in this movie, but they don't come close to balancing out the incredible mess of the storyline.  Two hours I'd like to get back...
3142971
Loved the movie but this has very poor picture quality.
4765544
This is a good innovative movie with an original storyline.
However, as with numerous other blurays, the sound balance is a huge letdown.
It seems bluray manufacturers only concentrate on the sound quality of the special
effects, eg. gunshots, moving car or ship engine sounds, explosions, thunderous
roars of monsters, etc...
The dialogue audibility is totally ignored. I am glad other reviewers also commented
on this aspect of the Looper bluray. There were many parts of the speech moments
when you could not hear what the actors were saying; it was virtually like silent whispers.
You have to turn the volume way up to slightly discern what the hell was spoken!!
When the gunshots happen after this scene, then you had it, as the bloody loud horrendous
gunshot sounds or the background music score can  even bring an office block down.
Blurays like Avatar and Elysium had very well sound balance where dialogue and the special
sound effects were rightly tuned to one's enjoyment. The special effects sound in these blurays
did not have to be overbearing, and yet they were loud enough with bass power to beautifully
accentuate the sounds of gunshots, explosions, etc...
I have read alot of reviewers comments on the horrible inaudibility of dialogues in blurays, but
why do we paying customers have to suffer this damn blight caused by the studios who made
these blurays.
There is a short commentary in the making of the "Das Boots" bluray which explained that the
volume of the speech level actually could be adjusted by the bluray makers during the manufacturing
stage.
This may necessitate extra cost, which apparently the manufacturers are not willing to spend on.
It is as if the studios are treating us like 5 year olds, or even mobsters and gangsters who only know
how to appreciate the thunderous booming special effects sounds, but do not understand or
require the speech aspect of the film.
At the cinemas, the sound balance of the movies are crystal clear. Thus there is no excuse why
blurays can only attain good picture quality, but very bad sound quality.
Years from now, the blurays will get this defect cleared. But then, we the paying customers would
look like fools for having paid a high price for a lousy product now.
The low one star rating reflects the very poor audio quality of the bluray, but the film itself is good.
235755
While i agree with GMc regarding the quality of the blu-ray, the visuals are still stunning.  However, in my opinion, the insipid and overblown narration are what detract from this otherwise enjoyable visual spectacle.  On first listening I thought it was bad, and it just gets worse with each repeat viewing.  Unfortunately, you can't mute the narration without muting the musical score (which is actually quite good) also.  Just another of life's interminable dilemmas.
4290557
I've never seen Blade Runner look this great, I remember buying the Blade Runner DVD before I bought a DVD player way back when, and I used it as my reference disc for purchasing a DVD player. I would do this today but I've allready bought an HD DVD player and OMG, this is one visual movie.

The auido is equally superb although I can only enjoy the DD track because I don't have the needed Hardware for DD True.

Final thoughts are on the aweful acting throughout this movie, its really that bad once you can point out the stitching in the actor's clothes. Also within the case is an advisory to upgrade your player's firmware. This isn't a bad thing but it's begining to get annoying that every other month or so I need to update my players firmware. This is a poor christmas present as it might not play right out of the packaging.

If you give this as a gift, be sure to burn your friend a firmware upgrade disc for their HD DVD player as well.
4206858
Will someone/anyone PLEASE redo the transfer from the original production.  Starting with the opening hunting scene, the video and audio are excruciatingly bad - the audio sounds like it is playing underwater.

For all of the, the story and performances are magnificent.
2997583
I picked this DVD up today and got it home to find that Disney had altered the original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.33:1 to make the movie "fit" on widescreen TVs. They did this by chopping off the top and bottom of the image. This results in the loss of a good deal of character animation (at least the tops of their heads and their feet). Trust me, I own the original Limited Issue DVD of this film and I did a side-by-side comparison as soon as I got the new Platinum Edition home. If you are a purist about original aspect ratios, please avoid this release and petition Disney to start a free disc replacement program. We should at least have the option of watching the original unaltered film the way that it was meant to be seen.
***NOTE: There are now user images that can be viewed for this product that illustrate the cropping discussed in my review.
3807481
This movie was great, however there were some annoying technical disturbances throughout.  Every once in a while the sound level would go way down, making it necessary to adjust the volume.  Also, several times there was a flash of light, as when taking a picture.  The movie itself was great but because of the technical problems I only gave it three stars.