Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
Blade Runner is on UK 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray as a standalone 4K release and as part of the Warner Bros. 100th Anniversary Studio Collection from 16th October 2023. For me, Blade Runner 2049 is a titanic achievement. It's the sequel I never wanted but am overjoyed to have. Villeneuve and his creative partners nailed it. Coming out of Sicario I was excited to see what Villeneuve could do with Arrival as the original short story was so short but heady. Coming out of Arrival I knew he was going to do something interesting with Blade Runner 2049. After this film, I know Dune is in capable hands. That said, I don't need another Blade Runner. Sure there is a lot left to explore, but it doesn't need to be. Two films are enough for this little franchise of science fiction masterpieces.
Blade Runner, alongside John Carpenter's The Thing, was a box office and critical bomb when it hit movie theaters a scant two weeks after the phenom that was E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. It was a movie that few people saw in theaters during its initial run and even fewer thought much about it afterward. Thankfully, home video switched that around. When Warner Brothers released what was to be dubbed the "Director's Cut," folks all of a sudden started giving this film another look and reassessing its position in the science-fiction genre. It's because of this Director's Cut release on VHS that I learned what Blade Runner even was, let alone come to appreciate it as one of my favorite films. Audio-wise, the 4K Ultra HD includes a new object-based English Dolby Atmos mix that’s 7.1 Dolby TrueHD compatible. Like the TrueHD mix that was created for the previous 2007 Blu-ray release, this is a stunning audio presentation, featuring a big, wide soundstage, tremendous surround atmospherics, smooth channel-to-channel movement, crystal clear dialogue, and full LFE. Panning is a little more precise now and the height channels are actively engaged for music and atmospheric sound cues – overflying Spinners, advertising blimps, the patter of rain, etc – to complete the soundfield overhead for greater immersion. The improvement over the TrueHD is minimal, but no matter; the mix is a perfect match to the visuals in every way. Note that additional audio mixes include 5.1 Dolby Digital in French, German, Italian, Latin Spanish, Castilian Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Polish Voice-over, and Russian. Optional subtitles are available English (for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing), French, German for the hard of hearing, Italian for the hard of hearing, Castilian Spanish, Dutch, three different forms of Chinese, Korean, Latin Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Arabic, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hebrew, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, and Turkish.The most interesting characters are mostly non-human. Gosling's K is close to his lean performance from Drive (or his turn in the interminable Only God Forgives) – his search for a soul in an indecent world marking him out as the narrative's most sympathetic character. Sylvia Hoek's brilliant Luv, Niander's right-hand woman, is a ferocious but curiously immature creation. Ana de Armas' Joi is a stunning visual concept, an AI that blurs the line (certainly for K) as to what's real and what's not. But that’s also what makes Blade Runner so interesting. It’s not concerned with conventional storytelling. It’s a dreamy, meditative tale that ponders the nature of existence, human or otherwise, with frequent bouts of melancholy. Blade Runner (The Final Cut) is presented in 4K UHD courtesy of The Film Vault with a 2160p transfer in 2.40:1. This is for all intents and
Michael evidently was. That said, as always, Michael's analysis is thorough and insightful. I do want to clarify one aspect which may confuse somethat it almost breaks the illusion of scale. If the cityscape were any clearer, you'd see that it was Editor’s Note: Portions of this review are excerpted from my longer review of the original Blade Runner: The Final Cut Blu-ray release from 2007 – you can read that here. Note that the Final Cut images below are photographs of the new 4K UHD presentation, projected with HDR. Don’t use them to judge color; it’s incredibly difficult to get color to reproduce accurately via a cellphone camera.]
For the 4K enthusiast who can't wait to get a look at the Ultra HD Blu-ray release that's due on September 5th, take a look at my coverage of the film and the A/V presentation Here. Many "Blade Runner" fans were aghast when news of a sequel was announced. Why would such a perfectly-formed film require a sequel, and how could it possibly live up the original? Those fears proved unfounded however when Denis Villeneuve took the director’s seat – arguably the greatest sci-fi director of the modern age, Villeneuve’s sequel, "Blade Runner 2049", tells an engrossing original story that still manages to capture the dream-like atmosphere of the original. It’s a modern classic. Unfortunately, those in the U.K. can no longer stream the original Blade Runner movie either. However, it’s pretty cheap to rent or buy digitally.
Similar titles suggested by members
Audio Commentary Featuring Syd Mead, Lawrence G Paull, David Snyder, Douglas Trumbull, Richard Yuricich, and David Dryer Extensive special features, including an introduction by director Ridley Scott and three filmmaker commentaries
Dialogue is clean and clear throughout. Person to person exchanges solid a rich in-the-room quality to them. These exchanges can be particularly jarring and unsettling when K undergoes his baseline tests as words are thrown fast and furious with an increasing intensity. As clean as dialogue is, there are long stretches of silence where no one is talking and all you're left with is atmosphere. Sometimes it's rain, sometimes wind, sometimes it's nothing at all. This Atmos mix handles these variations beautifully with plenty of constant surround activity from every angle. Even in the quietest of moments, there's always something to hear. The overall Atmos is an excellent one, with consistent activity in the height channels. Whether it's K's spinner, voices or Los Angeles' environment (it rains a lot), the height channels have weight and presence. The positioning and steering of effects are seamless as gunshots zip past, Spinners throttle across the screen and waves crash along the Sepulveda Wall in the film's climax. While I won't go so far as to say that Blade Runner 2049 is as good as or better than the original Blade Runner, it gets pretty damn close. So close that the margin of difference is really only quantifiable to that moment of first discovery. As I detailed in my review for the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray release of Blade Runner, I discovered the film under pretty unique and very memorable circumstances that made me an instant fan of that film. I didn't want to believe that Blade Runner 2049 could even come close to being as good as it is. I was expecting to walk out of the theater thinking "That was pretty good. They didn't screw it up!" In actuality, after sitting through the credits I walked out of the theater speechless, in a stupor. Blade Runner 2049 brought up so many thought-provoking ideas about heady issues and themes like love, having a soul, and what it means to be human that I needed to take a walk for a mile or two to process everything. But the bottom line feeling that was fueling my thoughts was just how incredible the film was. I just couldn't believe that it was actually that good.retail copies; see "Update" below). Third, and most importantly, the selection of extras for this set is nonsensical, omitting
Great Deal 
New Comment