It used to be that the release of a new Star Wars movie to either theaters or home video was a major event. Has Disney’s plan to churn out new Star Wars content non-stop in perpetuity already triggered franchise fatigue among fans?
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Solo: A Star Wars Story – As was extensively publicized, the long-gestating Han Solo origin story suffered some pretty serious behind-the-scenes turmoil. Original directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord got canned halfway through production, and Ron Howard was brought in at the last minute to reshoot almost the entire movie from scratch. By the time it hit theaters, the film’s already-high budget basically doubled and audiences didn’t seem terribly excited by the results. Many felt that star Alden Ehrenrich simply couldn’t fill Harrison Ford’s shoes. (One thing most people did like, however, was Donald Glover as Lando Calrissian.) This is the first live-action Star Wars movie to be a box office disappointment, and Disney is already re-evaluating its plans for other spinoff projects outside the main Episodes. Now that the movie arrives on video, I suspect it may also struggle to be embraced as home theater demo material. Reports from theaters widely criticized the film’s aggressively dark and murky photography. In this case, 4k HDR may essentially be a requirement to get a watchable picture out of it. As a Disney release, you should also expect it to have a lackluster soundtrack with poor bass. A SteelBook and a Target exclusive are available for collectors, but if you’re a 3D fan, you’ll have to look overseas.
Gotti – John Travolta stars in a bio-pic about notorious mobster John Gotti. Travolta’s star power may not be what it once was, but you’d still expect a project like this to get a decent theatrical release and an Oscar campaign. On the other hand, once you note that the film was directed by Entourage star Kevin Connolly, perhaps it’s not so surprising that didn’t happen. Critics basically laughed the picture off the screen during its premiere at Cannes, some declaring it the worst Mob movie ever made. It barely played in theaters at all and will surely also go ignored on video.
UHD
Things are really buzzing on Ultra HD this week. In addition to Solo: A Star Wars Story, other new (though much lower profile) day-and-date titles include the basketball comedy Uncle Drew and the horror reboot Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich.
I hope that Lionsgate will use the excuse of a new 4k edition to finally provide a decent copy of American Psycho, which had a very problematic Blu-ray release.
John Carpenter’s Halloween has likewise had a troubled history on home video. Even the last filmmaker-approved Blu-ray had a controversial video transfer that messed around with the movie’s color scheme. At present, I’m not sure whether the UHD is based on that master or has been given a fresh makeover. If the studio brought cinematographer Dean Cundey in again, there’s no telling what he’ll do with it this time. [Update: Sadly, our reviewer E. has confirmed that the UHD disc comes from the same source as the 35th Anniversary Blu-ray with the unnaturally desaturated colors and flat contrast.]
For some reason, Lionsgate also decided to bump both The Punisher (the 2004 version with Thomas Jane) and Punisher: War Zone (the one with Ray Stevenson) to 4k this week. Is another season of the Netflix reboot coming up soon or something?
Fox’s X-Men: 3-Film Collection seems like a devious way to trick fans into purchasing another unwanted copy of The Last Stand.
Whovians can say goodbye to star Peter Capaldi one more time with an Ultra HD version of the Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time Christmas special.
Catalog Titles
Russian master Andrei Tarkovsky’s medieval period drama Andrei Rublev exists in several versions, from long to really long. The Criterion Collection Blu-ray includes both the original 205-minute cut that was suppressed from release in the Soviet Union and Tarkovsky’s own preferred 186-minute cut.
Also new from Criterion is the 1961 film adaptation of A Raisin in the Sun, starring Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee reprising their roles from the groundbreaking Broadway play.
Sony welcomes Todd Solondz’s darkly comic coming-of-age dramedy Welcome to the Dollhouse to high definition, so that poor Dawn Wiener can get humiliated all over again.
Arrow takes aim at two films from 1973: Fred Zinneman’s assassin thriller The Day of the Jackal and the bizarre cult horror flick The Baby.
Shout! Factory gives the Tom Selleck Western Quigley Down Under another shot at glory by inducting it into the Shout Select line.
