Escape from New York Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.0

Escape from New York Blu-ray Movie Review

Shout! Factory has reissued John Carpenter's Escape from New York in a SteelBook with new artwork (see Screenshot #1). First pressings are limited to 10,000 units. Content on the two BD-50s appears identical to Shout!'s first release. The label has produced different picture discs. See capture #2 for the new pressing of the main feature on the far right (adjacent to the 2010 MGM BD). Capture #3 displays a quote from the film and the extras disc. For impressions on the film and a/v specs of prior editions, you can read reviews by Casey Broadwater (MGM's bare-bones disc) and Jeff Kauffman (Shout!'s Collector's Edition).

Back and front covers of ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK's US SteelBook.

Escape from New York Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Escape from New York appears in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1 on disc one's AVC-encoded transfer. The MPEG-4's average video bitrate of 35000 kbps is a facsimile of Shout!'s 2015 disc. Screenshot #s 5-24 contain different frame grabs from the original Shout! review.

Escape from New York Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Escape from New York's sound track options are rendered on the first disc as a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 remix (3878 kbps, 24-bit) and a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo (2099 kbps, 24-bit). There are also three audio commentaries: a Shout! exclusive track (2015) with actress Adrienne Barbeau and cinematographer Dean Cundey, a recycled LaserDisc recording with director John Carpenter and actor Kurt Russell (from Image Entertainment's 1994 Widescreen Collector's Edition), and a feature-length chat with producer Debra Hill and production designer Joe Alves that initially appeared on MGM's 2003 Special Edition DVD.

Optional English SDH (feature only) can be selected from the main menu or via remote.

Escape from New York Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

All of the other extras are located on disc two as shown above. There are additional bonus materials from prior DVDs and BDs that Shout! either didn't license or was unable to obtain. For instance, the MGM SE enclosed a printing of the first issue of John Carpenter's Snake Plissken Chronicles and a making-of slideshow along with liner notes by Carpenter. The studio also included a minor three-minute "Snake Bites" trailer montage merging cinematic images with musical underscore. More substantive are the supplements on Studio Canal's R2 French DVD, also released in 2003. This PAL disc includes a twenty-minute documentary on Carpenter with interviews by Vincenzo Natali, Jaume Balaguero, Eric Valette, Brian Yuzna, and George Corraface. The participants speak alternatively in English, French, and Spanish with embedded French subtitles where needed. In a separate piece, Carpenter gives a ten-minute interview from Los Angeles about Escape from New York. (This is delivered in English without any overdubbing.) Initial pressings of SC's Collector's Edition also came with an 80-page booklet comprised of text in French by Helene Frappat and thirty production stills/behind-the-scenes photos from Escape from New York. Inside the pull-out box case is also a SACD comprised of four cues from Carpenter and Alan Howarth's score. In 2008, SC (under its branch Optimum Releasing) filmed an exclusive thirty-minute interview with Carpenter that appeared on the UK region-free BD-25. In Australia, Universal released a carbon copy of the disc with the same Carpenter interview. Moreover, German-based Universum Film has the featurette, "Snake Plissken: Man of Honor" (15:26), which originally appeared on various European DVDs.

The Shout! Factory, MGM, and SC French DVD each have their own photo galleries, although they're labeled almost the same. Shout! amasses a whopping 190 images, MGM 74 stills, and SC 40 horizontal and vertical photos (with accompanying music).

Escape from New York Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Of the three SteelBooks of Carpenter titles that Shout! has released thus far, I prefer the new artwork for Escape from New York the most. It features the Statue of Liberty and iconic New York cityscape from the film bathed with a blue-green tint. I particularly like the sculptic likeness of Isaac Hayes's The Duke in the fore and Snake hanging on for dear life. Fellow reviewers and consumers have a variety of qualms with Shout!'s 2K scan of the interpositive. Even if a 4K remastering isn't in the imminent future, the best available print requires additional restoration work and cleanup (e.g., see the thin lavender tramline over Snake in #24, which occurs in multiple shots). I will keep my MGM BD since it projects an appropriately very dark and largely organic presentation of Carpenter/Cundey's vision of a dystopic future. Shout! consolidates the most extras of any physical disc out there. An "Ultimate Edition" coalescing all of them across the globe in a single package would be a collector's dream. SOLID RECOMMENDATION.