Pale Rider (1985)

[kpkelley]

Originally Posted by Scooby Blu

Any word on how this release looks ???

DVDBeaver Review

The image has both good and poor features mostly relatable to the film itself which was shot in Columbia State Historic Park California and Sawtooth National Recreation Area, Idaho. The vistas are, at times, breathtaking. A negative, in my opinion, is the manner in which the film was shot - or rather the time of day. Bright sunlight obscures facial details in many instances - of course, Ebert and other critics note that this was intentional. We can't often see eyes under hat brims (both male and female characters) and this juxtaposes the brilliance of the landscape. It also reflects to some degree on the 1080P transferred image which, in those instances, never seems to capitalize on the pristine quality it could present. Regardless, when detail is visible, it is strong. Noise exists but is very fine and appears as good grain - a nice touch for such a retro-western film. I wouldn't say this Blu-ray is of demo quality for the image but is consistently strong - and far superior to the old SD-DVD. Colors are bright and true - a shade saturated - while overall the image is clean and smooth - typical of a well rendered high-definition Blu-ray. Technically, just, single-layered (the feature takes up over 23.7 Gig), and is encoded using AVC-1. I don't see evidence of any DNR filters or edge enhancements. I hope the large screen grabs can give you a good idea of how it will perform on your system. There is really nothing to overly fault - it's very impressive.