Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		4.5
Overall		5.0

Born on the Fourth of July 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson November 28, 2024

I studied and wrote about Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July (1989) in my undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs. My work culminated in an article published in the Journal of Adaptation in Film & Performance. An abstract may be found here. My colleague Brian Orndorf covered Universal's US Blu-ray in 2012.

A face of war.

Born on the Fourth of July 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shout Select's "Collector's Edition" of Born comes in a two-disc 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray combo along with a slipcover. It marks the global debut of the film on 4K with another UHD/Blu-ray set coming at the end of the year in France. Director/co-writer Oliver Stone supervised and approved a 4K restoration from the original camera negative. Shout's BD-100 is encoded with Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible). Born was shot in 2.35:1 anamorphic using Panavision cameras (including a Panaflex) and lenses. Cinematographer Robert Richardson used both Eastman and Fujifilm negative stock. The 35 mm reels were printed on Eastman 5384/7384 stock.

Counting this month's release, four masters have been used for Born's home video history. Beginning with Universal's 1990 pan-and-scan transfer on VHS, I have watched virtually all of them. I will comment on each, explaining how the recent 4K master compares with certain aspects. Universal also released the 1.33:1 on LaserDisc along with a letterboxed 2.35:1 edition, the latter of which you can see handful of frame grabs in the Screenshots tab. The LD boasts natural skin tones but average contrast levels along with some shimmering. Universal either used a different print or color-timed the film a little differently when it put Born out on DVD in 1998, 1999, and 2000 with essentially the same transfer. I didn't have enough room to include frame grabs of those discs but can vouch that particular transfer has superior contrast (even in long shots) and boasts sharper hues than the LD. Unfortunately, skin tones are more jaundiced compared to the LD. In addition, there's telecine wobble when titles flash on the screen. Other flaws include moiré effects, aliasing, edge enhancement, and bleeding colors (especially the reds).

When Universal announced it was making an new anamorphic widescreen transfer of Born for its 2004 "Special Edition" DVD, fans of the film (yours especially) exclaimed, "Finally!" I watched it on its release date on a 60" or 65" projection TV and was generally pleased with its presentation save for some artifacts that popped up. Universal reused this same transfer for its 2007 HD DVD (which I watched on a rather large screen) and on all of its Blu-ray releases, which employ the VC-1 encode. Last year Turbine Medien released an MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50 using Universal's master. The Germain boutique label attempted to make some cosmetic improvements by adding artificial grain and employing moderate noise reduction. I watched Turbine's disc recently and feel it looks a bit over-processed in places. Between this and Universal's BDs, I prefer the latter.

The film strongly needed a fresh restoration and both of Shout's discs deliver with aplomb. The opening shots of the film where Richardson's camera points up to the sky between trees always seemed to have either dirt or mosquito noise present. Not only have those anomalies been rectified, but the new color grade has corrected another deficiency. Notice that, beginning with Universal's 2004 SD disc and continuing through Turbine's transfer, how the image was darkened so the leaves appear almost black. (See Screenshot #s 37-38.) By contrast, the 2024 transfer has resuscitated the bright sunlight that was originally on the LD (#36) and given the tree leaves a more natural green. (See capture #s 39-40.)

The 4K scan also offers better contrast and black levels. For example, take the scene where Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise) is wheeled up the lawn of his Massapequa home. On the DVD and old BD transfers (#s 32 and 33), the midnight blue-gray light in the background, which is present on the LD (#31), is gone. The Shouts bring that back so we can see the fog better along with Ron's maroon sweater vest (which really wasn't that visible on any of the transfers). (See frame enlargement #s 34 and 35.)

While Born doesn't have an eye-popping color palette, hues have more of an "intensity" about them than they had before. For instance, the orange sun behind the beautiful silhouetted shot of the soldiers in Vietnam is illustrative of these bolder and more vivid colors (see #5). In an archival commentary track rehashed on the discs, Stone described the Vietnam battle sequences as "dusty and yellow." That color scheme has been retained here. Richardson and Stone desaturated the colors and augmented grain for the 1956 Fourth of July parade in downtown Massapequa. With firecrackers popping, the scenes are smoky with a glazed look. For Ron's homecoming parade and speech more than a decade later, colors are more saturated (see #s 24 and 25). The 1080p Blu-ray also delivers an excellent color palette with clarity in most every area of the frame.

