8.2 | / 10 |
Users | 2.2 | |
Reviewer | 5.0 | |
Overall | 2.9 |
A young soldier must choose between his two platoon leaders and confront the horrors of war and the duality of man.
Starring: Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe, Charlie Sheen, Forest Whitaker, Francesco QuinnDrama | 100% |
War | 78% |
Melodrama | 47% |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 5.0 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 5.0 |
Platoon and the films of Oliver Stone have had a profound impact on how I've viewed history. I'll never forget the seventh grade when our class' American history teacher (whom we affectionately called "Ma") showed us the VHS of Platoon. I remember quite vividly the night ambush scene and the ensuing battle with the North Vietnamese. We had a Vietnam veteran speak to our class and he lauded Platoon's authenticity. He also recalled the PTSD he experienced after returning from the war. One day he thought a VC/NVA helicopter had landed on the front lawn of his home (he called it the LZ) so he quickly ducked underneath his dining room table for cover. Our class had to write a term paper on a major war and I chose the Vietnamese Conflict. While I only got an average grade on the essay, it inspired my future scholastic endeavors. Stone's historical docudramas have compelled me to read the literary works that they're based upon and conduct further research on each subject's subtopics. As an undergraduate student, I began an intensive study of all of Stone's films (starting, ironically, on 9/11; I couldn't have predicted that he'd direct World Trade Center five years later!). Eventually, this became a senior thesis project on Salvador and Platoon. I spent many months poring over the critical literature on both films. I examined how Stone employed voice-over narration, angles of framing, music scoring, narrative construction, and sociopolitical commentary. I argued that these techniques emanated from classic documentaries and used Alain Resnais's early docs as a corollary. (Stone was very influenced by La Nouvelle Vague.) Around this period, I began a chain of correspondence with Sean Stone (Oliver's oldest son, whose now also a filmmaker), a fellow undergraduate at the time. Sean assisted me with the project and directed me to several resources and materials pertaining to his father's life and career.
One of my most valuable discoveries is how Platoon's first-person narration assumes the form of a self-objectification or double-focus. Applying the work of narrative theorist Sarah Kozloff, I learned how Platoon produces a category of character-narration as Chris Taylor (Stone's alter-ego played by Charlie Sheen) is the mouthpiece of the image-maker for the entire movie and the duration of his embedded story. The story is thus tightly attached to Taylor. The first five shots and final shot of an early scene in the film depict Taylor in a foxhole working up a sweat. Stone uses "homodiegetic narration" here, meaning that it comes from a character within the story. The twelve shots in between, however, incorporate "heterodiegetic narration" because the camera cuts away from Taylor to various members of the platoon while Taylor’s voice is heard over the images. Taylor’s experiential recitations provide reflection and introspection and they give the audience a breather from the fierce battle scenes.
Chris wonders what he's gotten himself into.
Platoon has had a checkered history on home video to say the least. HBO Video and Vestron Video/Image Entertainment issued 1.33:1 presentations on LaserDisc in March 1988 and January 1989. Charles Kiselyak, a making-of video documentarian came to the rescue in 1995 when he enlisted the participation of both Oliver Stone and cinematographer Robert Richardson for a THX-certified Pioneer Special Edition LD box set, which I own. Platoon had a budget of $6.5 million and was made independently through Hemdale Film. In '86, Richardson didn't have sufficient funds to mix in more black and white during post production. So when he did the film-to-tape transfer with Kiselyak (using a "mint 35mm interpositive"), then-new computer software afforded him that option. Kiselyak writes in the inside of the LD release's hardbound scrapbook that "greens have more black in them and the fleshtones capture the subjective reality at war in each character...the flames are truly hot, the deep interior of the jungle is almost blue with indifference, and the amber interiors evoke subterranean forces. This transfer...captures the originally intended look for the first time." While Stone didn't officially co-supervise the color retiming, he had some input. In a Pioneer-exclusive video intro, Stone notes that the sharper contrasts and stronger colors improve upon how the film was shot. "The blacks are really black and the whites are really white. There's almost an impressionable color that haunts through the film." Two years later, LIVE Entertainment (which also carries the THX stamp) reissued the same transfer on a progressively-encoded DVD9. While the back cover of the snapper case states "Director Approved Transfer," it's really the Richardson transfer. Screenshot #s 18, 20, 22, 24, and 26 are struck from LIVE. When MGM acquired the rights to Platoon a few years later, it not only dropped all of the special features but also used a different print. I compared shots of the opening scene from the LIVE with the MGM and the latter has noticeably more film artifacts, stemming presumably from a recycled theatrical print.
Flashforward to 2018 and Shout! Factory has brought Stone in for final approval of a brand-new 4K restoration. This is a SteelBook with a grey/olive/light blue cover image that looks similar to the front cover on the original hardback of James Jones's novel, The Thin Red Line (the drawing of the army helmet over the butt of the rifle). I was impressed with the transfer that MGM did circa 2011 but this new scan is a step up. Platoon appears in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50. The Pioneer LD/LIVE DVD displays a little more information as it's framed in approx. 1.93:1. On the Shout, check out the detail on Taylor's face (#1) and the several scars on Barnes (#12). Grain makes its presence known in shots of the sky (see around the lightning bolt in #13). Black levels are whole and deep (without oozing any crush).
