6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
When Paleontologist Peter Larson and his team from the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research made the world's greatest dinosaur discovery in 1990, they knew it was the find of a lifetime; the largest, most complete T. rex ever found. But during a ten-year battle with the U.S. government, powerful museums, Native American tribes, and competing paleontologists, they found themselves not only fighting to keep their dinosaur but fighting for their freedom as well.
Starring: Stan Adelstein, Lanice Archer, Robert Bakker, Philip Currie, Kristin DonnanDocumentary | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
UV digital copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
If you’ve ever landed at O’Hare or even had a change of flight or a layover where you’ve been able to wander the labyrinthine halls of commerce adorning the huge complex, you’ve probably noticed one of Chicago’s icons liberally featured on various tchockes: Sue, the immense T-Rex fossil that is housed in Chicago’s equally iconic Field Museum of Natural History. That O’Hare vicariousness can’t compare to seeing Sue up close and personal at the Field, but if you count those who pass through the airport as well as those who have been privileged to gaze at Sue at the Field, there are no doubt hundreds of millions of people who could identify this mutant dinosaur. Though it was big news (no pun intended) at the time, few probably really remember the drama surrounding the discovery and ultimate sale of Sue to the Field, a saga which started with a ragtag if completely knowledgeable and professional bunch of commercial paleontologists (as opposed to those stuffy academic types) and ended in a devastating set of legal cases that ultimately put one of those paleontologists behind bars for a year and a half, and Sue into a kind of prison of her own for several years as her fate was worked out in various courts.
Dinosaur 13 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films and CNN Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. The presentation here is something of a mixed bag, with the contemporary interview and location work obviously looking much better than some of the fairly shoddy archival video. All of the talking heads segments feature good color, clarity and sharpness, with no issues to report. There are a couple of very brief anomalies in some of the location shots, including a noticeable moment of moiré on what might be a tin roof on one of the buildings in Hill City late in the film. The archival footage varies from home movies from the Larson archives, some of which exhibits pretty bad tracking issues on the lowest part of the frame as well as other inherent problems with indistinct clarity and even focus. The news footage is nominally better, but again can show inherent issues like ghosting.
Dinosaur 13's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is probably a bit of overkill, since the bulk of the film is simply talking heads and voiceover. Virtually all of the surround activity is generated by the sometimes portentous score by Matt Morton. Fidelity is absolutely fine, and there are no issues of any kind to report on this problem free track.
Some watching Dinosaur 13 will probably feel, as I did, that they're not quite getting the whole story, but what's presented here is certainly a trip through a Kafkaesque experience by some apparently well intentioned folks, even if there's an intentional ploy to downplay their monetary interests in what happens to Sue. One way or the other this is one of the more fascinating combinations of an entrepreneurial spirit with an odd niche in science and exploration that has been explored in a documentary, and despite its obviously lopsided approach toward the material, the story is so odd and even moving that it's easy to forgive the film its more screed like elements. Anyone who has seen Sue or has a Sue trinket around the house will probably want to watch this primer in how she got to where she is today. Recommended.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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