Scream Factory hopes perhaps to rehabilitate the image of John Boorman’s misbegotten sequel Exorcist II: The Heretic with a Collector’s Edition that remasters two different versions of the film.
More horror from Scream Factory includes the 1985 Frankenstein reworking called The Bride with Sting and Jennifer Beals, and a 4-film collection of all the entries in the Spanish zombie franchise [rec].
Mill Creek’s much-delayed “Psycho Biddy Double Feature” of William Castle’s Strait-Jacket and Berserk seems to be back on track again. However, don’t be surprised if it gets pushed back again by the time you read this post.
Schlock is the order of the day at the Warner Archive, from the cheeseball horror of 1957’s The Cyclops to the campy sci-fi in 1958’s Queen of Outer Space and the straight-up dopeyness of Irwin Allen’s 1978 killer bee disaster epic The Swarm.
Back in 1967, who could have guessed that the director behind the goofy Sonny & Cher comedy Good Times would later go on to make movies like The French Connection and The Exorcist? Kino digs up William Friedkin’s feature directorial debut.
Television
By its third season, the writers of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow have more-or-less given up any pretense that their show will make any sense. That can be incredibly frustrating. However, every time I’m on the verge of giving up on the show, it’ll do something super-weird and hilarious to keep me watching. The Beebo episode in the middle of the season is incredibly dumb but also very, very funny. The finale has several moments that made me laugh my butt off. Also, fans of NBC’s short-lived Constantine series from a few years ago should note that Matt Ryan reprises the character in several episodes here and is scheduled to be a regular cast member in Season 4.
Finally, Sony delivers a Complete Series box set with all five seasons of Jim Henson’s Fraggle Rock. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the show was shot on standard-def video and will need to be upconverted to HD. I suppose that may explain the surprisingly reasonable list price.
My $.02
I blind preordered the Zavvi 3D SteelBook for Solo while it was still available. I think my collector mentality must have overcome me, because everything I’ve heard is that the movie’s excessively dim photography makes for a lousy 3D conversion.
Having covered all the franchise’s previous releases, I’ve been forced to suffer through Exorcist II again to review the new disc. Expect that article soon.
A Raisin in the Sun, Andrei Rublev, The Day of the Jackal, and Welcome to the Dollhouse are all going on my wish list.
What’s on your agenda this week?
Julian
£18 is very reasonable for day-one 3D. Wow. Nice! In Belgium, a 3D-package goes upwards of $30.
Julian
I really liked ‘SOLO’, by the way. It didn’t need to flop. (Of course, it didn’t need to cost $250 million either).
EM
The Empire Strikes Back—nowadays known as a financial, critical, popular, and nostalgic groundbreaking success but considered a tremendous gamble when it was being made—ran into, shall we say, astronomical cost overruns; the final pricetag is said to have been 32 million dollars, making it one of the most expensive films ever made up to that point. Inflation calculators suggest the cost is equivalent to some 97 million of today’s dollars. It seems that, even setting Solo’s creative differences and reshoots aside, Disney could have more appropriately budgeted a movie that it never intended to be anything more than a comfortable, artistically inconsequential revenue generator.
Julian
Correct you are, sir. Even at $150 million, ‘SOLO’ could have at least attained ‘break even’ status. But at $250 million? Yeech.
Csm101
Halloween uhd and American Psycho uhd are my highest interests. The Bride when the price drops. Shout!/Scream! Seems to be asking for more $$$ for their releases lately. I wonder if it’s for all the 4k remasters they do that look worse than the previous versions. I don’t think my budget will allow me to pick up Solo this week, but I’ll probably redbox it for now. I’m going to want the 3d version anyways even if it’s an uninteresting one. I also really want The Principal.
Barsoom Bob
I am not a fan of Ron Howard’s pedestrian directorial efforts, “Inferno” anyone ?, but I was pleasantly surprised by Solo. Had some good action sequences, good character interactions and the lead was a believable young Han. Plus the bonus that Han and Lando had to survive made for an enjoyable viewing experience. Saw it in the theater and it wasn’t so much dark as having that kind of desaturated look that is the opposite of bight strong colors. Ordered the 3D from Amazon U.K.
