Living in the Age of Airplanes Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

Living in the Age of Airplanes Blu-ray Movie Review

What a time to be alive.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman October 25, 2016

Forget "around the world in 80 days," even if such a feat was, at one (relatively recent) point in human history, an accomplishment unto itself. Used to be the only way to get from one place to another was by foot or hoof or, for the less physically inclined, motivated, or capable, a journey through the imagination by way of the writings of people like Jules Verne. Things changed for the human race just a little over a century ago -- a blink of an eye in the greater cosmic timeline -- in a place called Kitty Hawk, North Carolina where two brothers successfully took to the skies and forever changed the way man travels, the world works, and people perceive distance and time and both natural and manmade barriers. Living in the Age of Airplanes is a fascinating and extraordinarily well done Documentary that looks at how the world -- and man's place in it -- has expanded since it figuratively shrunk by a factor of 500 miles per hour.

Inbound.

Living in the Age of Airplanes offers a unique perspective on aviation, touching on its history but looking more enticingly and interestingly at the progress the plane has allowed the world to make not only for crude travel but in commerce, connections, and the spread of information around the globe. It's essentially a look at modern life through the prism of air travel and how it has not simply facilitated moving from place to place -- even places separated by vast distances, oceans, or nearly impossible terrain -- but how it has opened up new ideas and perspectives on the world and redefined how the world works. One of the most interesting segments in the film follows the journey of freshly cut flowers as they're trimmed from the plant nestled in their native Kenyan soil and, in the matter of hours, are transported across the globe still as fresh as they moment they were snipped, settling in an Alaskan home. It's a beautifully simple yet telling and practical lesson on how aviation has transformed the world. It's also something modern man takes for granted and, often, views as more of a hassle than a help, a "necessary evil" in the larger sphere of life. But the film puts air travel and its place in contemporary society into a gripping, easily understood, and well-versed narrative that doesn't really have anything new to say but does a great job in telling another side of the story of one of the great inventions and conveniences of this, or any, era.

Harrison Ford, himself a pilot, narrates the film with a grace, confidence, and security that suits the material very well. He's more a companion and less a guide, more a friend and less a lecturer. While the material isn't challenging, Ford makes it accessible while building the movie's case for the plane's place in history and contemporary society as not just a great advancement but a transformative tool that's rewritten several otherwise long and mostly stagnant chapters of human history. The film is beautifully crafted and seamlessly edited. Transitions flow very well along the course of the film, its five chapters that comprise the story of the airplane and its almost magical impact on the world. The film doesn't touch the airplane as a weapon of war -- its roots in World War I, the Enola Gay, or 9/11 -- but it doesn't need to. This is about air travel as a source of good in the world, of bringing people together, opening new avenues of opportunity, and changing the way the world works, even if it's something most people take for granted even just a little more than a century since Orville and Wilbur took to the skies, little knowing how their flight would change the course of human events.

Living in the Age of Airplanes Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Living in the Age of Airplanes features a clean, shiny, abundantly colorful, and precisely detailed image. The 1080p, 1.78:1-framed presentation soars with lively imagery of decrepit aircraft to open and follows with a collection of slick, smooth, and very well defined modern aircraft at the peak of the technology's production. Worldly details -- terrain, humans, animals -- are strikingly complex and clear, revealing finer point details across the board, whether in dense airport shops and concourses or close-up of animals that reveal fine point fur and other textural wonders. Colors splash with authentic vibrancy; roses are particularly enticing, but other elements -- winter coats in the arctic, odds and ends around those same airport interiors, and natural colors around Earth -- are equally precise. Black levels are deep and skin tones natural. Minor banding and a very small hint of aliasing creep into frame on a couple of occasions, but neither are ever seriously problematic. This is a fantastic presentation from National Geographic.

Living in the Age of Airplanes Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Living in the Age of Airplanes soars onto Blu-ray with a triumphant DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 lossless soundtrack. This is precision sound engineering, blending all elements together in perfect harmony. It's very big but finds both nuance and balance as music pours from all over the stage, emphasizing no particular area while maintaining superb clarity from the highest details at the top to the boomiest lows on the bottom. Jet engine roars are deep and pleasingly detailed even towards the bottom of the scale. Directional effects are superb, particularly in a shot near film's end when a landing jet powers from front to back. Narration is clear and detailed with consistent front-center placement.

Living in the Age of Airplanes Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Living in the Age of Airplanes contains a host of special features, grouped into three separate categories. The last group looks a little more closely at some of the important aviation elements that exist more outside the film's scope than in it.

Additional Footage

• Alaska Flying (1080p, 2:42): Footage from planes flying through the Alaskan wilderness. There's some breathtaking imagery here.
• Flight Over Africa (1080p, 4:56): A recreation of a sequence from Out of Africa.
• Hawaii (Deleted Scene) (1080p, 2:53): A look at reaching one of the island chain's most remote locations by airplane.
• Plane Spotting (1080p, 2:19): Take-off and landing footage from five different continents.
• Alaska Flying II (1080p, 2:42): The same supplement as above, but added are radio communications between pilots and film crew.
• Theatrical Trailer 2 (1080p, 1:33): One of the film's trailers.

Behind the Scenes

• Impossible Shots: Visual Effects (1080p, 12:17): A look at making a couple of the key special effects shots crafted for the film.
• Flower Sequence "Deconstructed" (1080p, 3:55): Inside the studio making the score and a look at photographing the flower sequence.
• Making of the Alaska House (1080p, 4:45): A glimpse at the process behind creating a scene featuring items from all over the world in an Alaskan home.
• 3 Stories in 4 Minutes (1080p, 4:03): Protecting the camera around the world, shooting underwater in Maldives, and journeying to the South Pole.
• Seeing Aviation for the First Time (1080p, 2:49): Children in Kenya get up-close-and-personal with a plane.
• In-Flight Premiere (1080p, 3:58): A look at the film's unique premiere.

Partner Videos

• The Future By Airbus (1080p, 9:16): A promotional video for the company's future.
• The Super Hub (1080p, 2:43): A fascinating and all-too-brief look at FedEx's inner workings.
• Adaptive Cycle Engine (1080p, 2:48): A quick look at one of GE's newest technologies.
• The A320neo Family (1080p, 1:26): A brief glimpse at the plane.
• Meteorology at FedEx (1080p, 2:21): A fascinating look at how the company monitors the global weather.
• GE9X First Engine Run (1080p, 0:46): Testing one of GE's new engines.
• Dream to Reality (1080p, 3:16): Putting the finishing touches on an Airbus A380.
• Why Memphis (1080p, 1:16): A quick explanation for locating FedEx's central hub in Memphis, Tennessee.
• GE Masterclass (1080p, 2:05): A very brief lesson on how jet engines work.

Living in the Age of Airplanes Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Living in the Age of Airplanes is a magnificent film. Its only real shortcoming is that it's too short. Even as it says all it needs to say, it's so absorbing, well done, and fascinatingly structured that one only wants more from it. There's not much higher praise than that. National Geographic's Blu-ray release is superb, boasting high end video and audio along with a nice allotment of extra content. Very highly recommended.