Grain on Shout's 4K and Blu-ray is stable and consistently present. I didn't notice any instances where it flickered (even in the darker scenes). Grain is especially prevalent in the scenes set in the 1972 Republican National Convention. Stone discussed the use of grain and film stocks with Jeffrey Ressner for the fall 2012 issue of DGA Quarterly, a publication of the Director's Guild of America. Stone and Richardson made a joint decision to employ a "a jumble" of film stocks: 16 mm, Super 16, and 35 mm. In an aesthetic choice that presages similar ones they would make on JFK (1991) and Nixon (1995), the director and his DP combined fresh material they shot with grainy archival footage from network newscasts from the real '72 RNC. In the DGA Quarterly piece, Stone wrote that they blew up the footage up from 16 mm to 35 mm so there would be "big golf ball-sized grain." Steadicam operator Toby Phillips went low-motion to get Kovic's POV from his wheelchair. Stone and Richardson sought the grainier look for the 16 mm shots. They went back and forth 16 mm and 35 mm inside the convention hall. I always thought the editing provided tight segues between close-up shots of TV monitors and the 35 mm footage that the Born filmmakers shot in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. You can see how an identical frame from the 35 mm looks in a group shot of the veterans in the various transfers. (See screenshot #s 16-20.)

Shout's triple-layered disc (feature size: 85.6 GB) sports an average video bitrate of 71.9 Mbps along with an overall bitrate of 84.9 Mbps for the full disc. The 2024 Blu-ray displays a standard bitrate of 29997 kbps for the feature.

Screenshot #s 1-15, 20, 25, 30, 35, & 40 = Shout Select 4K Ultra HD BD-100 (downsampled to 1080p)
Screenshot #s 16, 21, 26, 31, & 36 = MCA/Universal Home Video 1990 LaserDisc
Screenshot #s 17, 22, 27, 32, & 37 = Universal Studios 2004 Special Edition DVD
Screenshot #s 18, 23, 28, 33, & 38 = Turbine Medien 2023 BD-50
Screenshot #s 19, 24, 29, 34, & 39 = Shout Select 2024 BD-50 (from a 4K restoration)

Shout's standard twelve chapter selections are incorporated on each disc for the 145-minute feature.

Born on the Fourth of July 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout has supplied three audio track options to watch Born on the Fourth of July with on UHD and Blu-ray (in addition to two commentaries): a new Dolby Atmos mix (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 compatible with a standard bitrate of 3109 kbps) encoded at an average bitrate of 3749 kbps and a maximum bitrate of 4161 kbps; a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround track (3679 kbps, 24-bit); and a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo mix (2086 kbps, 24-bit). The bitrates are identical on each disc. I will discuss each mix but first, one commonality I found is that the horizontally-spinning rotors of military helicopters, which is heard at least four times throughout the film, is primarily placed along the surround speakers and on the height channels towards the back (at least on my HT setup).

Atmos
I made some direct comparisons between the new Atmos track and Turbine's English Auro-3D mix (DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 compatible with an average bitrate of 5038 kbps). Beginning with the opening voice-over, I had to turn up my a/v receiver five decibels higher than normal listening level to clearly hear the VO and dialogue in general. The Atmos is mixed higher along the fronts so this was not an issue on the Shout discs. On both the Auro and Atmos, I could hear machine gun and mortar fire on the upward channels. Ron's train trek to visit Donna (Kyra Sedgwick) and his trip on a greyhound bus to Venus, Georgia also deliver some nice surround activity. While listening to the Atmos, I could hear a slow, elegiac string melody (courtesy of John Williams) come directly at me when young Ron (Bryan Larkin) gazes solemnly at an armless veteran walking in the parade. When Ron and young Donna (Jessica Prunell) kiss during fireworks, I could hire blasts go upward. Overall, the Atmos clearly sounded like the better mix between the two.