Deaditelord
Halloween on UHD for sure, Solo possibly if I end up liking it. I am also going to try and rent the new Puppet Master this week as I’ve heard some positive things about it. X-Men I was planning to wait until they were separated into individual releases since I also don’t like First Class. However, with the trilogy box set being priced relatively low at $30, I may go ahead and just buy it. The Principal I’ll pick up when it goes on on sale.
njscorpio
I, for one, will not be picking up that Halloween UHD release, because of the change in color timing. I feel it really impacts the tone negatively, and the movie no longer feels like it takes place in the fall. I’ll stick with my DVD, thank you very much.
I love getting the highest resolution, highest quality transfers into my collection…and even own a few UHD titles before even owning a 4k display…but I feel like the horror genre is the one genre that actually benefits from softer transfers. The first time I saw the movie ‘Saw’ was on a bootleg copy, one that was actually filmed in the movie theaters. The color and contrast was way over saturated, and it looked like this very blue/green grindhouse movie. I felt like I was watching something out of ‘8mm’. Then, when I later revisited the movie, I watched a regular Blu-ray release. The added clarity killed much of the cool tension.
njscorpio
FWIW, that copy of ‘Saw’ was purchased off of a blanket on the streets of Newark at 3am. Fun memories.
Judas Cradle
The HDR may help. Or if you have a player like an Oppo, you can force Dolby Vision on it and tweak the colors as well.
DaMac80
I truly believe the Orange-y transfer is revisionist, but I know some people just love it to death anyway. I’m a fan of the Cundey approved 35th anniversary edition though, so hopefully I like the UHD as well.
njscorpio
Sometimes what hits the streets, versus the director’s vision (or cinematographer’s vision) becomes “the” version etched into our culture, like Han shooting first.
EM
Hanʼs shooting “first” (actually, solely) was the directorʼs vision—or, to be more accurate, one of his visions. (Incidentally, the technology to depict Greedo shooting first did exist in 1977.)
njscorpio
Good point…I guess a better example would be something compromised for initial release…like ‘Blade Runner’.
DaMac80
Huge week for me. Solo UHD, Halloween UHD, Punisher and Punisher War Zone UHDs, American Psycho UHD, Doctor Who UHD and the X-Men Trilogy UHD. Also I bought a few Criterions in the Amazon $18.99 sale. My wife is giving me the side-eye this week for sure.
William Henley
Yeah, I have been late to the discussion the past few weeks. Life has been getting in the way.
There are several that peak my interests and I would like to see reviews on, such as Bubblegum Crisis and Marmalade Boy and Fraggle Rock. Bubblegum Crisis was the very first DVD I remember buying, not because I liked the show (I had never seen it until I bought the DVD), but because it was one of the first anime I remember being released on DVD, about the time I got my first player, and remember marveling how I could switch between English and Japanese, and subtitles on or off, and at just how beautiful the animation was on DVD. Marmalade Boy was an anime I discovered early after getting into anime. So reviews of both of these would be welcome, mainly to know if they are just SD upconverts or not (I guess the question is if it was captured on tape or film).
I am also awaiting a review on Fraggle Rock. I may end up picking it up even if it is an upconvert.
I liked Solo as a movie, but it had an odd color scheme. I was at a new theater when I saw it, and remember complaining to the theater manager that they needed to calibrate their projectors. However, it seems as if that may have been the intended look. This may be the first one I pass on the 3D version on.
Really interested in a review of the 4k disc for Doctor Who
As far as franchise fatigue and Star Wars, I do not think this is the issue – I think the issue is crap stories. Episodes 7 and 8 are pretty much rehashes of episodes 4 and 5, Rogue One, while we finally got away from the Skywalkers for the most part, is still a side story to Episode 4, so no real suspense, and Solo, while fun, suffered from a horrible color pallet, and being a backstory no one really cared about. There is so much literature in the Star Wars universe, I know it spans AT LEAST 5,000 years in the books (I have only read a few, so I am no expert), and I REALLY want to see Old Republic and Sith Wars on the screen (either television or movie). Enough with the Skywalkers and recycling movie plots!