IMAX: Dream Big: Engineering Our World 4K + 3D Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

IMAX: Dream Big: Engineering Our World 4K + 3D Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman May 3, 2019

Shout! Factory has brought the 2017 Greg MacGillivray film 'Dream Big: Engineering Our World' to home video in a single package that includes the film on Blu-ray and Blu-ray 3-D as well as 4K UHD. The former two presentations share a disc while the latter earns its own. The film is classic MacGillivray, boasting exceptional large-format IMAX photography of breathtaking locations, this one focusing on both engineering feats past and present as well as three engineers who help make the world a better place. Each video presentation is unsurprisingly of reference quality while the Dolby Atmos audio track is equally superb. The package includes a handful of brief supplements.

Engineers help build stable civilizations and connect mankind together. As Earth's population grows, as cities become more densely packed, as new sciences and ideas allow for the construction of more stable and sturdy structures that are more resilient to the elements and natural disaster, the need for skilled engineers to think up and build a smarter and stronger world becomes ever more clear. Greg MacGillivray's Dream Big: Engineering Our World explores the evolving engineering landscape with one eye towards the future and one towards the past, all the while framing the story around three of today's best engineers who have dedicated their lives to building a better, smarter, safer, more efficient, more stable world.

Jeff Bridges narrates the film and, through its 42-minute runtime, introduces audiences to three engineers: Menzer Pehlivan, a young woman who as a child survived a horrific earthquake in Turkey and is now an engineer based out of Seattle; Avery Bang, who is best known for helping to engineer a footbridge for Haitian schoolchildren over a river that has taken dozens of lives; and Angelica Hernandez, an engineer who works on renewable energy projects. The film explores some of engineering's most accomplished successes throughout history, from China's Great Wall to the International Space Station. The picture briefly explores several ways that engineering is bettering the world, from solving population density issues in Shanghai to the construction and benefits of solar power farms.

IMAX: Dream Big: Engineering Our World 4K + 3D Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shout! Factory's 1080p Blu-ray release of Dream Big: Engineering Our World is stable and colorful. Textural efficiency is high, and while the 1080p image lacks the more in-depth crispness and detail found on the UHD disc, there's a perfectly acceptable level of clarity in play, allowing the image find spectacularly reproduced results, from overheads of the Great Wall of China to intimate scenes featuring schoolchildren learning about how engineering shapes the world. Character close-ups are not regular but viewers will find pleasing detail in the more intimate shots scattered throughout the film. Mostly, though, this one is about large-scale elements, natural and manmade alike, and there's no shortage of perfectly clear and highly detailed images to enjoy. The color palette is bold and lively. Richly colorful clothes, blue skies, cityscape illumination, natural greens, and all variety of color seen throughout the film never miss a beat, enjoying perfectly attuned saturation and as much brilliance as Blu-ray can squeeze out of them. Black levels do appear raised in lower light shots and banding is visible at the five-minute mark and again at the 32:44 mark, but these issues are relatively minor complaints in the overall larger picture of a very high end Blu-ray from Shout! Factory.

The UHD disc offers a fairly substantial upgrade. It includes the option to choose to view the film with either HDR or SDR colors, the latter of which offer a textural boost but no major change to colors. The former is certainly the way to go. The added clarity is striking. Overall sharpness is significantly increased to the point that the Blu-ray -- which looks great in isolation -- appears dramatically flat and soft in comparison. Whether considering broad skyline vistas, character close-ups, or natural environmental locations, there's a significant add to clarity and image depth. The real benefits though, come by way of the HDR colors. The increases to boldness, vibrancy, nuance, and depth are striking. Whether brilliant city lights at night, breathtakingly bold blue skies, or earthy shades around Neapl or Haiti, every color is a brilliant example of of the power of increased saturation and brilliance. A few scenes push a little warm, but nothing egregious. The banding that plagued a few shots on the Blu-ray remains but appears less prominently here. There's a little bit of aliasing on buildings seen during an overhead cityscape shot at the 3:30 mark (and a few others throughout the film). It's also there on the Blu-ray (which I admittedly missed the first time around) but it's more prominent on the UHD.