5.1
It is important to clarify that the 5.1 tracks that have appeared on various home video editions are not a remix but based on the 6-track stereo track recorded for the 70 mm prints of Born. My research into newspaper archives revealed that this particular mix was presented in 1989/90 at the following venues: at the Ziegfeld Theatre in Manhattan, at Los Angeles-area Cineplex Odeon theaters, the Plaza Camino Real in Southern California, in Chicago and other Illinois theaters, and also in Canadian theaters (York Cinemas in Ontario). The 5.1 made its video debut in August 1998 on a DTS track on the MCA/Universal LD. (Universal re-issued the DTS on DVD a year later.) The Turbine Blu-ray only has a lossy DTS 5.1 (768 kbps). The 2011 Universal UK Blu-ray I own has it in DTS-HD Master Audio (4209 kbps, 24-bit). Kudos to Shout for retaining it here in lossless.

2.0 Stereo
Born's Dolby Stereo (SR) track on LD is delivered with scintillating clarity. I could hear insects quite well in the first scene (which is in "Sally's Woods") on the mono surrounds. This stereo mix was only released one time on DVD: on the '99 disc along with the featured DTS track. The Dolby Surround 2.0 track on that disc sounds like a compressed version of the LD but it is still very good. Turbine offered an alternate track with DTS 2.0 Stereo (384 kbps) but this is probably a downmix of the 5.1 track they received from Universal. Shout's 2.0 sounds like a new master and reminds me a lot of the original LD. It makes highly effective use of the split-surrounds. (It's also similar to the stereo surround mix that Shout did last year on its JFK release.) Dynamic range on the Shout discs is outstanding from front to back. It boasts more bass than the LD. The songs "Grand Old Flag" and "Born on the Bayou" make the most use of the mono surrounds on the 2.0.

Special mention should be made of the work by sound editor Scott Gershin. Michael R. Perry wrote an article on Grusin's work on Born for the May 1990 issue of STart magazine (which covered Atari ST computers). Gershin added sound effects on a Mega and Hybrid Arts' Analog Digital Audio Processor (ADAP) II sound-manipulation system, which he described as "a word processor for audio." At the National Association of Music Merchants' semi-annual trade show, Gershin gave a demonstration at the Atari booth. He first showed a clip from Born without any of the sounds (later added in post). In the "before" sequence, there were no helicopter sounds, voices on the radio, or roar to accompany one of the explosions. Shots from a gun were out of synch and muffled. Background noises were randomly present off and on. The tape even had a hum from a fan that was turned on to blow dust during filming. Gershin decided to discard sound recorded during production and start from scratch. He rebuilt sound effects one at a time. ("Everything from the crickets to the helicopters.")

Shout's optional English SDH is accurate but omits some lines and repeated words spoken by the actors.

Born on the Fourth of July 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The main legacy supplement carried over on the Shout discs is a feature-length commentary with Stone, which was recorded in 2000 for the third Universal R1 DVD and the Warner Bros. box set, the Oliver Stone Collection. Shout has recorded a recent commentary with an author of Stone's work as well as new interviews with Stone and two of his crew members. Not retained here is Backstory, a archival segment on NBC's Today show with Stone, Kovic, and Cruise. This first surfaced on Universal's 2004 Special Edition.

DISC ONE: 4K UHD

• NEW Audio Commentary by Film Critic Matt Zoller Seitz - Seitz is the author of The Oliver Stone Experience (Abrams, 2016) and editor-at-large at RogerEbert.com. Seitz resided in the Dallas area in 1989 and appeared as an extra at the Southern Methodist University campus where Born on the Fourth of July's Syracuse University scenes were filmed. He shares with viewers some of the information he gleaned from interviews with Stone about this film. Seitz states that he has seen BotFoJ thirty or forty times and cites it as one he would have on a desert island to watch. He gives close readings of many scenes. On some occasions, he merely describes what's happening on screen but always comes back to the main theme or point that he believes Stone is making (or provides his own interpretations of the scenes). This has very few gaps and is a must listen! In English, not subtitled.

