Wing Commander UK DVD

Pedro

Admiral
Just got my copy from amazon.co.uk (for a nice low price).
I'm enjoying the movie a lot more this time around, here in the UK we never got a cinema release, all I've seen before is a UK VHS squished in certain scenes and US DVD of unbelievably low quality, this was like an answer to my prayers having access to a home cinema whilst home from uni and such a high quality wing commander DVD.

Anyway for anyone intrested (assuming this hasn't been posted before, I couldn't spot it):
Anamorphic wide screen, single layer however there are no special features and only one audio track, the movie takes up the entire layer and this is clear from the very high quality picture.
Audio quality is superb, especially the base, put the volume upto full and it really got my heart racing. True 5.1.
Special effects are incredibly vivid.

Its been two years since I last watched this so I got to adjust my opinion slightly. Overall I feel this film was actually quite well directed, the writing is admittedly just plain bad but the action scenes are much more enjoyable than say the latest star wars movies and the musical score is possibly one of the best ever associated with a movie. Acting is hit and miss. But the whole visual style not matching the games no longer seems to bother me, infact, whilst I certainly don't preffer it, I do like it.
An underrated movie to be sure. As video game movies go, despite all the complaining (much of it justified, hell I recall joining in with it) which is probably the cause of me not having watched it in so long, it is, in my opinion, one of the best video game based movies made, outdone only by the original Resident Evil.
Movie: 3 stars
Picture/sound quality: 5 stars
Extra features: 0 stars


I tested the movie with 5.1 surround system and a widescreen CRT TV (38" I believe).

Its cheap, and in my opinion worth an import if you're in the US (assuming a true widescreen release hasn't since been produced there) for the increased visual quality.
 
This is great, if true -- the only anamorphic widescreen version of the movie available so far has been a Region 2 release with a very low quality transfer (the blue-cover Denmark/Sweden/Finland version).

(There's a HD version of the movie out there, though -- it was broadcast on TV a few times... which means we'll hopefully see a high quality release once HD DVD gets sorted out.)
 
Well I've taken a few images, I'm afraid the quality is limited by that of my software decoder, it seems to insist on upping the resolution even for screenshots and the picture is a lot darker and the colours less obviously contrasted than on the TV/DVD setup downstairs but hopefully it will still give you a taste of the increase in quality.

http://www.photobox.co.uk/album/1045415

Edit: Click on the '+' inside a magnifying glass below each picture, otherwise you'll get taken to a size limited version of the pic. One of these days I really need to sort out my own webspace.
 
Wow, I didn't realise a UK release was coming. Amazon says it was only released January 3rd. That's pretty great. I guess I'll buy myself a copy.
 
Yeah, I had mine on pre-order for a few weeks, was shipped on the 3rd but xmas post meant 1st class didn't take the usual 1 day :(
 
Cpl Hades said:
Wow, I didn't realise a UK release was coming. Amazon says it was only released January 3rd. That's pretty great. I guess I'll buy myself a copy.
Buy it from Amazon Jersey.
 
Damn you all! Had I known that this was going to be put onto the main page I would have given some consideration to spelling and grammar. :p
 
Yay!

Ordered.

I think the Italian version was anamorphic as well.

Is the running time 100 minutes like it's supposed to be or 96 minutes like the other PAL versions?
 
Wow, I haven't posted here in ages...
Is this one really anamorphic. I got the German release, which is not anamorphic but otherwise very high quality. If this UK release is really a good anamorphic transfer, I might consider buying it. If only so I don't have to turn on the German subtitles anymore to follow what the Kilrathi are saying near the end... ;)
 
oh yeah lol,

"he's flying into a black hole!" "perhaps we should wait?" "no we will continue to follow a single fighter into the black hole and fire randomly until it is too late"

Damn the christmas post backlash, perhaps the dvd will arrive tommorow. :mad:
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Probably 96 -- the lost time is due to the 4% PAL speedup.
Not owning many PAL DVDs outside of Wing Commanderdom I wasn't sure if it was common practice or not. I just thought the Brits might do it right.
 
Speeding it up is unfortunately the only way to convert a 24fps master (film/telecine) to 25fps (PAL). The speed difference itself isn't that bad, but it also means the sound needs to be pitch-corrected (because it's played too fast, so it would sound too high if left alone), which aversely affects quality. On some releases (most notably Fellowship of the Ring Dutch release) this can be really bad :(
 
Unforgiven said:
Speeding it up is unfortunately the only way to convert a 24fps master (film/telecine) to 25fps (PAL). The speed difference itself isn't that bad, but it also means the sound needs to be pitch-corrected (because it's played too fast, so it would sound too high if left alone), which aversely affects quality. On some releases (most notably Fellowship of the Ring Dutch release) this can be really bad :(
At least one PAL Wing Commander I watched was not pitch corrected. Just when you thought Matthew Lillard couldn't get any more annoying!
 
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