My views on the BD release:
It looks fantastic! Maybe some were expecting a miraculous overhaul of the film to a perfect, seamless piece that looked as if it was made last year, but that was never going to happen. It looks better than the Blue Underground DVD (which was impressive enough to begin with) and is the best I have ever seen the film look.
Yes, there is a frame wobble whenever it changes from English to Italian, yes there's the occasional bit of grain and artifacting, but these are tiny and I feel people are watching for such flaws because it's Blu-ray instead of watching the film. I remember a similar thing when CD came in, people would listen to the lack of background hiss and silence between tracks instead of the music!
Maybe it could be better - I don't know. I know Blu-ray, but I do not know the source materials. But I am thinking a lot of excellent work went into this release and into getting the best from what could be found. It looks spectacular and is excellent...it just doesn't look like a major studio release of a more modern film.
The only thing that niggles with me is the Italian 5.1 soundtrack in which the voices have a disconnected slapback echo no matter what setting I use on my player. This renders the film unwatchable with this soundtrack option - even though many have proclaimed that this is the preferable option interms iof dynamics and frequency range. I do think that the English and Italian 2.0 options are more than adequate, however, so all is not lost.
Yet in all the reviews I have read only one has mentioned this echo issue and seemed accepting of it! To me it's a serious flaw!
Audio aside, it's a superb release and if you are an extras junkie then you ought to be even more impressed by the release than I am!
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