• Audio Commentary by Oliver Stone - Stone discusses the production of BotFoJ and the era it portrays. At times he explains how and why Kovic and him wrote scenes for the film differently than they're described in the book. I found it particularly illuminating when Stone talks about how he and DP Richardson did various camera setups. The track has a few gaps. In English, not subtitled. Note: Universal's UK Blu-ray from 2011, which I own, has subtitles in several languages for the two extras. You can access a subtitled "text commentary" with Stone while watching the film with the 5.1 English track.

DISC TWO: Blu-ray

• NEW Audio Commentary by Film Critic Matt Zoller Seitz - Seitz is the author of The Oliver Stone Experience (Abrams, 2016) and editor-at-large at RogerEbert.com. Seitz resided in the Dallas area in 1989 and appeared as an extra at the Southern Methodist University campus where Born on the Fourth of July's Syracuse University scenes were filmed. He shares with viewers some of the information he gleaned from interviews with Stone about this film. Seitz states that he has seen BotFoJ thirty or forty times and cites it as one he would have on a desert island to watch. He gives close readings of many scenes. On some occasions, he merely describes what's happening on screen but always comes back to the main theme or point that he believes Stone is making (or provides his own interpretations of the scenes). This has very few gaps and is a must listen! In English, not subtitled.

• Audio Commentary by Oliver Stone - Stone discusses the production of BotFoJ and the era it portrays. At times he explains how and why Kovic and him wrote scenes for the film differently than they're described in the book. I found it particularly illuminating when Stone talks about how he and DP Richardson did various camera setups. The track has a few gaps. In English, not subtitled.

• NEW The Battlefield at Home – Interview with Director Oliver Stone (13:15, 1080p) - Stone reminisces about the period when he made Wall Street (1987) and Talk Radio (1988), which coincided with him meeting Tom Cruise and showing the actor the original 1978 script for BotFoJ. Stone explains Ron Kovic's journey and how he dramatized events recounted in the book on screen. The co-writer/director recalls filming in the Philippines and how the shooting conditions differed from those in Platoon (1986). Stone also offers his views about Vietnam and war in general. In English, not subtitled.

• NEW The Ghost Generation – Interview with Special Makeup Effects Artist Gordon J. Smith (12:00, 1080p) - Smith joins Beahm on a Zoom call. The makeup effects artist discusses the surgical scars and bed sores he came up with for the Bronx VA Hospital scenes. Smith also tells some stories of the film shoot in the Philippines. Photos of sores and prosthetics Smith designed for the movie are shown. In English, not subtitled.

• NEW The War Continues – Interview with Associate Producer Clayton Townsend (11:32, 1080p) - Townsend articulates details about the boot camp Dale Dye put the actors through for BotFoJ and a paint ball facility that was set up in Houston for weapons training. Townsend explains the role Ron Kovic served for the actors and crew during filming in Dallas. In addition, Townsend describes the shooting locales for the Vietnam and Mexico sequences in the Philippines. He also talks about how Stone communicates with his actors. In English, not subtitled.

• TV Spots (2:04 total runtime, 480i) - six TV spots that networks aired to promote Born on the Fourth of July. They are all of very high quality, especially considering their age. The fourth spot includes some voice-overs that were not used in the finished film. They appear in 1.33:1.

• Theatrical Trailers (9:44 total runtime, 480i) - four of Universal's trailers for BotFoJ. The first three trailers are very similar, if not identical to each other. Trailers 1 and 3 are windowboxed; trailers 2 and 4 are displayed in full frame (1.33:1). The fourth trailer is a lot like TV spot #4 and contains unused voice-overs.

• Edie Brickell and New Bohemians: "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" – Music Video (3:57, 480i) - MCA Records' official music video produced in 1989. Brickell sings the lyrics to the song while New Bohemians performs on various instruments. Clips from BotFoJ are shown in non-anamorphic 2.35:1.

