'Twilight Zone: The Movie' - High-Def Digest review

[jed]

Peter's review of the 'Twilight Zone: The Movie' is up. He was
pleasantly surprised by this Blu-ray, finding both the audio and the video first-rate for a catalog title.

Full review here:
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/1020...ethemovie.html

[John Ballentine]

Peter states the BD disc is TrueHD. However my disc is LPCM. (However I see the HD-DVD IS TrueHD)
The audio and video are first rate (all things considered) - however the crushing of black levels in the opening prologue is a pretty serious problem.

[CCBaxter]

Has it occured to anyone that TZ:THE MOVIE represents the 1st incident of hi-def Spielberg? And his KICK THE CAN segement, while admittedly syrupy, is still prime "early Spielberg" in terms of composition and directorial quirk.

I'm actually pretty big on segments 3 & 4, as well as the prologue... I think it's a disservice to the work of Dante and Miller (and, to an extent, Spielberg) to lump their work in with the nastiness surrounding the Landis segment. (I've always thought TZ: THE MOVIE marked such a clear break for Landis - everything he made before that segment shows the hand of a very interesting, talented filmmaker... and nothing he did afterwards does!)

[jed]

Originally Posted by John Ballentine

Peter states the BD disc is TrueHD. However my disc is LPCM.

You're right, but this wasn't Peter's fault. His original text for this review stated PCM, but got the formats got transposed when the review was copy edited. Apologies -- it has been fixed...

[cupboy]

So, what was the helicopter segment supposed to be about?

[Bruuce]

Originally Posted by cupboy

So, what was the helicopter segment supposed to be about?

The beginning segment was exactly how Warner/Landis wanted it to be with the exception of the ending.

Spoiler:

The ending was supposed to be a happy ending with Morrow's character saving two vietnamese children from an attack on a village.

[Atomic Age]

Originally Posted by Bruuce

The beginning segment was exactly how Warner/Landis wanted it to be with the exception of the ending.

Spoiler:

The ending was supposed to be a happy ending with Morrow's character saving two vietnamese children from an attack on a village.

Thats actually not the case.

According to Ron LaBrecque's book Special Effects about the accident, John Landis' episode had actually completed shooting and a rough cut had been finished. The scene in question was not in the original script but was in fact added to soften the character played by Vic Morrow. I believe all the other segments had already been completed also. Morrow was actually called back to shoot this additional scene some weeks after they had wrapped principal photography on the episode.

The helicopter sequence would have been part of the Vietnam segment and would not have been the end of the episode.

So the episode that we see in the film is what was originally planned. The ending of it is not confusing because they couldn't finish it, thats the way it was written.

Doug

[Bruuce]

I understand that the ending that we got is what Warner did not want. Just like you said, they wanted to soften Morrow's character. I read that John Landis presented them the story and Warner didn't like the ending, so they changed it.

Spoiler:

I didn't know that the saving of the vietnamese children wouldn't be the ending. I thought the idea was to make Morrow's character redeem himself.

[incubus0]

Originally Posted by John Ballentine

...however the crushing of black levels in the opening prologue is a pretty serious problem.

Agreed, that annoyed the hell out of me, but the rest of the transfer is pretty damn good.

[kyosuke75]

Yeah, that was pretty tragic... there's a very lengthy document on Courtv's website about the trial that ensued and how Landis got off the hook...

Its a good read if you are really into the justice system.

[Arip]

is it worthy?