War is hell. That is the message that “We Were Soldiers” is not afraid to drive home.
Video:
"We Were Soldiers" is presented in a 2.35:1 widescreen transfer and mastered in 1080p on the HD-DVD disc. Watching the first thirty minutes of the picture, my faith was challenged in whether or not this would be a strong looking title. I had watched some of the combat footage earlier and had high hopes for the transfer, but in those pre-deployment scenes, the picture quality was uneven and soft as Paramount´s first wave release "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider." It seemed that whenever Mel Gibson would have a facial shot on the screen, the picture was soft. I didn´t know if a filter was being used to take away the weather torn facial features of the veteran actor or if the transfer was faltering. After the up and down nature of this first half hour, the HD-DVD transfer soon started to redeem itself and routinely looked as solid as the fifteen minutes I had watched a week earlier. The final majority of "We Were Soldiers" was strong visually and held up well, even during the combat scenes when a lot of smoke and dust were present in the image from grenades, gunfire and napalm.
The beautiful Vietnamese hillside that quickly transforms into a burnt and ravaged valley looks beautiful in high definition and shows great detail. There is a scene with a lizard that stood out and showed very good detail and when the picture takes these few minutes to show the beauty of nature before the hell of war, it is among the best I´ve seen on HD-DVD. It doesn´t take long before the weapons of war degrade the surrounding serenity of nature and when source materials allow for a highly detailed image, it remains so. When heavy smoke is present or the numerous night time scenes, the level of detail drops of some, but no more than can be expected. Colors are lifelike and nicely saturated after the first thirty minutes, fleshtones are properly represented and contrast is on target. The picture quality is not the most consistent, but when compared to the other Vietnam film on HD-DVD, "Full Metal Jacket," this is tremendously better and when the movie is in a scene where quality is high, "We Were Soldiers" can hang with the best of them.
Sound:
Note: The rear packaging shows "English 5.1 EX Dolby Digital Plus" as a soundtrack option. This should read "English 5.1 Dolby Digital Plus."
Early on, "We Were Soldiers" is a quiet film that lowers the volume when helicopters are flying over the skies of Fort Benning. Dialogue is the driving force of these early scenes and the loudest sounds heard are from the musical score. Even when the 7th Cavalry is loading into their UH-1 Hueys, the sounds of the chopper blades are subdued and a haunting song can be heard to announce their departure to combat. This is a strong contrast to the air cavalry of "Apocalypse Now" where the helicopters are noisy and loud and "Flight of the Valkyrie" blares through the speakers. The air cavalry flight scene is the kind of material to show off your sound system in that film, but in "We Were Soldiers," you are asked to wait a bit before the sound effects take assault.
You don´t have to wait long until the bombs drop, the artillery shells explode and gunfire erupts. These sounds fully envelope the viewer in the listening space as all six speakers erupt loudly and frequently. When a platoon is separated from the rest of the company on a knoll, you know they are surrounded by the gunfire that is coming from every direction via the soundtrack. The combat scenes are quite impressive audibly. The .1 LFE channel thumps loudly with each exploding artillery shell or exploding napalm bomb. Jets and turboprop planes resonate loudly with strong bass tones. Dialogue holds up well in these combat scenes and Mel Gibson can be clearly heard barking out orders to his besieged troops. "We Were Soldiers" is a subdued soundtrack until the bullets start to fire, then all hell breaks loose.
Extras:
All of the supplements from the standard definition DVD release have been carried over to the HD-DVD release. It is certainly nice to have all of the former supplements again available, but "We Were Soldiers" does not contain a large number of value-added materials. The Commentary by director/writer Randall Wallace covers many aspects of the making of the film. It does offer a good deal of insight into the real people involved in the story and any bits of creative license taken, but the commentary gets quite dry at times and Wallace likes to sit back and let you watch the movie with him a bit too often. It was worth sitting through, but not terribly easy. "Getting It Right" – Behind the Scenes of We Were Soldiers runs for thirty minutes and is worthwhile for the real combat footage shown and interviews with actual veterans of the Battle of La Drang. This 480i 1:33.1 documentary could certainly have been longer and I would have loved to have had more insight into the actual conflict, but it was an above average making of featurette. 10 Deleted Scenes with Director´s Commentary is another half hour of supplements. The commentary can be turned on or off and the deleted scenes may be selected individually or played continuously. I would have preferred to see many of these scenes placed into the film instead of the wives segments. A Theatrical Trailer is included and remastered in high definition.
Closing Comments:
War is hell. That is the message that "We Were Soldiers" is not afraid to drive home. Young men fight bravely and they also die. The Battle of la Drang found the 7th Cavalry placed in a bad spot where they were heavily outnumbered and in unfamiliar territory. The men under the command of Colonel Hal Moore fought hard to overcome the odds and find most men survive the struggle. It is a brutal and honest look at the conflict. Mel Gibson is right for the part of Colonel Moore and his performance is only overshadowed by the scene stealing act of Sam Elliot as his Sergeant Major. The film would be brilliant if it were not for an abundance of scenes featuring crying and suffering women. I felt these scenes did not belong in this film. The HD-DVD release of this title started off slowly with questionable image quality, but after a half hour, the picture quality cleared up and delivered a fine looking film. Sound was very good in combat scenes and the fifty plus minutes of supplements were nice inclusions on the disc. This is one of the better war films to come out of Hollywood and certainly shows the influence of Stephen Spielberg´s "Saving Private Ryan." War films seem to be one of the few genres that is priding itself on honesty and this is an honest film.
