Blu-Ray?
This movie is long overdue for a Blu-Ray release, or at least an updated DVD. Any news on one?
shareAccording to a post on thedigitalbits.com today, it will be released on Blu-Ray on January 11, 2011.
shareAccording to a post on thedigitalbits.com today, it will be released on Blu-Ray on January 11, 2011.
Excellent.
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Lazy + smart = efficient.
I suppose without the cool bonus material which they already have in stock because it was on the cd-rom (yes... cd-ROM) back in the 90's.
.... I just typed back in the 90's, that makes me feel so old.
Well, I've just now pre-ordered my copy from Amazon, but the page doesn't say what special features there are (if any). If I get mine before you get yours, I'll let you know what's on it.
Frankly, at this point I'll be happy with a good transfer. The old DVD one is disappointing.
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Lazy + smart = efficient.
Thanks, I would appreciate that! I am very curious!
shareSo am I.
The release date is still 11 January, so watch for a post around the twelfth.
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Lazy + smart = efficient.
Update: My BD is out for delivery today, so of course we'll be watching it tonight.
I'll post about the special features (or lack thereof) and the picture/sound quality tonight or tomorrow.
Update on the update: It's here, so I popped it in to have a quick look. The (slightly) bad news is that there are no special features at all. The good news is that, based on a few quick spot-checks, the picture and the sound are both excellent -- and worlds better than that travesty of a DVD release.
Looks as though they may have done it right. If I notice any problems, I'll post again after my wife and I watch it all the way through tonight.
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Lazy + smart = efficient.
And now we've watched it. Excellent quality all the way through, and wow, what a difference it makes.
They've also improved a couple of the hilariously bad subtitles, but they haven't caught all the errors yet. For example, Cunningham can now "manage a lisp" rather than a "lift," but Killearn's "He is! He is!" is still mistranscribed as "Yes! He has!" -- and his "or I'm no judge of a pint of pish" is still inexplicably rendered as "and I'm no judge."
We also noticed that the movie seems to be a very slightly different cut. Two minor excisions we noticed:
(1) When Rob steps out of Loch Lomond after his bath, there's a shot on the DVD of Neeson standing up, with (er) the MacGregor deliberately blurred out. On the BD, the shot ends before Neeson has stood all the way up, so there's nothing to blur.
(2) When Killearn takes the paper from MacDonald, there's a shot on the DVD of him turning away and crumpling the paper into a ball. On the BD, the shot ends before he crumples it. (I particularly noticed this one because of a goof I submitted: when Killearn shows the paper to Rob later, it's clearly never been crumpled. Of course it could be a different copy, but I don't think that was the intent. Anyway, it looks as though the BD version has been edited to remove that minor continuity error.)
There may be others, but those are the only ones we spotted. The rape scene in particular appears to be intact (which means this also isn't the earlier European-DVD version; in that one, twenty-some seconds were trimmed out of the rape scene).
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Lazy + smart = efficient.
Thanks for sharing, I appreciate it.
I'm a bit disappointed. Would it have hurt them to copy the cd-rom material to the blu-ray or tape a commentary? A missed opportunity if you ask me.
A missed opportunity if you ask me.
I agree. I'd love to have a director's commentary with this film (especially if some of the actors -- Neeson, Lange, Hurt, Roth, Cox -- could sit in as well), and I'd have enjoyed having the extras that came with the old CD-ROM.
But for whatever it's worth, the transfer is excellent and both picture and sound are a vast improvement over the DVD. And the price is right in view of the lack of extras.
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Lazy + smart = efficient.
I agree with your comments, Splifflock. At least the Blu-ray transfer has been done well, both audio and video. (Although ... that said, the video transfer did seem to struggle a wee bit on a couple of occasions - notably, around 1:40 to 1:44, where details in the chase scene on the hillside shrouded in mist seemed to get lost in digital noise and also showed a bit of blocking. But mist and smoke would challenge any transfer.)
It's a pity Rob Roy has always been regarded as the poorer cousin of That Other Film. For my tastes it's by far the more satisfying of the two, though less of a Hollywood spectacular, and some decent extras to reflect the film's quality would have been greatly appreciated. Still, even the best extras are ephemeral in their appeal, and at least Rob Roy's had a release. And not just an upconverted DVD or laserdisc transfer, either.
You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.
Got this the other day, it is an absolutely first rate transfer, was very surprised. Shame about the lack of extras though..
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