...a wonderful dish of aviation eye candy...
Video:
The main reason I can recommend this film to anybody is to witness the incredible aerial combat sequences that feature the Spitfires and Me Bf-109 aircraft, along with the Junkers "Stuka" bombers and German He-111 fighters. To fully appreciate these combat sequences, the visual of the Blu-ray release of "The Battle of Britain" needs to stand up nicely. For the most part, the film does. Fox has chosen to provide this nearly forty-year-old film with an MPEG-2 encoded transfer and has forced the 132 minute picture onto a single layered 25GB BD platter. The squeezed storage space and somewhat arcane codec can be cause for many to gnash their teeth, but fortunately, it was more than adequate to provide an incredible looking transfer.
"The Battle of Britain" is not a perfect looking transfer, but I was far more amazed at the various scenes than I was disappointed. The level of detail is typically very high and the coloring is quite good. Whenever the gorgeous aircraft were shown on the ground or in close-up, the detail was strong enough to see the individual rivets and contours of the airframe. In cockpit views showed excellent detail of the pilots and you could almost feel the textures of their wool and leather uniforms. The detail is that strong. The brightly lit skies provide for very good color depth and the gradients of camouflage appeared natural and strong. The blues of the British uniforms and the greens of the countryside were perfectly contrasted with orange flames of destruction. Aside from a few wide-angle and long distance shots, "The Battle of Britain" is a shining example of how to display a four decade old film on the Blu-ray format.
The transfer, unfortunately, is not perfect. I have three relatively minor complaints that are apparent throughout the film, but do not spoil the overall experience. The first thing I noticed with this presentation of "The Battle of Britain" is that the source materials were clean, but there is a thin veil of film grain present throughout much of the film. It does not hurt the strong level of detail, but it exists. Secondly, I found skin tones to be a little more ´pinkish´ than I typically prefer. This was something that was easily adjusted to within a couple of minutes, but color of flesh is a little off. Finally, my biggest complaint was that a number of scenes exhibit strong edge enhancement. These scenes usually involve actors, but a couple of the flight scenes had strong halos around the aircraft. The flaws of this transfer keep the film from scoring a perfect 10, but this is still a very strong transfer.
Audio:
"The Battle of Britain" comes equipped with three full English language soundtracks and each is notable for one reason or another. When the film was released, United Artists had been less than happy with the original Sir William Walton score and had composer Ron Goodwin augment the ´short´ Walton score with additional music. The original theatrical release contained only one number of the Walton score. The first soundtrack contained on the Blu-ray release is the default DTS HD 5.1 Master Lossless Audio mix that expands the film´s original monaural mix to a full six channels, but contains the theatrical Ron Goodwin scored soundtrack. Typically, a one channel upconversion to the full six channels results in less-than-impressive results. However, "The Battle of Britain" effectively uses the rear surrounds, .1 LFE subwoofer and nicely pans between each of the five main channels to create an effective surround experience that may feel a little forced, but is impressive.
When compared to the accompanying Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono mix that recreates the original theatrical experience of "The Battle of Britain" it is easy to see just how good the new surround remix of the film is. I cannot say enough of how impressed I was with the six channel HD Master audio mix. It allowed the film to sound as if it was actually recorded with stereo tracks and whoever is responsible for the work done on the surround work of this title needs to be commended. The Dolby Digital 1.0 mono mix should sound quite familiar to those that own one of the two previous releases of the film on DVD. It is identical, but you´ll never want to return to that mix after hearing the new audio mix. The third and final soundtrack is a six channel English 5.1 multi-channel surround mix that contains the original Sir William Walton audio. This isn´t quite as strong as the DTS mix, but the difference in scoring is apparent and the score isn´t as boisterous as the Goodwin score. For all three tracks, dialogue is very clear and you´ll never have a problem understanding the British accent.
Extras:
While I briefly covered the optional English soundtracks in the ´Audio´ section of this review, it should be noted that the Blu-ray release contains the optional Sir William Walton scored version of the film and the original mono mix that can be used to compare against the new and impressive 5.1 channel DTS HD mix. I noted that I had forgotten to mention the French 5.1 Dolby Surround mix that is also provided or the Spanish, English, Cantonese and Korean subtitles. However, by placing them here in the ´Extras´ part of the review I was perhaps able to provide false hope that Fox had actually provided some of the rather nice supplements from the previous 2-disc special edition here. Unfortunately, they are absent and I would have much rather seen a 2-layer 50 GB release with some of those nice features included.
Closing:
"The Battle of Britain" may be the weakest of five war titles released simultaneously by Fox on Blu-ray. However, the film is an absolute treat for military aviation enthusiasts and a solid example of how a film that is nearly forty years old can be spiffed up for entry into the high definition marketplace. The film may lack a strong narrative and the ensemble cast may be more of a hindrance than a benefit, but I cannot say enough of how great this title looks and how amazed I was at the 5.1 channel audio remix provided with the film. The film lacks any dramatic plot lines or feeling of sympathy for any of the numerous characters. It attempts to tackle too much story in a short two hours and it cannot be called a classic film because of these shortcomings. It is a wonderful dish of aviation eye candy and I would expect other air combat enthusiasts to be equally excited by how good this film looks and sounds. It is a gift to those of us that love these old military aircraft and thankfully, Fox did well in making this film look and sound so good on Blu-ray.
