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John Beresford
12-18-2003, 02:15 PM
I am a die hard John Carpenter fan. I have almost all of his films in my DVD collection, as I try and replace my VHS collection: Halloween, Vamipres, Escape From LA, Christine, The Fog, The Thing....I was waiting for this new rumored Escape From New York remastered DVD because MGM messed the first one up so bad, it was a travesty....TERRIBLE looking transfer with terrible 2.0 audio, to boot.

On Tuesday, the Collector's Edition of this landmark cult-followed film came out, and wow, people....if you are fans of this film, as I was, this is the DVD to own this year----THE MOST BEAUTIFUL LOOKING TWO DISC BOX SET ON THE MARKET RIGHT NOW. The letters for "Escape From New York" and Kurt Russell's picture on the cover are raised in relief and look GREAT; another box pulls out from the outer box, where the two DVDs are hidden with all kinds of graphics and lines from John Carpenter inside. VERY VERY impressive. I thought Pirates of the Caribbean was going to take honors for the most beautiful DVD packaging this year, but Escape From New York is gorgeous---really. There's even a comic book about Kurt Russell's character, called the Snake Plissken Chronicles, inside.

Lets get to why you are reading this: while I HATE watching anamorphic widescreen DVDs on my 27" monitor, we have no choice sometimes because the DVDs are just coming like this now; Escape From New York, even in widescreen only as it is here, looks much, much better than the previous MGM single disc release, and the sound is much better in Dolby Digital 5.1, where in the past, it was in stereo 2.0, which decoded to Pro Logic II. There are times you can hear the original audio elements peek through and the sound gets muddy and hollow---but then the remastering process kicks in, and the helicopters and the haunting typical John Carpenter score sound great in 5.1 coming from your surround system.

What a nice package. Fans of this film wait no more and get this. I picked it up for $25 on sale at FYE---ON RELEASE NIGHT.

audiobill
12-23-2003, 07:26 AM
Hey, John.

I remember seeing this in the theatres when it came out (dating myself) & I thought that it was too dark and grainy. I loved the movie, however.

What are the dark scenes like and have they solved any of the grain??

Thanks-a-ton,
audiobill

John Beresford
12-23-2003, 07:37 AM
Hey, John.

I remember seeing this in the theatres when it came out (dating myself) & I thought that it was too dark and grainy. I loved the movie, however.

What are the dark scenes like and have they solved any of the grain??

Thanks-a-ton,
audiobill

Mr. Bill,

The dark scenes are almost perfect, and there is no grain present throughout the entire run of the film----I'm not kidding. This film looks as new and fresh as any of the new DVDs just released, such as Pirates of the Caribbean---MGM did THAT good of a job cleaning this cult film up. VERY clean HD film transfer. The audio, while much better from the previous 2.0 channel DVD release, sounds good in pure Dolby Digital 5.1, but you can still sense where there were limitations to what they could do----just like many other John Carpenter films that were remixed for 5.1 like Halloween and The Fog and The Thing...all come in 5.1, but you can hear where the original audio elements kick in and dialogue gets distorted or sounds seem buzzy...such is the case with Escape From New York; the DVD starts with Carpenter's electronic theme wrapping through all the surround channels, seemingly cleaned up and sounding so modern....and then some dialogue kicks in, or scenes when Russell's character is punching out some of the degenerates in the prison he confronts, and you can hear where the original audio kicks in that they didnt remix, and suddenly the volume gets very low or almost muted, and the effects -- such as Russell's punching, as I mentioned -- sound weak. Gunfire is also very weak; people who have reviewed this DVD on other sites speak of the end bridge chase scene and how it sounds so much better in this new version; to me, the mines blowing up on the 69th street bridge didnt impress me...through my system, the explosions were weak and not that loud.

But, to go back to your original inquiry, yes, the black areas of the film now look clean and fresh, to me anyway, and to compare this re-issued DVD against, say, the Scarface Anniversary Edition that came out in September would be unfair...Scarface looks HORRENDOUS compared to Escape From New York; grain all over the place, thats for sure. Universal claimed they re-did Scarface for "better than original picture and audio quality...." Yeah, right.

audiobill
12-24-2003, 08:12 AM
Now I know one of the discs I'll be buying on boxing day!!

My front projector casts an image 122" diagonal -- that's why graininess is a big issue for me. Nevertheless, "Pirates" looks stunning & if "Escape" even comes 70% close to it's picture clarity........I'm one happy, happy viewer.

Cheers,
audiobill

John Beresford
12-24-2003, 08:16 AM
Now I know one of the discs I'll be buying on boxing day!!

My front projector casts an image 122" diagonal -- that's why graininess is a big issue for me. Nevertheless, "Pirates" looks stunning & if "Escape" even comes 70% close to it's picture clarity........I'm one happy, happy viewer.

Cheers,
audiobill

Boxing day?

With a projector, Im not sure, perhaps you may pick up some grain---but you shouldnt. It looked clean on my 27" Sony. It's still much, much better than MGM's first release of Escape From New York.