The film is shy of common sense or originality, to be sure, but it's an A/V blockbuster of the extreme kind.... Turn your system on, your mind off, and enjoy.
Video:
The picture quality in both versions is for all intents and purposes excellent, maybe as good as anything on recent DVDs. It's so pixel perfect, in fact, that I recommend you reduce your sharpness control or every little dot will show up with glaring distinctness. Grain is another matter, and there is a little in this transfer. The picture size is the same in both versions, a 2.17:1 ratio, anamorphic widescreen copy of the movie's original 2.35:1 Panavision dimensions. Colors are brilliant, and images are sharp, clear, and commendably stable, if a bit dark in the faces. Even Venetian blinds and plaid shirts, notoriously hard to duplicate without dancing, flickering lines, are rendered flawlessly.
Audio:
What's more, the default Dolby Digital 5.1 audio is every bit as room shaking as you'd hoped it would be. The surround channels are pinpoint accurate in track localization, effecting uncanny precision in the five main speakers. Dynamics are extremely wide, impact strong, and deep bass enormous. My subwoofer goes down measurably flat to 28 Hz before falling off, but I had the feeling there was plenty of low-end output well below what my sub could adequately deliver. Moreover, disc one contains a pair of audio commentary tracks, one by director Roland Emmerich and another by special effects supervisors Volker Engel and Doug Smith, plus a copious fifty-four track selections.
More Extras:
Disc two is packed with even more bonuses. The longest things are the documentaries, three of them. Of the trio, I would start with "Creating Reality," a thirty-minute feature on the various special effects made for the film. A second documentary, "HBO First Look: Independence Day," hosted by star Jeff Goldblum, is thirty-three minutes long and mainly hypes the film without revealing too many of its secrets. The third item is fascinating, at least in part. It's a twenty-two minute featurette called "ID4 Invasion," which starts out as a mock documentary, a phony television news-room account of an Earth invasion done in the manner of Orson Welles's old radio broadcast. Unfortunately, the "mock" portion is only a few minutes long and the remainder lapses into standard studio promotion. Also on disc two is an alternative-ending sequence, mercifully cut from the final product, in which Quaid's character is seen flying his old crop-duster biplane into battle among the jet fighters. The film is already silly; it needn't have been absurd. Into the bargain, disc two has storyboards, artwork, and numerous production stills (so many I didn't have time to go through them all), a DVD-ROM game, "Get Off My Planet," for one's computer, and various Internet links, theatrical trailers, and TV spots. English and French are offered as spoken languages, English and Spanish the subtitles.
Parting Thoughts:
I am not one who always appreciates the fine art of special-effects extravaganzas. I didn't care much for Emmerich's earlier "Stargate," positively hated his version of "Godzilla," and could barely tolerate Bruce Willis's "Armageddon," even though these films follow the "Independence Day" formula. But "ID4" is different. It's good guys vs. bad guys, with clear-cut heroes and villains and all the world pulling together. I mean, it's not like Willis versus a rock. Besides, how can you dislike a film where the President of the United States examines an alien being and says, "So, it's an organic life form." No, pal, it's a floor lamp! I love this film.
The picture quality in both versions is for all intents and purposes excellent, maybe as good as anything on recent DVDs. It's so pixel perfect, in fact, that I recommend you reduce your sharpness control or every little dot will show up with glaring distinctness. Grain is another matter, and there is a little in this transfer. The picture size is the same in both versions, a 2.17:1 ratio, anamorphic widescreen copy of the movie's original 2.35:1 Panavision dimensions. Colors are brilliant, and images are sharp, clear, and commendably stable, if a bit dark in the faces. Even Venetian blinds and plaid shirts, notoriously hard to duplicate without dancing, flickering lines, are rendered flawlessly.
Audio:
What's more, the default Dolby Digital 5.1 audio is every bit as room shaking as you'd hoped it would be. The surround channels are pinpoint accurate in track localization, effecting uncanny precision in the five main speakers. Dynamics are extremely wide, impact strong, and deep bass enormous. My subwoofer goes down measurably flat to 28 Hz before falling off, but I had the feeling there was plenty of low-end output well below what my sub could adequately deliver. Moreover, disc one contains a pair of audio commentary tracks, one by director Roland Emmerich and another by special effects supervisors Volker Engel and Doug Smith, plus a copious fifty-four track selections.
More Extras:
Disc two is packed with even more bonuses. The longest things are the documentaries, three of them. Of the trio, I would start with "Creating Reality," a thirty-minute feature on the various special effects made for the film. A second documentary, "HBO First Look: Independence Day," hosted by star Jeff Goldblum, is thirty-three minutes long and mainly hypes the film without revealing too many of its secrets. The third item is fascinating, at least in part. It's a twenty-two minute featurette called "ID4 Invasion," which starts out as a mock documentary, a phony television news-room account of an Earth invasion done in the manner of Orson Welles's old radio broadcast. Unfortunately, the "mock" portion is only a few minutes long and the remainder lapses into standard studio promotion. Also on disc two is an alternative-ending sequence, mercifully cut from the final product, in which Quaid's character is seen flying his old crop-duster biplane into battle among the jet fighters. The film is already silly; it needn't have been absurd. Into the bargain, disc two has storyboards, artwork, and numerous production stills (so many I didn't have time to go through them all), a DVD-ROM game, "Get Off My Planet," for one's computer, and various Internet links, theatrical trailers, and TV spots. English and French are offered as spoken languages, English and Spanish the subtitles.
Parting Thoughts:
I am not one who always appreciates the fine art of special-effects extravaganzas. I didn't care much for Emmerich's earlier "Stargate," positively hated his version of "Godzilla," and could barely tolerate Bruce Willis's "Armageddon," even though these films follow the "Independence Day" formula. But "ID4" is different. It's good guys vs. bad guys, with clear-cut heroes and villains and all the world pulling together. I mean, it's not like Willis versus a rock. Besides, how can you dislike a film where the President of the United States examines an alien being and says, "So, it's an organic life form." No, pal, it's a floor lamp! I love this film.
Average user rating (1-5):
[release]4631[/release]