The main reason I can recommend this film to anybody is to witness the incredible aerial combat sequences that feature the Spitfires and Me Bf-109 aircraft, along with the Junkers "Stuka" bombers and German He-111 fighters. To fully appreciate these combat sequences, the visual of the Blu-ray release of "The Battle of Britain" needs to stand up nicely. For the most part, the film does. Fox has chosen to provide this nearly forty-year-old film with an MPEG-2 encoded transfer and has forced the 132 minute picture onto a single layered 25GB BD platter. The squeezed storage space and somewhat arcane codec can be cause for many to gnash their teeth, but fortunately, it was more than adequate to provide an incredible looking transfer.
"The Battle of Britain" is not a perfect looking transfer, but I was far more amazed at the various scenes than I was disappointed. The level of detail is typically very high and the coloring is quite good. Whenever the gorgeous aircraft were shown on the ground or in close-up, the detail was strong enough to see the individual rivets and contours of the airframe. In cockpit views showed excellent detail of the pilots and you could almost feel the textures of their wool and leather uniforms. The detail is that strong. The brightly lit skies provide for very good color depth and the gradients of camouflage appeared natural and strong. The blues of the British uniforms and the greens of the countryside were perfectly contrasted with orange flames of destruction. Aside from a few wide-angle and long distance shots, "The Battle of Britain" is a shining example of how to display a four decade old film on the Blu-ray format.
The transfer, unfortunately, is not perfect. I have three relatively minor complaints that are apparent throughout the film, but do not spoil the overall experience. The first thing I noticed with this presentation of "The Battle of Britain" is that the source materials were clean, but there is a thin veil of film grain present throughout much of the film. It does not hurt the strong level of detail, but it exists. Secondly, I found skin tones to be a little more ´pinkish´ than I typically prefer. This was something that was easily adjusted to within a couple of minutes, but color of flesh is a little off. Finally, my biggest complaint was that a number of scenes exhibit strong edge enhancement. These scenes usually involve actors, but a couple of the flight scenes had strong halos around the aircraft. The flaws of this transfer keep the film from scoring a perfect 10, but this is still a very strong transfer.
Audio:
"The Battle of Britain" comes equipped with three full English language soundtracks and each is notable for one reason or another. When the film was released, United Artists had been less than happy with the original Sir William Walton score and had composer Ron Goodwin augment the ´short´ Walton score with additional music. The original theatrical release contained only one number of the Walton score. The first soundtrack contained on the Blu-ray release is the default DTS HD 5.1 Master Lossless Audio mix that expands the film´s original monaural mix to a full six channels, but contains the theatrical Ron Goodwin scored soundtrack. Typically, a one channel upconversion to the full six channels results in less-than-impressive results. However, "The Battle of Britain" effectively uses the rear surrounds, .1 LFE subwoofer and nicely pans between each of the five main channels to create an effective surround experience that may feel a little forced, but is impressive.
When compared to the accompanying Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono mix that recreates the original theatrical experience of "The Battle of Britain" it is easy to see just how good the new surround remix of the film is. I cannot say enough of how impressed I was with the six channel HD Master audio mix. It allowed the film to sound as if it was actually recorded with stereo tracks and whoever is responsible for the work done on the surround work of this title needs to be commended. The Dolby Digital 1.0 mono mix should sound quite familiar to those that own one of the two previous releases of the film on DVD. It is identical, but you´ll never want to return to that mix after hearing the new audio mix. The third and final soundtrack is a six channel English 5.1 multi-channel surround mix that contains the original Sir William Walton audio. This isn´t quite as strong as the DTS mix, but the difference in scoring is apparent and the score isn´t as boisterous as the Goodwin score. For all three tracks, dialogue is very clear and you´ll never have a problem understanding the British accent.
Extras:
While I briefly covered the optional English soundtracks in the ´Audio´ section of this review, it should be noted that the Blu-ray release contains the optional Sir William Walton scored version of the film and the original mono mix that can be used to compare against the new and impressive 5.1 channel DTS HD mix. I noted that I had forgotten to mention the French 5.1 Dolby Surround mix that is also provided or the Spanish, English, Cantonese and Korean subtitles. However, by placing them here in the ´Extras´ part of the review I was perhaps able to provide false hope that Fox had actually provided some of the rather nice supplements from the previous 2-disc special edition here. Unfortunately, they are absent and I would have much rather seen a 2-layer 50 GB release with some of those nice features included.
Closing:
"The Battle of Britain" may be the weakest of five war titles released simultaneously by Fox on Blu-ray. However, the film is an absolute treat for military aviation enthusiasts and a solid example of how a film that is nearly forty years old can be spiffed up for entry into the high definition marketplace. The film may lack a strong narrative and the ensemble cast may be more of a hindrance than a benefit, but I cannot say enough of how great this title looks and how amazed I was at the 5.1 channel audio remix provided with the film. The film lacks any dramatic plot lines or feeling of sympathy for any of the numerous characters. It attempts to tackle too much story in a short two hours and it cannot be called a classic film because of these shortcomings. It is a wonderful dish of aviation eye candy and I would expect other air combat enthusiasts to be equally excited by how good this film looks and sounds. It is a gift to those of us that love these old military aircraft and thankfully, Fox did well in making this film look and sound so good on Blu-ray.
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[release]22375[/release]