8.1 | / 10 |
Users | 1.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A dramatized portrayal of the Apollo manned space program.
Starring: Nick Searcy, Lane Smith, David Andrews (I), Daniel Hugh Kelly, Stephen RootHistory | 100% |
Adventure | 6% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.33:1
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 16-bit)
Spanish: DTS 2.0
English SDH, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Three-disc set (3 BDs)
Digital copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 5.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 1.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
December 7, 1941.So many dates have been etched in the memories of Americans so firmly that answers to questions of “where were you when [fill in the event]” are typically immediate and often quite visceral. The three examples listed above are sadly part of what is probably the better remembered (in more ways than one) category of tragedies that have afflicted our nation, but for a brief shining moment of an example of a thrilling, celebratory date, here’s one:
November 22, 1963.
September 11, 2001.
July 20, 1969.For any of you reading this who were alive on that date, and old enough to remember, it was a rare day of almost cosmic unity, where the entire planet seemed to exult in the fact that men — in this case, American men — had managed to travel through the void of space to our nearest celestial neighbor, and had actually managed to land their craft safely there and then, incredibly, disembark to frolic on the devastated looking lunar surface. It was an amazing day in and of itself, but looking back now from the vantage point of fifty (!) years, it seems all the more incredible simply when taking the now "archaic" technologies of the sixties into account. From the Earth to the Moon was an acclaimed quasi-docudrama that HBO produced in the late nineties, and it has long been a "wish list" item for fans of high definition presentations. The miniseries itself has held up remarkably well, but this release may ironically fall under the category of, "Hey, we put a man on the moon, why can't [fill in the complaining blank here]", as will be discussed below in the video presentation section of the review.
From the Earth to the Moon is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of HBO with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. And it's that
"widescreen" aspect ratio that may be the first of at least a few stumbling blocks for longtime fans of this piece. From the Earth to the Moon
was of course originally broadcast in 4:3, but like at least some other "vintage" documentaries (The World at War springs instantly to mind) the powers that be have decided that for future revenue streams
the miniseries needed to be reformatted in the wider aspect ratio. While some of the framings are arguably a bit too tight, I personally wasn't
overly
bothered by this aspect of the presentation. What did strike my eye repeatedly was the almost random application of DNR and
(conversely) sharpening to various
moments, as well as the probably unavoidable but still controversial replacement of SFX which were originally
rendered in standard definition and which had to be redone for this version. Some of these look fine in my estimation, but others look like they
were
tossed off by some CGI student trying to quickly graduate from some entry level course. The "remastering" featurette gets into the whys and
wherefores of some of these decisions, as well as addressing (albeit briefly) things like color timing. And in fact the palette here is rather vivid and
abundantly saturated, especially when compared to the DVD. (As can be gleaned in several of the screenshots accompanying this review, there are
long swaths that are in black in white, and those typically feature excellent contrast and nice detail levels. There are also a number of moments that
have been intentionally "distressed" to resemble older video, and detail levels understandably lessen in those elements.) Grain comes and goes, as
mentioned above, and there are occasional other anomalies
like banding, as well as a number of perhaps more understandable "baked in" elements on archival video like ghosting. What does this all add up
to?
Well, for me personally, there were moments when I just couldn't help but ask "why?" as I made my way through various episodes, but on the
whole, I
found this a definite if more than occasionally problematic upgrade. The original filmed elements obviously benefit the most from the higher
resolution
of the Blu-ray presentation, and I was repeatedly struck (in a good way this time) by the obvious uptick in fine detail and the overall clarity of much
of
this material. My hunch is this is going to be a pretty controversial release, probably more so for longtime fans of the miniseries, and it may simply
boil down to whether you feel the upgrade to the filmed sections outweighs some of the reframing and/or the SFX and occasional compression
anomalies.
Note: I say this with tongue slightly in cheek, but maybe my standalone players were trying to tell me something about this release,
because I had a devil of a time getting Disc One of this set to load properly. The first time, it kind of "partially" loaded, going to a screen that
offered the Menu in the lower left side but no backing image (see screenshot 20 for what's supposed to be there). Pressing Play did
nothing. On two more attempts I got either an "invalid disc" or "video cannot be played" warning on more than one player. I did ultimately get it to
play (without doing anything like cleaning, I simply kept trying), and Discs Two and Three had no similar problems.
The one clear upgrade on this release is the boisterous and incredibly immersive Dolby Atmos track. There are a glut of well done effects that benefit from the engagement of the Atmos channels, many obviously dealing with flight and the sounds of things like liftoff, but the consistent use of the side and rear channels is obvious in any number of moments, not necessarily the "big" scenes of actual space travel. The cacophony of mission headquarters is notable, and even some of the non-NASA material dealing with more personal elements of the astronauts and their families offer really good and realistic placement of ambient environmental effects. The wonderful score (by a coterie of great names) also resides quite winningly in the surround channels. Dialogue is routinely delivered cleanly and clearly throughout all episodes.
I try not to read too much into various studios' and/or labels' decisions on what or what not to provide to members of the press for review purposes (case in point: Lionsgate, which seems eager to rush every straight to video title to my doorstep, but which occasionally fails to provide review copies of some fairly high interest titles), but it struck me as immediately a little odd that HBO was not offering this title to reviewers. That may have been because some "wise" sort somewhere knew instinctively this release might be controversial, for more than one reason. The miniseries itself is a moving, exciting tribute to one of the most spectacular technological feats in the entire history of Mankind; its technical presentation here from a video standpoint is probably going to be problematic for some, maybe even many. The audio is aces, and may help to balance the "technical merits scale" at least somewhat. This is a release that will most likely engender some pretty variant reactions. For me personally, I found the "glass half full" aspects of this presentation (probably?) outweigh the "glass half empty" aspects, and so with perhaps major caveats kept in mind, From the Earth to the Moon comes Recommended.
30th Anniversary Edition
1983
1995
2019
2018
2007
1992
2015
Warner Archive Collection
1955
1958
1976
2012
1970
2016
Limited Edition to 3000
1947
1997
2015
1989
2005
2018
Limited Edition to 3000 - SOLD OUT
1954