The Blu-ray 3-D image, which shares a disc with the 2-D presentation, just might be the best of the bunch. While it lacks the tack sharpness and jaw dropping color the UHD has on offer, the image remains spectacularly sharp and colorful in its own right, right on par with the 2-D presentation; there's no obvious drop-off to detail or color here with the 3-D glasses on. The image's depth of field, sense of space and volume, and occasional pop-out effect make for one of the most exciting 3-D presentations on the market. The film begins with its single best shot inside the space station. Not only does the interior appear elongated and perfectly stretched in a fabulous perspective shot towards a window, there's also a pen floating center screen which appears to extend beyond the display's front; it's tempting to reach out and grab it. The image offers a regular series of incredible scenes of 3-D stretch and depth. Cityscapes are not quite as dramatic, but natural land masses are marvelously dimensional and various scenes featuring interacting humans in classrooms offer terrific separation between characters and objects. The 28-minute mark houses three of the best shots in the movie. First is a nifty ground-level perspective shot that stretches the background far and emphasizes the shape and size of a robot in the foreground. A few moments later, a character carefully moves a long piece of PVC pipe across the screen; it appears to jut out and all but sweep the audience. A robot is carried towards a van. The camera is inside looking out as a few individuals load it up. The sense of volume in the van, the approaching characters and objects, and the distant background give viewers three reference points on which to build a complete shot. While there are some shots here and there that struggle to offer significant 3-D goodness, the movie's best scenes, of which there are many, are of reference quality for the format. This is certainly the way to watch the movie (and it was shot in native 3-D, too).

IMAX: Dream Big: Engineering Our World 4K + 3D Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Dream Big: Engineering Our World's Dolby Atmos soundtrack, found on all three versions of the film, plays with the size and detail one would expect to hear accompanying a large-format film. Atmos is a natural fit for (and extension of) the format's sound needs, creating not so much opportunities for huge discrete effects but certainly to help better saturate the stage and give more spacial detail and awareness to the larger and more robust sound elements. The track produces some excellent sweeping sounds on a high speed train darting towards the film's title sequence. The track offers some amplified sounds of chaos during a video clip featuring the earthquake in Nepal. But the track is not always about "large." There is some impressive ambience on board the space station at film's start, beeps and bloops and comm chatter dotting the listening area from all around, ultimately giving way to silence when the camera appears to move beyond the station's interiors and into the vacuum of space. The track also provides quality atmosphere, such as in chapter 11 when PA announcements and light crowd din are heard at a science fair competition. Jeff Bridges' narration is firm and detailed while various character voiceovers are likewise detailed and grounded in the center channel.

Note that the DTS-HD Master Audio tracks are only on the UHD disc.

IMAX: Dream Big: Engineering Our World 4K + 3D Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Dream Big: Engineering Our World contains a few supplements on both discs, and the extras are identical on both. The only difference is a collection of 4K trailers on the UHD disc. A digital copy code is included with purchase. This release ships with a non-embossed slipcover.

• Hot Topics in the World of Engineering (1080p): Engineers discuss various projects: how they work, why they are important, and what they do for the world and for man. Included are Who's in The Driver's Seat: Autonomous Vehicles (5:06), Visual Modeling: Engineering the Future (4:02), Lean and Green: Alternative Energy (3:28), High-Tech Engineering (3:42), and Engineering for Those in Need (5:03).
• Behind-The-Scenes (1080p): Four extras that expose specific areas as they concern the making of the film. Included are Dream Big Featurette (3:28), Meet the Women Engineers of 'Dream Big' (2:59), Filming the Great Wall of China (3:17), and Behind the Scenes of the Hyperloop (4:07).
• Short Fun Packed Videos (1080p): A few little asides that support the main content from the film. Included are How Kids Engineer a Bridge (1:01), Behind the Great Wall of China (0:48), A Hand Built Bridge in Haiti (1:01), Engineering Roller Coasters (0:43), and Filming with the IMAX 3D Camera (0:51).
• Trailer (1080p, 2:00): The film's trailer.
• 4K Trailers (2160p/SDR, 10:53 total runtime, UHD disc only): Included are trailers for Flight of the Butterflies, Humpback Whales, Journey to Space, Rocky Mountain Express, The Last Reef, and Wonders of the Arctic, and National Parks Adventure.

IMAX: Dream Big: Engineering Our World 4K + 3D Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Dream Big: Engineering Our World lacks the absolute spectacle of the best MacGillivray films and the material is a little dry and forced at times, but the film does offer a good foundational exploration of modern engineering and three of the engineers who have made a big difference in the world around them. This two-disc set offers three ways to watch (four counting digital). Each one -- Blu-ray, 3-D Blu-ray, UHD -- is excellent. The Atmos audio is appropriately large and involved. A few extras, none of which are essential but all of which are entertaining, are included. Recommended.