Dr. Strangelove: 40th Anniversary SE

[lukpac]

Anyone have this one? I believe all of the previous DVDs used the same transfer, and I don't remember it being very good. Lots of dirt, burn holes at reel changes, etc. This sounds a lot better:

http://www.dvdfile.com/software/review/ ... elove.html

Gone is the annoying line structure. Small object detail is superb. Halos have been banished. Compression artifacts are not visible. Fine textures like film grain and facial imperfections are now delineated in great detail. I saw things that I had missed on previous releases, like one of the wires supporting a model of a B-52. The anamorphic video seems a little darker than the previous non-anamorphic transfer, and a bit of black crush masks some of the shadow detail. But this is the best presentation of Strangelove ever released, and for those who are fans of the film and Kubrick’s work, this is the one to own.

However, I really don't understand this:

The previous two releases of this film by Columbia in 2001 and Warner Bros. in 1999 offered the same fullscreen transfer. The film’s aspect ratio switched back and forth between 1.66:1 and the Academy Ratio of 1.37:1, so the original transfer was a blend of full screen and non-anamorphic letterbox video. Regular readers know that we’ve described how 1.66:1 window-paned anamorphic video has far more resolution in than a non-anamorphic widescreen version. Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment has finally struck a new high definition transfer from which this DVD’s anamorphic video was derived. The top and bottom of the 1.37:1 scenes have been cropped to maintain 1.66:1 throughout, and the results are a revelation.

Why is it a *good* think that the new transfer is cropped? Is the extra resolution of the anamorphic transfer really that big of a deal? I'd be curious to see exactly what is cropped out.

[Rspaight]

I've got the disc out of the second version of the Kubrick box (and before that had the very first bare-bones release from '97), the transfer for which originated with Criterion for their LD. I don't really have any issues with it -- it didn't look particularly dirty to me.

There's an enormous holy war out there over whether some Kubrick films (Strangelove, Clockwork, Shining, Full Metal Jacket, EWS) should be open matte 4x3 (as some insist Kubrick intended they be seen on home video) or cropped widescreen. I think they largely look OK either way, with some oddities (the cropped Strangelove loses some neat set detail in the War Room scenes, while the 4x3 Shining makes the shadow of the camera helicopter in the opening credits much more obvious).

I haven't seen this version, so it may well be great. I'll stick with the old Kubrick-approved Criterion transfer, though.

Ryan

[lukpac]

I suppose I'll pick this one up. Most reviews I've seen say how much better the transfer is, although one guy couldn't see much/any difference.

It's been a while since I've watched closely, but I remember seeing the DVD for the first time thinking "this doesn't look that good at all".

[Rspaight]

The DVD review site I trust most, dvdjournal.com, says:

This edition also freezes the film's formerly troublesome aspect ratio with an anamorphic transfer set uniformly to 1.66:1. In previous editions multiple aspect ratios varied scene by scene between 1:37 full-frame and an artificially matted (and inoffensively awkward) pseudo-letterboxed widescreen. Kubrick's own preference on the issue, if any, is at best a murky point. The variable format of the 2001 edition (as well as the earlier Criterion Laserdisc) was touted as "authorized" by Kubrick, though the changing ratios never really amounted to much and were, let's face it, rather pointless. Moreover, it's plain that this new edition's uniform format, which recreates how U.S. theatrical audiences originally viewed the film, frames Kubrick's meticulous compositions very well and removes the distracting blurred matting edges that previously drew attention away from the film itself. Purists determined to possess the (debatable) "director's original intent" will want to keep the 2001 edition on hand for its floating aspect ratios. This 40th Anniversary edition, though, is on the whole the visually superior and definitive release.

(Keep in mind that the opening credits are stock footage and will always look pretty bad.)

Ryan

[lukpac]

Yeah, I read that one as well. This was the one "bad" review I've seen:

http://www.dvdtown.com/review/dr.strang ... 2974/2454/

For one thing, I'm not convinced that the new transfer and audio mix is superior. The previous special edition was offered in the original theatrical aspect ratio of approximately 1.33:1, while the anniversary edition offers 1.66:1 anamorphic widescreen remastered in High Definition. I froze the frames in more than a few spots to compare them and was disappointed that the new widescreen version omits detail. Gone is the shadowy edge at the bottom throughout the film, which, admittedly, looked rough and raw in previous DVDs. But a lot of the detail is also missing in action. Example #1: Consider the scene where George C. Scott's character is in the bathroom while his secretary stretches out under a sun lamp. Some of the bed is cut off at the bottom, but slightly more of her shoes are shown far right. In that particular case, it's not a bad trade-off. But Example #2? Consider the first war room scene, where Scott's character breaks the news to the President that a crazed general has locked himself inside Burpelson Air Force Base and has dispatched warplanes to drop nuclear weapons on the Soviet Union. In the old version, in an up-angle shot of Scott, you saw most of the desk in front of him and a stack of books with one title, "World Targets in Megadeaths," on top. In the new version, only "Megadeaths" is visible. The other words (and books) are cut off. There are many such examples, and purists will find it annoying that Sony, apparently responding to the market shift to widescreen televisions, remastered the original print to better fit those screens without edge distortion. But I compared scene after scene with the old version viewed at 4:3 "expanded" mode and the new one at 16:9, and to my eye there was little, if any, difference in distortion. Though the new version is also remastered in High Definition, I also did not notice an appreciable difference in sharpness or contrast. If anything, some scenes actually appear murkier.

[lukpac]

I don't have the original to compare with, but I just finished watching the SE, and it looked damn good to me. The grain is there, and things are nice and sharp. I didn't notice any burn holes like I did on the original.

The 5.1 track (at least when played back in stereo) isn't much more than ambience, but it isn't too bad, either.