"We Were Soldiers" is presented in a 2.35:1 widescreen transfer and mastered in 1080p on the HD-DVD disc. Watching the first thirty minutes of the picture, my faith was challenged in whether or not this would be a strong looking title. I had watched some of the combat footage earlier and had high hopes for the transfer, but in those pre-deployment scenes, the picture quality was uneven and soft as Paramount´s first wave release "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider." It seemed that whenever Mel Gibson would have a facial shot on the screen, the picture was soft. I didn´t know if a filter was being used to take away the weather torn facial features of the veteran actor or if the transfer was faltering. After the up and down nature of this first half hour, the HD-DVD transfer soon started to redeem itself and routinely looked as solid as the fifteen minutes I had watched a week earlier. The final majority of "We Were Soldiers" was strong visually and held up well, even during the combat scenes when a lot of smoke and dust were present in the image from grenades, gunfire and napalm.
The beautiful Vietnamese hillside that quickly transforms into a burnt and ravaged valley looks beautiful in high definition and shows great detail. There is a scene with a lizard that stood out and showed very good detail and when the picture takes these few minutes to show the beauty of nature before the hell of war, it is among the best I´ve seen on HD-DVD. It doesn´t take long before the weapons of war degrade the surrounding serenity of nature and when source materials allow for a highly detailed image, it remains so. When heavy smoke is present or the numerous night time scenes, the level of detail drops of some, but no more than can be expected. Colors are lifelike and nicely saturated after the first thirty minutes, fleshtones are properly represented and contrast is on target. The picture quality is not the most consistent, but when compared to the other Vietnam film on HD-DVD, "Full Metal Jacket," this is tremendously better and when the movie is in a scene where quality is high, "We Were Soldiers" can hang with the best of them.
Sound:
Note: The rear packaging shows "English 5.1 EX Dolby Digital Plus" as a soundtrack option. This should read "English 5.1 Dolby Digital Plus."
Early on, "We Were Soldiers" is a quiet film that lowers the volume when helicopters are flying over the skies of Fort Benning. Dialogue is the driving force of these early scenes and the loudest sounds heard are from the musical score. Even when the 7th Cavalry is loading into their UH-1 Hueys, the sounds of the chopper blades are subdued and a haunting song can be heard to announce their departure to combat. This is a strong contrast to the air cavalry of "Apocalypse Now" where the helicopters are noisy and loud and "Flight of the Valkyrie" blares through the speakers. The air cavalry flight scene is the kind of material to show off your sound system in that film, but in "We Were Soldiers," you are asked to wait a bit before the sound effects take assault.
You don´t have to wait long until the bombs drop, the artillery shells explode and gunfire erupts. These sounds fully envelope the viewer in the listening space as all six speakers erupt loudly and frequently. When a platoon is separated from the rest of the company on a knoll, you know they are surrounded by the gunfire that is coming from every direction via the soundtrack. The combat scenes are quite impressive audibly. The .1 LFE channel thumps loudly with each exploding artillery shell or exploding napalm bomb. Jets and turboprop planes resonate loudly with strong bass tones. Dialogue holds up well in these combat scenes and Mel Gibson can be clearly heard barking out orders to his besieged troops. "We Were Soldiers" is a subdued soundtrack until the bullets start to fire, then all hell breaks loose.
Extras:
All of the supplements from the standard definition DVD release have been carried over to the HD-DVD release. It is certainly nice to have all of the former supplements again available, but "We Were Soldiers" does not contain a large number of value-added materials. The Commentary by director/writer Randall Wallace covers many aspects of the making of the film. It does offer a good deal of insight into the real people involved in the story and any bits of creative license taken, but the commentary gets quite dry at times and Wallace likes to sit back and let you watch the movie with him a bit too often. It was worth sitting through, but not terribly easy. "Getting It Right" – Behind the Scenes of We Were Soldiers runs for thirty minutes and is worthwhile for the real combat footage shown and interviews with actual veterans of the Battle of La Drang. This 480i 1:33.1 documentary could certainly have been longer and I would have loved to have had more insight into the actual conflict, but it was an above average making of featurette. 10 Deleted Scenes with Director´s Commentary is another half hour of supplements. The commentary can be turned on or off and the deleted scenes may be selected individually or played continuously. I would have preferred to see many of these scenes placed into the film instead of the wives segments. A Theatrical Trailer is included and remastered in high definition.
Closing Comments:
War is hell. That is the message that "We Were Soldiers" is not afraid to drive home. Young men fight bravely and they also die. The Battle of la Drang found the 7th Cavalry placed in a bad spot where they were heavily outnumbered and in unfamiliar territory. The men under the command of Colonel Hal Moore fought hard to overcome the odds and find most men survive the struggle. It is a brutal and honest look at the conflict. Mel Gibson is right for the part of Colonel Moore and his performance is only overshadowed by the scene stealing act of Sam Elliot as his Sergeant Major. The film would be brilliant if it were not for an abundance of scenes featuring crying and suffering women. I felt these scenes did not belong in this film. The HD-DVD release of this title started off slowly with questionable image quality, but after a half hour, the picture quality cleared up and delivered a fine looking film. Sound was very good in combat scenes and the fifty plus minutes of supplements were nice inclusions on the disc. This is one of the better war films to come out of Hollywood and certainly shows the influence of Stephen Spielberg´s "Saving Private Ryan." War films seem to be one of the few genres that is priding itself on honesty and this is an honest film.
Average user rating (1-5):
[release]19432[/release]