In comparing the Shout! and LIVE transfers, you'll immediately notice the discrepancies in color and light. The shot of Chris coming off the C-130 (#18) has an off-white, washed-out look, indicating that Richardson de-saturated the hues. It also boasts some mosquito noise and looks more like video than film. The Shout! has warmer skin tones. Which transfer more accurately reflects the original release prints? I'd lean towards the Shout! Malcolm L. Johnson, film critic for the Hartford Courant pointed out in his 1987 review the airstrip not only appears "dusty" but also "sunny" as well. Richardson tweaked the image so the jungle has more of a dark blue-green tinge (see # 24). There's a purple haze in the air in #20 compared with the grey/light blue in #21. Contrast is vastly different between the two. Look at how dark it is in #26 contrasted with the light on Taylor and Bunny (Kevin Dillon) in #27. The sky looks almost salmon/pinkish in 26. Shout! and Stone have done a lighter green that blends in with the Army soldiers' camouflaged fatigues. This seems to replicate the palette on the theatrical. The Daily Oklahoman's film critic Tony Frazier described, in January '87, the Philippine jungles as "lush." The LIVE is considerably more darker too. The Shout! image is extremely clean (while retaining grain) with only some tiny white specks noticeable in one of the battle scenes.
Compared to MGM's 25th Anniversary Blu-ray, Shout! is a notch brighter. Authoring and compression are superior on the Shout! MGM's disc size is 41.54 GB, Shout!'s 48.48 GB. MGM has encoded the transfer at a mean bitrate of 26708 kbps; Shout! 31999 kbps.
Shout! has given the two-hour movie twelve selections. (LIVE has thirty-five chapter stops!)
Shout! has supplied a remixed DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround (2571 kbps, 24-bit) and encoded the original Dolby Stereo as a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (1706 kbps, 24-bit). The latter is the first time the original 2.0 has been on a digital disc since 1997. What elements did Shout! have to work with? Platoon originally had a six-track mix, which in the theaters back in 86-87, probably was left-right front-rear with two boom tracks. When Kiselyak remastered the Dolby Stereo tracks on an advanced mixing board, he produced as much surround effect as possible, while carefully preserving the vocal centerstage. When I first listened to the DTS 5.1 on Sony Pictures' 20th Anniversary Edition DVD, I heard only occasional f/x on the surround channels. Spoken dialogue on the Shout! is clean, clear, and crisp. F/x on most of the battle scenes have a "hi-fi stereo" sound typical of low-budget eighties films. The final firefight sounds utterly spectacular with the satellite speakers given their most activity than at any other moment in the film. "Tracks of My Tears," "White Rabbit," and "Okie Muskogee" show very good depth and range along the fronts. The Barber Adagio and selections of Delerue's score that were used are well-balanced. I prefer the Shout! lossless 5.1 over MGM's 2011 English 5.1 track (2024 kbps), which is done at a depth of 16-bit.
Optional English SDH for the feature are available on the main menu or via remote activation.
For the Pioneer LD package, Kiselyak and Stone put together a 120+ page scrapbook that is profusely illustrated with photographs from Stone's tour of duty in Vietnam and on-set snapshots of cast and crew at work in the Philippines. It also includes a comprehensive screenplay delineating every scene and line that Stone considered in his various drafts of Platoon complete with his annotations. Hopefully, a book publisher will someday reissue the scrapbook. One of the LDs also sports over 200 production photos, including many not in the book. The LD SE, LIVE DVD, MGM SE, and Sony SE include the outstanding Tour of the Inferno documentary on the making of Platoon.
None of the above bells and whistles are ported over on the Shout! package. Why is Tour of the Inferno still absent on Blu-ray? Likely because Sony still has the rights and it was expensive for MGM to buy them back and for Shout! to pay their own licensing fees. Also missing are an eight-page collector's booklet and a photo/still gallery of thirty-one images that were on some of the DVDs.
Shout! has retained the bonus material from the first MGM/Fox Blu-ray release. However, unlike the prior BD, these do not include any subtitling options. MGM/Fox even provides subs for the commentaries.
Let me say that we are extremely fortunate to have any surviving deleted scenes. My senior project advisor, a professional screenwriter whose worked with Coppola, suggested that I see if there are any extant reels in Stone's garage. In the early 2000s, there weren't any excised scenes on any of the DVDs. When I made my inquiry to Stone, he wrote back: "There were very few deleted scenes from 'Platoon'. We shot pretty much what we used. There was a ghost scene, but it wasn't done very well. The schedule and budget were very minimal, so we basically made it work." A couple years later, Stone would find these recycled reels in his storage. These are definitely golden scraps. Nearly every scene (including an alternate ending) Stone wishes that he would have left in the final cut.
Each actor who appeared in Platoon can claim proudly that his performance contains some of the best work in each one's respective career. Platoon remains a model for its representation of the grunt's eye view of war and "the six inches in front of my face," as Stone remembers it. While this Shout! Factory SB is missing various supplements from previous releases, it sports a nearly perfect transfer that closely replicates the film's original theatrical appearance. It's also an added bonus to have the original 2.0 stereo on an uncompressed track. MY HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION.
25th Anniversary Edition
1986
1986
MGM 90th Anniversary
1986
VUDU Digital Copy + VUDU Offer
1986
1986
Awards O-Ring Slipcover
1986
1986
Limited Edition Collectible Cover Art | Single Disc
1986
Limited Edition Collectible Cover Art | Single Disc
1986
Comic Con Exclusive
1986
Collector's Edition
1986
1986
Final Cut | 40th Anniversary Edition
1979
1998
1978
1987
1968
1977
2008
1987
2002
1967
2005
Commemorative 20th Anniversary Edition
1998
2006
1962
1977
9 rota | Collector's Edition
2005
1993
2007
1978
2-Disc Special Edition
2006