Interstellar 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		5.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.5

Interstellar 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

From the Earth to . . . Somewhere Else

Reviewed by Michael Reuben December 22, 2017

Interstellar is one of seven films by director Christopher Nolan being issued on UHD in a massive technical undertaking by one of today's most successful and influential filmmakers. The immediate occasion for the project was Nolan's historical wartime epic, Dunkirk, but the inclusion of every feature film that Nolan has made in the last twelve years also reflects the director's conviction that 4K UHD is the definitive home video technology of our era and the best way for his films to be seen outside of theatrical venues. In support of that conviction, Nolan has personally overseen every aspect of these releases, from element selection to film transfer to color correction to HDR grading to choice of sound formats—and even packaging. Rarely has the notion of "director approved" been more apt or more literally true.

Nolan's 2014 space odyssey was a co-production between Warner Brothers and Paramount, with the latter retaining domestic rights for video distribution. Outside the U.S., this new 4K version of Interstellar is being distributed by Warner, and, in a special licensing arrangement, it is also being included in the seven-film collection that Warner is issuing worldwide. In the domestic U.S. market, the disc is separately available from Paramount.

My colleague Martin Liebman has explored the many complexities of Interstellar in his review of its initial Blu-ray release, to which I refer the curious reader. The standard Blu-ray included with the UHD disc is a reprint of the disc that Marty reviewed. I have retained Marty's rating for the feature.

Interstellar 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Interstellar was director Christopher Nolan's first collaboration with cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema, who would go on to photograph the director's Dunkirk. The film saw Nolan's most extensive use of IMAX cameras up to that point, and it was released to theaters in a variety of aspect ratios, ranging from 2.39:1 for standard 35mm projection to 1.43:1 for IMAX 70mm. As on many of his other projects, Nolan has chosen a shifting aspect ratio for home video, with IMAX scenes framed at 1.78:1 and non-IMAX at 2.39:1. As I noted in reviewing Dunkirk, the practice remains controversial, with some viewers finding it unacceptably distracting, while others barely notice it.

Interstellar is a good example of the pitfalls of relying on IMDb for technical information. The film's IMDb entry claims that it was finished on a digital intermediate at 4K, which initially led me to believe that Nolan had departed from his usual insistence on both shooting and finishing his works on film. In fact, Interstellar was finished photochemically, and Warner holds the reels of original cut negative in its archives. For this 2160p, HEVC/H.265-encoded UHD disc, the film has been newly scanned at 4K, followed by color correction and HDR grading reviewed by the director at every stage.

The result is an image of jaw-dropping clarity, in both the 35mm and IMAX scenes. The fineness of the dust seeping into the Cooper household in the early Earth-bound scenes is as beautiful as it is threatening, and the fields of corn that surround the farm are made up of individual stalks rather than blending into a green mass. The mechanical textures of the several spacecraft in which Joseph Cooper and his fellow astronauts hurtle through space are so minutely rendered that you feel as if you can reach out and touch them, and the blackness that surrounds them is deeply inky and black as it frames both the manned vehicles and a variety of celestial bodies. The alien landscapes on which the team lands are even more beautiful and threatening, the one with its vast rippling oceans and the other with its forbidding mountain peaks. In the climactic sequence where Cooper finds himself in what can only be described as an alternate dimension, the individual strands of pulsating light that comprise the environment are separately rendered, each with its own rhythm and frequency, simultaneously lovely and strange.

Interstellar's Blu-ray presentation was excellent, and it still is. But put on the Blu-ray after watching the UHD, and you immediately sense that something is missing. By comparison, the image is dim, soft and sometimes even mushy (a phenomenon that Marty noted in his review). No such softness infects this 4K presentation. Its gorgeous images remain sharp, tactile and immediate from first to last.

(Note: The original version of this review incorrectly stated that this UHD was derived from the camera negative. That assertion was based on incorrect information supplied by Warner Brothers. It has now been confirmed from multiple sources that the 4K/HDR master was derived from an interpositive, at Christopher Nolan's express instruction and contrary to Warner's standard policy, which provides that 4K scans should utilize the existing element with the greatest resolution. We regret the error; the scores for Video and 4K have been adjusted.)

Interstellar 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The UHD arrives with the same room-rattling DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack previously reviewed by Marty.

Interstellar 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The UHD disc has no extras. The package includes the same separate disc of extensive extras previously released with the Blu-ray of Interstellar and discussed here.

Paramount's separate release of Interstellar comes with a digital copy. Due to licensing limitations, no digital copy is included with the seven-film Christopher Nolan Collection.

Interstellar 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Interstellar remains an ambitious, provocative, sometimes maddening entertainment. It struggles mightily to strike a balance between the majesty and grandeur of 2001-style epic filmmaking and the kind of intimate and personal drama that has sometimes been sacrificed in Nolan's work but is here given more room to unfold than in any of the director's films to date. The balance sometimes wobbles, but Nolan gets much more right than wrong. This wonderful UHD presentation reveals new layers in the film's intricate visual design, while at the same time shining a brighter light on the moving performances. Even more than Dunkirk, it's a 4K disc to play for your friends if you want to show them what all the fuss is about. Very highly recommended.