The Turbine release, which is available in a limited edition MediaBook and a standard edition keep case, contains a separate disc with bonus materials not included on the Shout or any other release. It boasts the documentary, The Forgotten War: Hollywood's Vietnam in the Philippines (1:10:40, 1080p), produced and directed by Calum Waddell. The interviewees are academic Neil Jackson (University of Lincoln) and four crew members who worked on BotFoJ: Lope V. Juban Jr. (producer: Philippines), Joey Romero (production manager: Philippines), Wynn Arenas (head wardrobe: Philippines), and Pat Y. Tolentino (production office coordinator: Philippines). The program covers a lot more than BotFoJ. It delivers a comprehensive overview of both Hollywood and indie productions in the Philippines. The first section discusses filming locales for Apocalypse Now (1979) in the country. It then segues into other movies shot in the Philippines after '79. Arenas gives his memories of Dale Dye on location during filming of Platoon. When the piece shifts to BotFoJ, Jackson examines how Tom Cruise's star persona evolved throughout the Eighties and how Stone's film deconstructs it. The crew members recall Cruise working on the Vietnam and Mexico sequences in the Philippines. They share their impressions of him as an actor and as a person. The last section looks at the Chuck Norris action vehicles Braddock: Missing in Action III (1988) and Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection (1990).

The Turbine additionally includes pretty long interviews with two actors and two crew members who worked on BotFoJ. These were all conducted by Calum Waddell. In A Veteran Voice: Dale Dye's Vietnam Dispatches (32:15, 1080), military consultant Lt. Dale Dye goes back to the beginning of his movie career when he saw an advert in Variety seeking a military advisor for Platoon and connected with Oliver Stone for the first time. He shares details of his conversations with Stone on both Platoon and BotFoJ. Dye is most honest about the political differences that he's had with Stone and Ron Kovic but in the service of making great art, he put those differences aside for healthy and productive collaborations. Dye also reminisces about the ten days or so of boot camp that he put the actors in BotFoJ through. He explains differences in function and role that he has had in motion pictures compared to other military figures who have worked on films beginning in the classical Hollywood era. The next interview is titled Homeward Bound: Raymond J. Barry's Fatherly Thoughts (25:13, 1080p). Barry remembers doing a lot of plays before he became a full-time Hollywood actor. He cites Year of the Dragon (1985), which Stone co-wrote, as the film that helped land him the role of Ron's father in BotFoJ. Barry spends a lot of time discussing his experiences of working with Cruise and Stone's directorial methods. In Protest Music: Budd Carr on the Sounds of an Oliver Stone Classic (28:00, 1080p), Stone's longtime music supervisor goes into detail about the business and industrial practices of music supervision in Hollywood. He remembers working as a music consultant on The Terminator (1984) and has a few James Cameron stories. He also discusses collaborating with Stone on this and several other films. Carr talks about the songs he chose to put into the film and why. Moreover, he has memories of the recording sessions for John Williams's score. The last interview on the disc is a dandy. Stop the War! Jerry Levine's Cruise Control (29:13, 1080p) finds the actor who portrayed Steve Boyer in the film sharing a memorable anecdote about auditioning for Platoon, his visit to Massapequa to prepare for BotFoJ, a wild scene excised from the final cut, and directorial techniques he learned from Stone. Levine essentially covers all the scenes he appeared in. All bonus materials on the Turbine have completely optional German and English subtitles.

Born on the Fourth of July 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Along with the Hughes's Dead Presidents (1995) and a few other features, Born on the Fourth of July is the most realistic depiction of American soldiers in Southeast Asia and the myriad problems they had to grapple with after returning home. Thirty-five years after its theatrical release, I believe we finally have as close to a definitive audio-visual presentation of the film that can be achieved. I was dazzled by the visuals and sonics on the two Shout discs. Not only does the new HDR grade help make upticks in detail and definition to the image on the UHD, but also critical color corrections as well. Each of the three audio tracks are worth listening to repeatedly during full viewings of the film. Shout's interviews are relatively brief but we get some worthwhile info that hasn't been covered before. The new commentary track is a valuable addition. If you're a fan at all of the film, the Turbine is worth purchasing but only for the bonus disc of supplements. The documentary on Vietnam features set in the Philippines is quite good as well as illuminating. The set of interviews are great. The Shout package has MY HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION.