How the West Was Won is spectacular!

[bluskies]

I got one of the 100 free Blu-ray they gave away today at the showing of HTWWW at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, and though I have only had a brief look at the Blu version of the movie in different scenes so far, I have to say it is absolutely gorgeous. I also compared it briefly side by side with the old widescreen DVD, and the new one shows more image on the left and right side of the screen, plus of course is much clearer, with richer color and better sound. (Though nothing will comapre to the speaker system they have at the theater - about 30 around the audience and probably as many behind the screen.)

(By the way, there are no trailers with this release and after you pop it in, it goes right to the film.)

While the joining lines of the three screens have been made to look a LOT less visible, they can be detected due to the color of each film shot. But, believe me, this is only a minor thing when you see how breathtaking the film is.

The SmileBox version really does capture the way the film was shown in the theate. I saw the showing in the theater today and scenes where people on the left and right portions of the screen are slightly askew because I was sitting center are duplicated here. It is interesting to see but I wouldn't want them to duplicate this in other title releases. Once is enough.

The "Cinerama Adventure" documentary is terrific. It is presented in SD but is still great to see. There are clips from many Cinerama films, especially "This is Cinerama."

I have also listened to some of the commentary. It is filled with lots of interesting details about the making of the film, especially from one of the stuntmen, Loren James .

The announced documentary on the making of the film is not on the Blu set nor the standard DVD set. For some reason, they pulled it at the last minute.

The digibook that houses the 2 Blu discs is very attractive, with lots of color and b&w photos.

One thing that no one ever mentions anymore, but I noticed when the format war was on, was how much more in the way of foreign languages could be had on Blu due bigger capacity discs than on HD DVD. The HTWWW movie has 8 audio tracks on it plus 16 different subtitle options (even the Cinerama documentary has 16 subtitle options, though the audio is only in English). The commentary for the film also has a foreign subtitle availability (could be Chinese).

I give this a 5 out of 5 star rating. A must have.



How the West Was Won Blu-ray 2-disc Digibook

How the West Was Won Blu-ray Review 2-disc Digibook




How the West Was Won Blu-ray Single disc. Doesn't include SmileBox version



How the West Was Won Blu-ray Single disc. Doesn't include SmileBox version